Get your own RAT: Thomann - www.thomann.de/intl/proco_rat... Sweetwater - imp.i114863.net/QMLM3 This 1988 ProCo RAT is perhaps my favourite pedal. It's got some filthy stack-like distortion sweetened by the limitations of its iconic LM308 opamp. Pair you RAT with a Compressor: Thomann - www.thomann.de/intl/tc_electr... Sweetwater - imp.i114863.net/rMjYv Additional reading: www.electrosmash.com/proco-rat www.analog.com/media/en/techn... #procorat #lm308 #guitareffects More from CSGuitars: Gain access to exclusive content at: www.patreon.com/csguitars Buy CSGuitars Merchandise - www.csguitars.co.uk/store Website - www.csguitars.co.uk Contact - colin@csguitars.co.uk
Nice review and historical info! I learned something. This pedal is a staple of Morbid Angel tone, so it has massive historical significance to me. Lone Wolf Audio’s Plague Rat and The Plague are the best overall modern clones of this pedal, IMO.
Colin, I just went to reverb and typed in National Semiconductor Lm308n and viola' some dude is selling brand new ones for $17.95 and has 6 in stock! Thought you might like to know (9/3/20)
And any guitar/any pickup too. I love my Rat. Whatever I plug into it, it makes it sound incredible. Theres only a few pedals/amps that make the bridge single coil on my strat usable with high gain, it's too trebely for most stuff. But the Rat sounds fantastic with it, as does the OCD since that is such a bassy pedal
The Rat is great for when you just gotta let 'er rip. I use a JCM900 MkIII with the first - only the first - preamp gain section all the way up. I have a volume pedal that drops the levels for "clean" sounds, which also conveniently allows distortion pedals to play nice with the preamp. I've noticed that this tends to blend the sound of the pedal with the trademark Marshall splatter fart. The Rat, with all of its nastiness, sounds particularly glorious in this setup.
Thank you so much! I had to substitute the speaker of my 20-year-old Marshall solid state amplifier, but the new modern speaker was sounding like a full bee hive! With the information that you gave in this video, I built a low pass filter to cut everything above 5khz. It's amazing now. Like it used to sound with the original speaker but with lots of extra bass! Not muffed at all!. Your channel is one of those where you find really good information on RUclips!
As well as the 1980s metal / heavy rock sounds it's generally used for, it's also great with single coils for imitating the sound of a older small combo amp being driven hard, when the gain's dialled back to about 8-9 o'clock.
Have cleaned out my gig bag many times over the years, tossed many unused pedals, but can't bring myself to part with the ancient Rat. I think I have one from the same year you have there. Although... I was 23 when I got it new!
I'll just put it out here for all the budget oriented players out there who wanna fall in love with a RAT or you LM308 obsessed guys: nowadays there are a ton of very cheap chinese clones of the RAT, facilitating the LM308. Mooer has one that is switchable between "vintage" and "turbo", which adds interesting possibilities, however there are even waaaaay more cheap variants you can grab. Like, 20 dollar cheap and exact replica of the circut. There is literally no reason for any guitarist not to have at least like three of these things.
Nice Collin! I just got a ProCo Rat like yours from Alchemy Audio which allows you to choose different chips to use in running the pedal and the Dead Bat which allows you to starve the pedal of voltage. If you love the Rat you might want to look at getting one of these. I picked up the Rat because it is a nasty tone. Pedal wise I have a Daddy O, a Flashback Fuzz, a Alchemy Audio modded Daddy O, and a Alchemy Audio modded Big Muff Pi. Now are there overlaps in tone, sure...but there are also lots of variety with these too. This also is not including drive channels in three of my four amps (one is a jazz amp and it does not overdrive worth speaking of). Get a Rat if you want nasty tone. I will tell you this, best of my knowledge is that a Rat through a Fender Twin is the main sound that Justine used in the Elastica album. That album and those songs still hold up today.😎👍✨🐁
Oh the RAT is classic. I think the circuit changed slightly in '88. I've had an '88 and an '86. Both great pedals. I traded the '88 and still have the '86. It's a staple pedal, along with the Tube Screamer.
4 года назад
Best and most interestingly used by Obituary and Morbid Angel
I compared The Rat against my Boss Katana MKII 50 Built into its circutry against The mighty Boss Metal Zone and why I like the Boss MZ better . The Rat did have some very good Umph !!
Excellent! I've got one of these bad boys- it was my first pedal - and you just have me a whole new level of appreciation for it's capabilities(which I'm anxious to try out ASAP). Quick question: you mentioned hiking up the gain, by there's no knob for that on the box. What do you mean by that Thanks!
