Rainger FX extracts the Drone Section from the Drone Rainger, and shrinks it down to MiniDrone format - with clever Igor Expression Pad Interaction

The MiniDrone essentially strips out the Drone section from the the Drone Rainger - so no delay or additional chorusing. The MiniDrone is all-analog, and as a sort of Analog Bass Synth has some natural chorusing present in those low-pitched triangle wave oscillators - where 2 of them generate the always on unison Pitch Drone 1. Pitch 1, and the third oscillator generate Drone 2 / Pitch.

The frequency range of those oscillators is approximately from 70Hz down to 30Hz - with pretty accreting tracking, while the 2 Drone 1 Oscillators are slightly detuned from each other to generate that right amount of atmosphere and feel.

You essentially have control over Frequency Pitch only for each of the 2 Drones - the fact that Drone 2 uses only 1 oscillator versus the 2 for Drone 1 means that it outputs slightly quieter. You also control Wet and Dry Levels, and can select how the Igor Expression Pad interacts with the pedal - via 2 Option push-buttons - Drone 2, and 1/2 Tone.

Controls - Pitch 2 : Drone 2 Frequency, Pitch 1 : Drone 1 Frequency, Drones Level ±, Instrument Level ± (Dry), Drone 2 Mode, 1/2 Tone Mode, Igor Expression Pad used to trigger a Pitch Drop down a tone (2 Frets) or 1/2 a Tone (1 Fret).

It’s a fairly simple device where you simply alternate between 2 core Drone Frequencies with some further clever Igor interaction. A while back I made several recommendations for the larger original Drone Rainger - to bring that a little closer in function to a Moog Taurus - in extending the number of Drone Tones from 2 to 4 or 5 - so you can essentially have a mini Moog Taurus kind of unit - which would make it even more useful than it currently is.

As is you can do plenty of interesting atmospheric soundscapes with just those 2 Drone Frequencies - but it would be nice to extend that concept in a more music-theory way!

In any case it’s really neat to have a Mini version of the Drone Rainger - which comes with its own PCB window vista / scene - this time based around a mysterious Motel, versus the more extended city scape on the Drone Rainger with car parks and various urban ’structures’ visible!

Really cool and different pedal - and one that requires some left-brain thinking for ideal applications. It is fairly priced at £166 without tax, and £199.20 with VAT applied - available already on the Rainger FX Webstore, and imminently at International Dealers. Current Draw for the unit is just 60mA.