Rare Waves RA-99 Grenadier
The Grenel RA-99 Grenadier is a desktop synthesizer that brings you formant filtering in a desktop form factor, perfect for thick, rich, throaty drones and evolving textures. It features a VCO that has a range of five octaves and has a rather unique structure of CV inputs.
The two 1V/Oct inputs follow the standard of most modular synthesizers and are useful for melodic sequencing. The 5V/oct input is perfect for accepting +5V LFOs and the 15V/oct input is intended for narrow pitch modulation like pitch bends and vibrato. The oscillator also features a square wave sub-oscillator one octave down that is available to be mixed in with the VCO and can be turned on and off by push button. P-noise adds pink noise to the signal, adding another layer of harmonics for the filters to play with. It features both level knob and CV input for the P-noise VCA.
The RA-99's centerpiece is its filter bank, with one lowpass and two bandpass filters. These impart the unique tone that the Grenadiers are known for. It's a bit vowelly and full of rich and complex timbres. The timbre knob alters the VCO waveshape, compressing it to a narrow pulse shape at higher settings.
Mod 1 and 2 are multi-function modulation waveform generators. They can act as a gated AR envelope, triggered decay envelope, pulse LFO with adjustable pulse width, and saw/triangle LFO with adjustable symmetry. When acting as envelopes, the mods take on an exponential slope. The mods can also act as gate delays and frequency dividers. Both have variable attenuvertable mod depth to set the depth of modulation from the mod. Either mod source can act as the VCA envelope, selectable by a button. Both mod sections offer CV control over their rate, which roughly tracks 1V/Oct. The gate output is a +5V pulse wave which acts as another LFO or as an inverted gate that goes low when the envelope is active. The two mods are normaled to the Alpha and Beta bandpass filters.
The RA-99 Grenadier is a powerful standalone synthesizer, capable of everything from complex drones to percussive hits. It uses a unique filter bank configuration that imparts a rich character to the VCO or external signals.
RA-99 Grenadier Features
- Desktop drone synth
- Two bandpass and one lowpass filter bank
- Two modulation sources that can be LFOs or envelopes
- Variable mod waveshape
- Sub-oscillator
- Timbre waveshaper
- Three different VCO CV scaling inputs
- 20-point patch bay
- Pink noise source with VCA
- Modulation rate CV
- Rugged, road-worthy construction
- External audio input
- 12VDC @ 1.2W
- 30 x 10 x 6cm/11.8 x 3.9 x 2.3"