Speaking of flawed and fizzy-ness: the newer ProCo Rat, while on the power supply, has this very weird ass gritty fizz after palm muting even at cleaner amp gain levels. If you try to run the pedal on 9V batteries, this fizzy grit diminishes considerably, but the bottom end is less pronounced than the bottom end with the power supply.
I got one of the JHS modded RATs on Reverb; gnarly like the 80s versions plus, a turbo rat AND clean boost setting. Better than one of these old ones? Maybe not, but damn good.
Watching this while sitting next to my Rat pedal that I got for $20 from my guitar teacher: probably the best deal I’ve ever made in my life. The absolute best doom metal pedal.
While it's definitely one of the favourites in the Doom community, there's fierce competition from the Big Muff, FZ-2 Hyper Fuzz & D*A*M Meathead circuits for that title!
I've always hated the fizziness I get out of literally any distortion pedal/high-gain amp I get my hands on these days. I usually low-pass to try to mend the issue, but it's not an ideal fix. I really want something like this that is physically incapable of producing that fizziness in the first place. It sounds absolutely incredible
Well technically it's possible to replicate this with modern circuitry, there's some ultra low power op-amps with low enough slew rate to get into 7KHz top frequency, with some trial and test I bet it's totally possible to get some ultra efficient modern electronics RAT like sound.
I might be kind of an oddball in this, but I use my Rat for blues and blues rock. A strat into a Rat into about any 6v6 amp will give you some of the thickest, meatiest tone you could ever hope for.
I like to roll the guitar volume off with my Rat. Keeps the tonality just takes the hair off. Add delay and you got epic solo tone. Does "woman tone" really well with humbuckers too
I love the RAT. I don’t have one anymore but I have the EQD Life pedal which is basically the same thing but with a added MOSFET boost. THICCCC nasty tones are best suited for the pedal I love it! Great video as always Colin!
I buy a RAT pedal like every 5 years thinking maybe something will be different this time. but it just never is different. I just have to come to terms with the fact that it's not the sound for me and give it up.
Try a mooer black secret, it has modes which make this a very versatile pedal. It can go from light od, through distortion and to the edge of fuzz. What are you trying to get it to do? What amp are you using?
Depends on what sound you're looking for. I was unhappy with distortion pedals until I found the RAT, and it has never once left my pedal board. One of the things to keep in mind with the RAT is that it sounds better with the Distortion set low and the Volume set high than vice versa.
I have used one with both my p bass and my Rick for like 25 years now. It does what all guitar pedals do if you push the gain it won't keep the low end Intact and the sound starts to become thin. However it works if not pushed too hard and in a mix it's a really nice tool to really spice up your sound. On my Rick O have experimented with doubling it (stereo outputs so one clean one dirty) and then you can really eff around with it. Also I have 2 rats one my dad got in the 89s when I was like 7 and one I bought myself back in 2001. They don't sound a like at all when pushed hard. The older one is smoother on both guitar and bass while the never one has a more fizzy quality. If you buy one for your bass I recommend trying them out and try a bunch of them. I found them to be a bit inconsistent in how they handle low-end depending on age and use. GL and hope it helps.
That rat was stolen with their modded amps and other shit from kill em all so i can imagine if someone found out they had it itd be sold for a pretty penny lmao
The opamp in the modern RAT has the same slow slew rate as the LM308, so it behaves very similarly. The signal breakup is slightly different at very high distortion settings, but at the settings where the RAT sounds best (Distortion at 11 o'clock, Volume at 3 o'clock), they sound near identical.
Just seen a 1984 RAT for sale for £495 😂. Some crazy prices knocking around. I bought a used modern RAT 2, mint, boxed, posted for £54...it works for me 👍.
Tonight is the first rehearsal I've had with my band in 4 months (screw you 'rona), and I've missed smashing my Texas special equipped Strat through my Rat 2. I can't wait!!!
Builder here. You can! The reason why we don't, however, is that you can obtain practically identical results from a modern general purpose op-amp, at least in the context of a guitar pedal. CFB type op-amps with ridiculously high bandwidth and slew rate will effectively produce and amplify the whole audio band, but so will your run of the mill LF353. It doesn't make sense from a production perspective to pay for extra fancy op-amps unless you're going to use them for extra fancy applications, and guitar effects are (unfortunately) not one of those applications.
Actually the Rat compensates lots of the lost high frequencies in the overdrivestage itself with two highpass filters. Yes its true, theres still a lack of high frequencies but its not as much as discribed.
