Kam
Shaftologist
New Rat Day. No need for an exterminator though, it's the best infestation I've ever had.
And I've had a few. :fart:
I ramble a lot, so this might be long and boring. Feel free to skim.
I started a thread here a week or so ago about Rat distortion pedals. Some guys posted some really awesome looking BYO clones that I was seriously tempted by and then Jem Ghost posted what looked like a really great and very versatile pedal from Biyang that looked cool. However, I ended up finding a ProCo You Dirty Rat for a pretty great price on Ebay so I jumped on that. I actually got it on Monday, but I was too tired and busy over the last couple of days to really put it through it's paces so I waited until now to post this thread.
First off, I just want to make it clear that I wasn't really looking for that classic old-school Rat tone, just a cool dirt pedal, so before any Rat purists or Mars-bars-were-twice-that-size-when-I-was-a-kid-and-the-sun-always-shone-and-men-were-REAL-men guys jump on me...I'm aware that it probably doesn't sound at all like the real vintage pedals of yore BUT that's not necessarily what I wanted.
So bah humbug, mother****ers.
I'd always heard that these things were ****ing bomb-proof and now that I've got one in my hands I can see why. It's heavy as hell and enclosed in what's probably the same kind of metal that they'll end up building Terminators out of. The switch is solid and I don't envision any problems with it. I took a brief look at the interior and the board seems to be neatly soldered and high quality. Maybe you American workers are worth your wages, after all.
I turned all the knobs to 12 O'Clock and plugged it into the clean channel of my Laney LV300 and I gotta say, I wasn't expecting to enjoy it as much. It's an incredibly thick sound, very Marshall-ish and with a huge amount of what sounds to me like complex harmonic content. Harmonics and overtones just ring out very musically. It's not in the least bit a polite pedal; it's rough around the edges, fuzzy, angry, thick and untamed but it's still very warm and round. There's no bee's nest or mosquitos here. Absolutely SUPERB for thickening up leads and single note riffs. I ran through a couple of Rage Against The Machine riffs and it really filled my room, almost like I'd double-tracked the guitar or something. Just a massive sound from those low strings.
I played with it set like that for about half an hour or so without touching the settings...that's how much I liked that base tone. Once I decided to experiment with other settings I discovered that it's really not a hugely versatile pedal.
Turning the gain right down got some pretty cool medium-gain sounds but nothing like a smooth overdrive sort of sound. Turning it up past the middle made the sound a lot fuzzier; rather than just adding gain it seems to change the character of the gain. It was a little odd to get used to. Turning it up also seems to make it sound a lot more compressed, which is cool but not all that useful to me.
Turning the 'filter' (basically a tone) control to the left added treble and got some cool, thinner, sort of lo-fi sounds but nothing I would really use a lot. Nothing that would be useful for a main rhythm tone, anyway. Turning it to the right added an almost ungodly amount of low-end but also seemed to add a bit more compression and sounded a little farty...though that could easily be my amp or speakers just not being able to handle it. There's certainly no lack of bass from this thing.
Ultimately, I ended up returning the controls to roughly 12 O'Clock, finding nothing in the whole rest of their range that I really liked the sound of. Which is okay, really, because I really like the basic tone when everything is set to around the middle.
I haven't plugged it into my AOR yet but I'm expecting great things when I do. All in all, I'm happy enough with the sound to use it as my main source of dirt into a completely clean amp, occasionally boosting it slightly with my Raptor overdrive. That's something I want to experiment more with and I'll add my thoughts on that when I do.
Overall, I'm really happy with it and I'm thoroughly enjoying it.
I'll bump later with pictures or something.
Thanks for reading.
:beerchug:
And I've had a few. :fart:
I ramble a lot, so this might be long and boring. Feel free to skim.
I started a thread here a week or so ago about Rat distortion pedals. Some guys posted some really awesome looking BYO clones that I was seriously tempted by and then Jem Ghost posted what looked like a really great and very versatile pedal from Biyang that looked cool. However, I ended up finding a ProCo You Dirty Rat for a pretty great price on Ebay so I jumped on that. I actually got it on Monday, but I was too tired and busy over the last couple of days to really put it through it's paces so I waited until now to post this thread.
First off, I just want to make it clear that I wasn't really looking for that classic old-school Rat tone, just a cool dirt pedal, so before any Rat purists or Mars-bars-were-twice-that-size-when-I-was-a-kid-and-the-sun-always-shone-and-men-were-REAL-men guys jump on me...I'm aware that it probably doesn't sound at all like the real vintage pedals of yore BUT that's not necessarily what I wanted.
So bah humbug, mother****ers.
On to the review...
I'd always heard that these things were ****ing bomb-proof and now that I've got one in my hands I can see why. It's heavy as hell and enclosed in what's probably the same kind of metal that they'll end up building Terminators out of. The switch is solid and I don't envision any problems with it. I took a brief look at the interior and the board seems to be neatly soldered and high quality. Maybe you American workers are worth your wages, after all.
I turned all the knobs to 12 O'Clock and plugged it into the clean channel of my Laney LV300 and I gotta say, I wasn't expecting to enjoy it as much. It's an incredibly thick sound, very Marshall-ish and with a huge amount of what sounds to me like complex harmonic content. Harmonics and overtones just ring out very musically. It's not in the least bit a polite pedal; it's rough around the edges, fuzzy, angry, thick and untamed but it's still very warm and round. There's no bee's nest or mosquitos here. Absolutely SUPERB for thickening up leads and single note riffs. I ran through a couple of Rage Against The Machine riffs and it really filled my room, almost like I'd double-tracked the guitar or something. Just a massive sound from those low strings.
I played with it set like that for about half an hour or so without touching the settings...that's how much I liked that base tone. Once I decided to experiment with other settings I discovered that it's really not a hugely versatile pedal.
Turning the gain right down got some pretty cool medium-gain sounds but nothing like a smooth overdrive sort of sound. Turning it up past the middle made the sound a lot fuzzier; rather than just adding gain it seems to change the character of the gain. It was a little odd to get used to. Turning it up also seems to make it sound a lot more compressed, which is cool but not all that useful to me.
Turning the 'filter' (basically a tone) control to the left added treble and got some cool, thinner, sort of lo-fi sounds but nothing I would really use a lot. Nothing that would be useful for a main rhythm tone, anyway. Turning it to the right added an almost ungodly amount of low-end but also seemed to add a bit more compression and sounded a little farty...though that could easily be my amp or speakers just not being able to handle it. There's certainly no lack of bass from this thing.
Ultimately, I ended up returning the controls to roughly 12 O'Clock, finding nothing in the whole rest of their range that I really liked the sound of. Which is okay, really, because I really like the basic tone when everything is set to around the middle.
I haven't plugged it into my AOR yet but I'm expecting great things when I do. All in all, I'm happy enough with the sound to use it as my main source of dirt into a completely clean amp, occasionally boosting it slightly with my Raptor overdrive. That's something I want to experiment more with and I'll add my thoughts on that when I do.
Overall, I'm really happy with it and I'm thoroughly enjoying it.
I'll bump later with pictures or something.
Thanks for reading.
:beerchug:
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