If you dream of beautiful textured drones and long for the sweet-sounding analogue synths of the 70s and 80s all over everything you play yet you are stuck as a guitar player then the folks at Rainger FX truly have concocted the perfect pedal for you. The Minidrone pedal is a two-pitch all analogue triangle-wave tone generator that sits inline on your pedalboard creating some of the most organic-sounding synth drones you could ask for. With additional pitch manipulation on the fly thanks to the included Igor pressure-sensitive pad it’s an instrument in itself. Here's what Rainger FX say about the Minidrone: The Minidrone is a stripped-down all analog version of the Drone Rainger. It’s really fun to play over, and is a great foundation for improvisation, songwriting and dramatic live performance. It’s a deep and huge analogue synth, with modulation, made of up to three low-pitched triangle-wave oscillators mixed together. Two of these oscillators are always in unison whatever the pitch - Drone1 - though very slightly out-of-tune with each other. This creates ‘beats’ between them, a slow, wide-band modulation that keeps the drone very listenable. The pitch is controlled by ‘Pitch1’. Add in the other tone generator - Drone2 - and you can make any kind of musical interval between the drones; major and minor thirds, a fifth, octaves, or thick unison. And all points in between - including tasty discordant chords, modulating fast and strangely… Drone1 and Drone2 are fully independently tuneable - with sweepable knobs - by tuner, or by ear (low volume is recommended for accuracy), with a range of approximately two octaves. Igor: The Minidrone comes with an Igor controller - a small pressure sensitive pad - which, when pressed, drops the overall pitch down a tone (two frets), rising back up on release. This creates a darkly atmospheric starting point for writing songs, riffs, or improvising… Flip the ‘1/2Tone’ switch and this drop-down becomes only a semitone. These two drop-down options actually make the pedal work in every kind of musical mode - dark and sinister, or happy up-beat ones, weird minor ones, blissed-out ones… the Minidrone is very musical and inspiring to play over. There’s tons of bass - the tone is deep and electro. It’s like hitting a low note on some big-ass old synth (Korg MS-20? Yamaha CS-80?) and bending it…! But in Rainger FX minipedal format (custom enclosure). It’s an electric tamboura! In a two-piece band it’s your low-end! The Minidrone is true bypass, and loud. You mix the drones in with your clean guitar signal, which passes through the pedal - buffered, but unaffected. It’s designed to be used in series with other pedals, all plugged into a single input. Accommodation: Through a window in the front panel you can see a motel scene inside - with car parks leading onto a busy road. The car headlamps light up. There’s an eerie streetlamp glow - and the motel sign flashes whenever you press the Igor pad.