A former teacher (& guitarist from The Busboys) at GIT recommended the rat to me about 20 years ago & I never looked back. Drives my old AC10 wonderfully.
The RAT sounds much better if you keep the distortion knob below 12 o'clock and the volume knob above 12 o'clock. Colin's settings in the video are pretty much the sweet spot for this pedal, or at least they're the exact same settings that I prefer..
good choice of demo guitars. This video is perfect evidence why "NO, YOU CAN'T JUST HAVE 1 GUITAR". that rat is the short way to spell "versatile". I'm still an HM-2 snob, but I wouldn't kick that pedal out of board for eating crackers. BTW, in the day those 308's were the generic hobbyist op amps and ya, were a dime a dozen like at the electronics surplus stores
The LM308 is terrible for high fidelity. Which is why it makes such a great op amp for building a cool sounding pedal. There are several companies that sell DIY kits for building your own RAT clone, which is a testament to how simple the circuit really is.
Next thing we need is a ProCo Rat Amplifier. An amp with the same tech built from the pedal itself, all tubed, contains its own on-board speaker modeled after a Celestion G12T-75, or Greenback-25s, or Seventy-80, minimalist controls like on the pedal, and endorsed by Warren DeMartini from Ratt.
By absolute coincidence I just got an awesome Facebook marketplace deal on a proco rat and a tc hyper gravity mini together for only $35! and each was still factory sealed in the box/ never opened. Think the guy was a local pallet sales kinda dude
Still have my 'big box' from '81. It can do exactly like you say... But I've always used it for something entirely different. The Distortion knob has been sitting at max for the past 40 years.* Can't play chords with it worth a dang that way - but that's not what I use it for. Neck pickup, super syrupy lead tone - single-note stuff. I know, I know... it can do so much more than that. But it does that so incredibly well, that's what's kept me happy all these years. * Not sure if it's possible that it could still be rotated away from 'full-up'. :-)
I used one with a peavey bass amp i played guitar through because i was so wealthy at the time. Sounded killer with my strat. Play all SG through orange stomp these days. Oh just recently added Harley benton progressive active pick up both rock. Epi with invader clones. HB bridge EMG clone. I broke original HB pick up. My fault. They still sent new one.
Doesn't the listing of the failures and short-comings of LM308 kinda underline why it's special and something that's not as readily available with modern components? Kinda like germanium fuzz. I'm sure you could replicate it if you wanted to though. Sweet skid row chops.
I used to use the RAT together with a Valveking with old-arse tubes to play extreme metal. Lead channel, gain maxed or near maxed on amp, distortion and filter on RAT at about 9 o'clock. Made my amp sound pretty fucking decent. I have no idea how to use it with new tubes though. It just clips and whines like a motherfucker. I know some death metal acts use RATs, like Obituary and Gorephilia.
I have a newer Rat (Bought it in 2018) and I've wondered if my pedal had something wrong with it out of the box. If I set all the knobs at noon it'd be extremely ear-piercingly tinny and fuzzed out. No clue if this is because you're playing an older Rat, but mine seems to have twice the gain and way too much high-end.
It's not in the op amp, real magic is because it's a ProCo RAT. And it's best pedal ever. It's mild blues overdrive for almost clean on the edge of the breakup neck pickup solo, it's a raunchy low gain drive with dynamics, it's a bona-fide distortion and at the end it's a full blown fuzz. Also one point to consider: it doesn't sound same with a guitar directly plugged in or if you put a buffer pedal before it. Without buffer in front it's little bit nasal. Try both!
Any thoughts on putting compressor *after* the RAT? I love how the RAT sounds for solos, but it's super dirty for low-note and chugging riffs and ends up sounding a little sloppy, I think.
Hi Colin, I'm a musician here in Brazil who follows your channel. I plan to buy a proco rat for me soon. Have you heard of EFX Pedals? It is a Brazilian company that makes incredible effects pedals. See you!
The 1987 and earlier ones sound consistently better than the newer ones, more defined sounding with better overall range...generally. I’ve owned more of them than I could ever count. The newer ones are complete garbage by comparison, both tonally and build wise. Let your ears be the judge...
Just one point, Colin, the slew rate doesn't stop the op-amp passing signal above a certain frequency, but it does distort the signal more and more the higher the frequency. This type of distortion is commonly encountered in power amp design, and part of power amp distortion is that imparted by the slew-rate. Maybe this is why the RAT has proved popular as it emulates pushed power tubes?
As much as I love to crank it up and get nasty distortion, I even more love to dial it way back for an incredibly thick clean tone. The Rat does it all.
