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I'm looking to get my first distortion after decades of only doing overdrive and the Rat has called my name. I like the Life Pedal and the Arc Effects Soothsayer and then I started going through all the other variants and have gone spiraling.

I see some that have different tone controls and some that have every variant wrapped in one. What's popping with you all and what are you playing? I'm mostly making noise rock so I'm looking for something that can cover some ground tonally.

I have tried I think 3 or 4 so please take this with a huge grain of salt I've tried a couple of standard ProCos, the Black Mass 1312, and a custom I had made with a 3 band EQ recently.

Personally, and this is just me, I find only having the standard Filter control is limiting - the 1312 sounds really thin to me (and AFAIK this is . The 3 band EQ nails it immediately, more heft and more control over the exact frequencies. I think I love the gain character of the RAT but not the EQ of it? Who knows

I'd probably just try a normal one to see if it hits your needs before trying a tweaked one. Unless there's something really specific you think is missing. I always have a preference for more EQ on fuzzes, but I'm still not sure I would have known a standard one was missing anything without trying it

I have a ProCo Deucetone RAT and I really, really like it. Tonally I prefer the Turbo Rat sound. I have had one with the LM308 a few years ago and I regretted selling it. Last year in January I was happy to find the reasonably priced Deucetone RAT in a second hand shop. I swapped the op-amps for the LM308 which definitely sound better to my ears*. The filter might be limiting, but I really like what it does. The Turbo RAT is one of those pedals that make my guitar sing and I always enjoy its sound. I really like the dynamics and how it responds to my Stratocaster's pickups and combinations.

*I did a 1:1 test with the Vintage and Turbo modes of the two circuits inside the Deucetone. Especially the decay of the distortion with the LM308 was much more pleasant to me. And all in all it sounds more "lively" with the swapped ICs.

My fave Rat is a Rat. Yeah, I’m basic. Mine is one of the big box “Vintage Rat” reissues from like the first year or so, 91-92, LM-308 stock. I’ve never grappled with making it pedalboard-friendly, but if I were to get another Rat for easy ‘boarding, I’d want it to be just the same.

90’s big box “vintage rat”, I’ve owned two of them, still have the 2nd one which I think… sounds better than my original one I bought in the 90s as a teen…. Huge sounding pedal! But.. because no led.. I got a fatrat for live shows and it was my main dirt for a few years, used it with a xotic blender.. awesome bass sound through a boogie 400+

I initially heard a Rat on bass before guitar and was blown away. Everyone was pressed on the Bluebeard and I thought the it was good for recordings but sucked live whereas the Rat was more alive and cutting with bass.

My fav on guitar is an OG '86 Rat, and on bass the Blue Colander Tremond (very close sound to the OG but has a really useful LPF blend).
Has been my main dirt sound for several years now but admittedly i almost never have the gain above 12 o'clock.
I liked the 90s big box reissue a lot too, and the Turbo Rat might be better depending on your rig and use case. Tried a few other variants and booteek clones but none of those clicked.

I find with the circuit that kind of no matter what you do there'll always be some noticeable low end drop/tonal change when turning it on that might not feel right, but trying to correct it with eq or whatever kind of defeats the point, so I like to leave it on all the time at low gain and stack overdrives into it to create various stages of Rat (Boss SD-2 and OD-3 work great for this imo).

I am looking to experiment with parallel dirt stacks. I’m hoping with that parallel looper from EHX, the Driving Notion, and Roger That I’ll get some good texture with the tonal sculpting from the looper.

Currently, Blower Box from Idiotbox...

Bellyheart wrote: ↑Wed Oct 30, 2024 8:20 pm I initially heard a Rat on bass before guitar and was blown away. Everyone was pressed on the Bluebeard and I thought the it was good for recordings but sucked live whereas the Rat was more alive and cutting with bass.

Yeah the RAT is so good on bass!

I've got the Tomsline Black Teeth and TC Electronic Magus Pro, and also prefer the Turbo setting on both of them. The TC boasts of duplicating the slew rate of the LM308, not sure what's in the Tomsline. Both of them sound great though, and are very board-friendly size.

The only 2 RATs I can stand are BRSI SFG and Magawa!
SFG was a modern take on the topic with 2 band active EQ, clean blend and tons of low-end (actually it was conceived as a bass distortion device), while the Magawa is more a vintage take with many tone shaping capabilities (and it's a super cool alternative/post-rock distortion pedal, especially for low gain sounds, it's amazing!).

I used to have also an Earthbound Audio Iron Pig (vintage super charged Rat), and Idiotbox Deathmaster (a Rat with an expanded EQ section to mimic Celtic Frost's sound).Once I had a roommate he had a Mooer Black Secret, he lend me to try out. Of all these I didn't liked so much the "choked boominess" of the distortion at high gain settings (which I know is a part of the aura of the Rat).

gila_crisis wrote: ↑Thu Oct 31, 2024 4:43 pm The only 2 RATs I can stand are BRSI SFG and Magawa!
SFG was a modern take on the topic with 2 band active EQ, clean blend and tons of low-end (actually it was conceived as a bass distortion device), while the Magawa is more a vintage take with many tone shaping capabilities (and it's a super cool alternative/post-rock distortion pedal, especially for low gain sounds, it's amazing!).

I used to have also an Earthbound Audio Iron Pig (vintage super charged Rat), and Idiotbox Deathmaster (a Rat with an expanded EQ section to mimic Celtic Frost's sound).Once I had a roommate he had a Mooer Black Secret, he lend me to try out. Of all these I didn't liked so much the "choked boominess" of the distortion at high gain settings (which I know is a part of the aura of the Rat).

This was very helpful. Much appreciated. I forgot BRSI came into existence. I love those things and Impossible Colors. He seems to be coming from the same angle as I think but with the knowledge of making the thing that he's thinking about.

Bellyheart wrote: ↑Thu Oct 31, 2024 11:23 pm This was very helpful. Much appreciated. I forgot BRSI came into existence. I love those things and Impossible Colors. He seems to be coming from the same angle as I think but with the knowledge of making the thing that he's thinking about.

Dave/BSRI is (or was) also active on this forum! He contributed a lot to the Glitchipedia thread.
I also own the TFZ (aka the first version of the Impossible Colors, same circuit but without the transformer coupled input stage), and it's an amazing fuzz!

I've currently got three rat based pedals, a DRV clone DannDubbleEwe built, Blower Box and a Broughton Locust Star.

- Drv does the low gain stuff really well, as it's reputation proceeds, it's great with single coils too.
- Blower Box is probably my favourite as an actual all around distortion, just grindy sludge.
- Locust Star has a bunch of tweaks + EQ to dial it in, clipping options that can take it from a clean preamp if you run it at a high voltage (although with a bit of noise) through to high gain and I really like using it to push other distortions as you can shelve off the bass.