Review

David Rainger has created a monster. “It’s a very distinct type of distortion,” says the London-based boffin, and he ain’t kidding. Operated by hand (but sold with a foot-activated pressure pad known as Igor), it uses ‘oscillator synchronisation’. This basically gives monster sustain and freaky harmonics based on the notes you play and the position of the osc dial.

Start off with the osc full up and you’ve got the most traditional tone, and even that is bonkers: a fuzzed-up, raggedy-arsed, sustain-mungous, Matt Bellamy-style grind that’s best for single notes and can be ‘killed’ on a sixpence with the noise gate.

Spin the osc and things get weirder as the unit adds harmonics, while using the mod and rate dials to automatically sweep the osc is more divisive, like a wah, phaser and synth being abused.

The Igor pad is a cool touch but its fiddly size (plus the fragile main unit) suggests it’s one for studio boffins, not road warriors.

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