Desert island pedal. The Rat is a true Icon pedal, had the first model when it came out took me a little over a month to save up for it at $99.00 and the EH Memory Man was $199.00 a few months later..
I hated mine, I think it's because I prefer overdrives, I hated my boss DS 1 too, but my tube works tube overdrive I will never sell, I love your tekkie explanations very interesting
Hey Colin, cool dinosaur skull fossil shirt. What do you know about the rack mount version of the Rat? How does it compare to the pedal version you featured?
Why does the Proco Rat2 choke or cut out when using higher output pickups, this happend to me when I used my Cobain Jaguar. Im not too sure why it reacts like that?
Always love the videos mate, feel like I’ve taken a crash course in electrical engineering learning about the chip. Thanks for the high quality content!
Great video Colin. I have had a rat model on my modeling amp. I found it has a very nice singing distortion. It really can make a guitar sing without being too harsh. It makes for a great unit even for those that don't play metal. I find it works nice with some jazz fusion.
@@ScienceofLoud I'd add a sentence about how it's much more charming to play into an edison-esque glass tube with a bunch of handwired hardware than it is to play into a computer.
Good video Colin! I hated Rat pedals for most of my life until I bought an EHX Flatiron Fuzz a year or two ago when they came out. That’s their Rat clone. I knew what it was when I bought it, but I was still curious, and I fell in love with it. All of a sudden I’m a Rat convert and I now own the Flatiron Fuzz along with a Rat 2 and a Rat Roadkill from the 90’s, and I’m on the prowl for more versions. Thanks for breaking it down for me! 🤘🏼🤘🏼🤘🏼
Get your own RAT:
Thomann - www.thomann.de/intl/proco_rat...
Sweetwater - imp.i114863.net/QMLM3
This 1988 ProCo RAT is perhaps my favourite pedal. It's got some filthy stack-like distortion sweetened by the limitations of its iconic LM308 opamp.
Pair you RAT with a Compressor:
Thomann - www.thomann.de/intl/tc_electr...
Sweetwater - imp.i114863.net/rMjYv
Additional reading:
www.electrosmash.com/proco-rat
www.analog.com/media/en/techn...
#procorat #lm308 #guitareffects
More from CSGuitars:
Gain access to exclusive content at: www.patreon.com/csguitars
Buy CSGuitars Merchandise - www.csguitars.co.uk/store
Website - www.csguitars.co.uk
Contact - colin@csguitars.co.uk
Nice review and historical info! I learned something. This pedal is a staple of Morbid Angel tone, so it has massive historical significance to me. Lone Wolf Audio’s Plague Rat and The Plague are the best overall modern clones of this pedal, IMO.
Colin,
I just went to reverb and typed in National Semiconductor Lm308n and viola' some dude is selling brand new ones for $17.95 and has 6 in stock! Thought you might like to know (9/3/20)
Man the rat is an iconic pedal that guitar players are fond of. Some metal and rock hits have this pedal as the go to distortion unit.
It's showing its age but still an iconic pedal. The rep of the RAT was it could make a shitty sounding amp sound great.
And any guitar/any pickup too. I love my Rat. Whatever I plug into it, it makes it sound incredible. Theres only a few pedals/amps that make the bridge single coil on my strat usable with high gain, it's too trebely for most stuff. But the Rat sounds fantastic with it, as does the OCD since that is such a bassy pedal
Turns my 65 Twin into a fire-breathing dragon.
The Rat is great for when you just gotta let 'er rip.
I use a JCM900 MkIII with the first - only the first - preamp gain section all the way up. I have a volume pedal that drops the levels for "clean" sounds, which also conveniently allows distortion pedals to play nice with the preamp. I've noticed that this tends to blend the sound of the pedal with the trademark Marshall splatter fart. The Rat, with all of its nastiness, sounds particularly glorious in this setup.
I also have the mkiii... It's soooo good... Amazing amp... I also have a mooer black magic (rat clone with the lm chip) great combination
Using a modded You Dirty Rat through a Plexi reissue these days, but I sure miss my JCM900 MK3. Killer amp
Thank you so much! I had to substitute the speaker of my 20-year-old Marshall solid state amplifier, but the new modern speaker was sounding like a full bee hive! With the information that you gave in this video, I built a low pass filter to cut everything above 5khz. It's amazing now. Like it used to sound with the original speaker but with lots of extra bass! Not muffed at all!. Your channel is one of those where you find really good information on RUclips!
An LM308 Rat demo and not a single Sunn O))) riff? You're a brave man, Colin.
As well as the 1980s metal / heavy rock sounds it's generally used for, it's also great with single coils for imitating the sound of a older small combo amp being driven hard, when the gain's dialled back to about 8-9 o'clock.
Have cleaned out my gig bag many times over the years, tossed many unused pedals, but can't bring myself to part with the ancient Rat. I think I have one from the same year you have there. Although... I was 23 when I got it new!
Go ProCo!!! 🤘🏽
I'll just put it out here for all the budget oriented players out there who wanna fall in love with a RAT or you LM308 obsessed guys:
nowadays there are a ton of very cheap chinese clones of the RAT, facilitating the LM308. Mooer has one that is switchable between "vintage" and "turbo", which adds interesting possibilities, however there are even waaaaay more cheap variants you can grab. Like, 20 dollar cheap and exact replica of the circut.
There is literally no reason for any guitarist not to have at least like three of these things.
I highly recommend the Little Bear RT-2. $80, 3 different RAT sounds (including the LM308). LOVE IT!!
Nice Collin! I just got a ProCo Rat like yours from Alchemy Audio which allows you to choose different chips to use in running the pedal and the Dead Bat which allows you to starve the pedal of voltage. If you love the Rat you might want to look at getting one of these.
I picked up the Rat because it is a nasty tone. Pedal wise I have a Daddy O, a Flashback Fuzz, a Alchemy Audio modded Daddy O, and a Alchemy Audio modded Big Muff Pi. Now are there overlaps in tone, sure...but there are also lots of variety with these too. This also is not including drive channels in three of my four amps (one is a jazz amp and it does not overdrive worth speaking of). Get a Rat if you want nasty tone. I will tell you this, best of my knowledge is that a Rat through a Fender Twin is the main sound that Justine used in the Elastica album. That album and those songs still hold up today.😎👍✨🐁
I really want a fat rat, the one with the optional mosfet circuit
I have one it’s awesome
@@garretthusky3700 niiiiice, bro :3
Oh the RAT is classic. I think the circuit changed slightly in '88. I've had an '88 and an '86. Both great pedals. I traded the '88 and still have the '86. It's a staple pedal, along with the Tube Screamer.
Best and most interestingly used by Obituary and Morbid Angel
My guitarist in my cover band has one of these. He uses it with a Sovtek and it sounds fucking huge.
I compared The Rat against my Boss Katana MKII 50 Built into its circutry against The mighty Boss Metal Zone and why I like the Boss MZ better . The Rat did have some very good Umph !!
Excellent! I've got one of these bad boys- it was my first pedal - and you just have me a whole new level of appreciation for it's capabilities(which I'm anxious to try out ASAP).
Quick question: you mentioned hiking up the gain, by there's no knob for that on the box. What do you mean by that
Thanks!
I have a 1986 version of the RAT and it sits in the closet. Maybe I should give it another chance? I still prefer the preamp distortion of my JVM.
I have a vintage rat that I bought around 1992. Very good condition and been in storage for 25 years. Any idea how much it's worth?
Speaking of flawed and fizzy-ness: the newer ProCo Rat, while on the power supply, has this very weird ass gritty fizz after palm muting even at cleaner amp gain levels. If you try to run the pedal on 9V batteries, this fizzy grit diminishes considerably, but the bottom end is less pronounced than the bottom end with the power supply.
I have a nice 89 Woodcutter Rat
can i get the Mesmerize soad sound if i boost this with a TS9 or smallbox pedal
how tf did graham Coxon use two of these without blowing up an amp?
Cool you gonna show us how to get the Obituary tone !
YES Please 🤘🏽🤘🏽(in layers of guttural screams)
You’ve got a straight up rat face, so I’d say this is a perfect fit. 🤘🧛♂️🤘
When you want boost, overdrive, heavy distortion, and fuzz, the Rat does all!
I've had one of these on my board since 1986..... I never looked back.
Or just a Filter (treble boost) effect. It can really brighten an amp.
No doubt, I don't hace the original but I have a Rat simulation on my Digitech distortion factory and sound very very close
@@eduardoherrera3341
You should try a Kmise Crunch
Rat has proven itself once again, I should really get one.
Thumbs up just for Skid Row!
I’ve loved this guitar channel for years but just know this pedal also has infamy in the acid genres of electronic music!!
THAT is interesting to know. Is there any song you can link me to?
@@TheChadPad I can't think of any specific tunes off the top of my head, but a search for 'pro co rat 303' should showcase the sound!
Thanks for the tip. I did a search and sure enough, it's THE sound we all recognise.
Acid house?
So like acid house?
I've always wanted to try a rat because Josh from jhs said it's one of his favorite pedals, and because it's like a fuzz distortion which is cool
It's absolutely one of the best pedals ever made. It's simple and flawed, but that makes it magical.
Carson
@@mladyavery9138 Carson king
I got one of the JHS modded RATs on Reverb; gnarly like the 80s versions plus, a turbo rat AND clean boost setting. Better than one of these old ones? Maybe not, but damn good.
Because Josh said lolololol
Watching this while sitting next to my Rat pedal that I got for $20 from my guitar teacher: probably the best deal I’ve ever made in my life. The absolute best doom metal pedal.
While it's definitely one of the favourites in the Doom community, there's fierce competition from the Big Muff, FZ-2 Hyper Fuzz & D*A*M Meathead circuits for that title!
@@andrewflint9551 Agreed. Titles aside, TS + RAT = Sunn o)))
And their tone is easily some of the doomiest tones known to man
@@michaeldoerksen2841 I run those 2 thru an orange. I'm satisfied with it.
I got a 1993 Gibson les Paul studio for an amp I payed $150 for
Still have my 86 Rat, used on Texas leg/ opening dates on the Metallica master of puppets tour when I was with the Godz.
I remember the Godz. My buddy had a cassette and played it for me on acid. Heh heh.
I think I've heard of the Godz, from some older musicians in the Columbus Ohio area
I've always hated the fizziness I get out of literally any distortion pedal/high-gain amp I get my hands on these days. I usually low-pass to try to mend the issue, but it's not an ideal fix. I really want something like this that is physically incapable of producing that fizziness in the first place. It sounds absolutely incredible
Well technically it's possible to replicate this with modern circuitry, there's some ultra low power op-amps with low enough slew rate to get into 7KHz top frequency, with some trial and test I bet it's totally possible to get some ultra efficient modern electronics RAT like sound.
eq out some top end, fixed
@@arroncusimano9169 That doesn't always do it, because in a lot of cases you can't reduce the fizziness without losing clarity.
@@arroncusimano9169 Haha lol
It’s the distortion pedal standard.
I might be kind of an oddball in this, but I use my Rat for blues and blues rock. A strat into a Rat into about any 6v6 amp will give you some of the thickest, meatiest tone you could ever hope for.
I like to roll the guitar volume off with my Rat. Keeps the tonality just takes the hair off. Add delay and you got epic solo tone. Does "woman tone" really well with humbuckers too
Got a 1991 LM308 Rat, is all you need in life
kcor s`tel
I remember reading about them when I was a kid and wanting one. Alas, it never happened. I should track one down.
Buy a new Rat and swap the opamp for an LM308. Way cheaper and relatively easy with some knowledge of pedal mods
I love the RAT. I don’t have one anymore but I have the EQD Life pedal which is basically the same thing but with a added MOSFET boost. THICCCC nasty tones are best suited for the pedal I love it! Great video as always Colin!
I buy a RAT pedal like every 5 years thinking maybe something will be different this time. but it just never is different. I just have to come to terms with the fact that it's not the sound for me and give it up.
Try a mooer black secret, it has modes which make this a very versatile pedal. It can go from light od, through distortion and to the edge of fuzz. What are you trying to get it to do? What amp are you using?
Depends on what sound you're looking for. I was unhappy with distortion pedals until I found the RAT, and it has never once left my pedal board. One of the things to keep in mind with the RAT is that it sounds better with the Distortion set low and the Volume set high than vice versa.
Right now im running a Mosky Golden Horse into an MXR custom bad ass distortion and it is heavenly.
I was thinking about getting one for my bass, my bass hero Krist Novoselic used one
I have used one with both my p bass and my Rick for like 25 years now. It does what all guitar pedals do if you push the gain it won't keep the low end Intact and the sound starts to become thin. However it works if not pushed too hard and in a mix it's a really nice tool to really spice up your sound. On my Rick O have experimented with doubling it (stereo outputs so one clean one dirty) and then you can really eff around with it. Also I have 2 rats one my dad got in the 89s when I was like 7 and one I bought myself back in 2001. They don't sound a like at all when pushed hard. The older one is smoother on both guitar and bass while the never one has a more fizzy quality. If you buy one for your bass I recommend trying them out and try a bunch of them. I found them to be a bit inconsistent in how they handle low-end depending on age and use. GL and hope it helps.
guy from Unsane uses it on bass as well and the first thing he does after a gig is unpluging the rat and taking it to safety. i totally get him.
You might need a bass EQ pedal because once RAT gains up the low end might drop
Yep, I like it for bass.
Same situation here bud! My Pro Co Rat 2 '04 came in the mail today and i got Krist's tone in no time. obvs with a jazz bass and the proper eq.
Hey, Colin, can I borrow that? I'll give it back......
No you can't You Dirty Rat !!
James used one on Kill 'em All, so yeah, a kick ass pedal for sure.
This is the only thing he used that didn't increase in price
@@ayoutubeaccount864 You know how expensive proco rat's from the early 80s are? Or was it just sarcasm?
@@marvintimke3978 i think they mean just the pedal in general
That rat was stolen with their modded amps and other shit from kill em all so i can imagine if someone found out they had it itd be sold for a pretty penny lmao
Obituary's greasy tone comes from a Proco Rat I think.
Yes it does.
Fender shawbucker with tone rolled all the way down > rat > jcm 800
I've got the newer version with the updated power input. Decent pedal, can get some Foo Fighters like sounds out of it
>demo a RAT
>Don't play any doom with it
I don't feel very haired over here in my demographic, Colin 😤
Great video, always liked the sound of this pedal must be 80s teenager growing 3listening to Obituary haha
Hi. Is the rat pedal good for danzig and samhain songs ? Thanks
The opamp in the modern RAT has the same slow slew rate as the LM308, so it behaves very similarly. The signal breakup is slightly different at very high distortion settings, but at the settings where the RAT sounds best (Distortion at 11 o'clock, Volume at 3 o'clock), they sound near identical.
Just seen a 1984 RAT for sale for £495 😂. Some crazy prices knocking around. I bought a used modern RAT 2, mint, boxed, posted for £54...it works for me 👍.
I love the rat, but for bass as well. It's magical, gets everything from light rock grit to full on grind.
yes!!!!! the rat is THE PEDAL both for bass and guitar.... I also like the Big Muff Russian for bass, just for a different taste
Humbucker + low/drop tuning + rat with volume control maxed + tube amp = instant doom/stoner tones
Well done Colin. Rat love.
by far sounded best with the strat. single coil pickups are the best
Forever my favorite Distortion! Just sounds...RIGHT.
Tonight is the first rehearsal I've had with my band in 4 months (screw you 'rona), and I've missed smashing my Texas special equipped Strat through my Rat 2. I can't wait!!!
I wanna be you Colin when I grow up, (I am 44). I love your channel
really nice dive into the electronic.
also im considering if we can use extremely fast or extremely precise general purpose opamps for audio.
Builder here. You can! The reason why we don't, however, is that you can obtain practically identical results from a modern general purpose op-amp, at least in the context of a guitar pedal. CFB type op-amps with ridiculously high bandwidth and slew rate will effectively produce and amplify the whole audio band, but so will your run of the mill LF353. It doesn't make sense from a production perspective to pay for extra fancy op-amps unless you're going to use them for extra fancy applications, and guitar effects are (unfortunately) not one of those applications.
@@theknifesedge57 sometimes having a v12 engine under a prius hood is exciting no doubt
Awesome tone with that Gibson.. wow. Just awesome
Actually the Rat compensates lots of the lost high frequencies in the overdrivestage itself with two highpass filters. Yes its true, theres still a lack of high frequencies but its not as much as discribed.
A former teacher
(& guitarist from The Busboys)
at GIT recommended the rat to me about 20 years ago & I never looked back.
Drives my old AC10 wonderfully.
I just bought a white face one from 1985 just because its one hell of a distortion pedal.its worth every penny .yes sir.👍👍👍🎸🎸🔥🔥🔥🎸👍👍👍
Why does it seem everyone's rat is better sounding than mine.
The RAT sounds much better if you keep the distortion knob below 12 o'clock and the volume knob above 12 o'clock. Colin's settings in the video are pretty much the sweet spot for this pedal, or at least they're the exact same settings that I prefer..
good choice of demo guitars. This video is perfect evidence why "NO, YOU CAN'T JUST HAVE 1 GUITAR". that rat is the short way to spell "versatile". I'm still an HM-2 snob, but I wouldn't kick that pedal out of board for eating crackers. BTW, in the day those 308's were the generic hobbyist op amps and ya, were a dime a dozen like at the electronics surplus stores
The LM308 is terrible for high fidelity. Which is why it makes such a great op amp for building a cool sounding pedal. There are several companies that sell DIY kits for building your own RAT clone, which is a testament to how simple the circuit really is.
Next thing we need is a ProCo Rat Amplifier. An amp with the same tech built from the pedal itself, all tubed, contains its own on-board speaker modeled after a Celestion G12T-75, or Greenback-25s, or Seventy-80, minimalist controls like on the pedal, and endorsed by Warren DeMartini from Ratt.
By absolute coincidence I just got an awesome Facebook marketplace deal on a proco rat and a tc hyper gravity mini together for only $35! and each was still factory sealed in the box/ never opened. Think the guy was a local pallet sales kinda dude
Still have my 'big box' from '81. It can do exactly like you say...
But I've always used it for something entirely different. The Distortion knob has been sitting at max for the past 40 years.*
Can't play chords with it worth a dang that way - but that's not what I use it for. Neck pickup, super syrupy lead tone - single-note stuff.
I know, I know... it can do so much more than that. But it does that so incredibly well, that's what's kept me happy all these years.
* Not sure if it's possible that it could still be rotated away from 'full-up'. :-)
Stomp ON a RAT! \m/
I used one with a peavey bass amp i played guitar through because i was so wealthy at the time. Sounded killer with my strat. Play all SG through orange stomp these days. Oh just recently added Harley benton progressive active pick up both rock. Epi with invader clones. HB bridge EMG clone. I broke original HB pick up. My fault. They still sent new one.
Doesn't the listing of the failures and short-comings of LM308 kinda underline why it's special and something that's not as readily available with modern components? Kinda like germanium fuzz. I'm sure you could replicate it if you wanted to though. Sweet skid row chops.
Youth Gone Wild 🔥
I used to use the RAT together with a Valveking with old-arse tubes to play extreme metal. Lead channel, gain maxed or near maxed on amp, distortion and filter on RAT at about 9 o'clock. Made my amp sound pretty fucking decent. I have no idea how to use it with new tubes though. It just clips and whines like a motherfucker. I know some death metal acts use RATs, like Obituary and Gorephilia.
I have a newer Rat (Bought it in 2018) and I've wondered if my pedal had something wrong with it out of the box. If I set all the knobs at noon it'd be extremely ear-piercingly tinny and fuzzed out. No clue if this is because you're playing an older Rat, but mine seems to have twice the gain and way too much high-end.
It's not in the op amp, real magic is because it's a ProCo RAT. And it's best pedal ever. It's mild blues overdrive for almost clean on the edge of the breakup neck pickup solo, it's a raunchy low gain drive with dynamics, it's a bona-fide distortion and at the end it's a full blown fuzz. Also one point to consider: it doesn't sound same with a guitar directly plugged in or if you put a buffer pedal before it. Without buffer in front it's little bit nasal. Try both!
Any thoughts on putting compressor *after* the RAT? I love how the RAT sounds for solos, but it's super dirty for low-note and chugging riffs and ends up sounding a little sloppy, I think.
Hi Colin, I'm a musician here in Brazil who follows your channel. I plan to buy a proco rat for me soon. Have you heard of EFX Pedals? It is a Brazilian company that makes incredible effects pedals. See you!
I think this is the first time I’ve heard somebody use Youth Gone Wild to demo a RAT.
Oh good video thz. but please don't play youth gone wild off tempo :D is the funniest riff ever. Afraid of copyright?
The 1987 and earlier ones sound consistently better than the newer ones, more defined sounding with better overall range...generally. I’ve owned more of them than I could ever count. The newer ones are complete garbage by comparison, both tonally and build wise. Let your ears be the judge...
Just one point, Colin, the slew rate doesn't stop the op-amp passing signal above a certain frequency, but it does distort the signal more and more the higher the frequency. This type of distortion is commonly encountered in power amp design, and part of power amp distortion is that imparted by the slew-rate. Maybe this is why the RAT has proved popular as it emulates pushed power tubes?
As much as I love to crank it up and get nasty distortion, I even more love to dial it way back for an incredibly thick clean tone.
The Rat does it all.
Desert island pedal.
The Rat is a true Icon pedal, had the first model when it came out took me a little over a month to save up for it at $99.00 and the EH Memory Man was $199.00 a few months later..
I hated mine, I think it's because I prefer overdrives, I hated my boss DS 1 too, but my tube works tube overdrive I will never sell, I love your tekkie explanations very interesting
Hey Colin, cool dinosaur skull fossil shirt. What do you know about the rack mount version of the Rat? How does it compare to the pedal version you featured?
Why does the Proco Rat2 choke or cut out when using higher output pickups, this happend to me when I used my Cobain Jaguar. Im not too sure why it reacts like that?
Always love the videos mate, feel like I’ve taken a crash course in electrical engineering learning about the chip. Thanks for the high quality content!
Great video Colin. I have had a rat model on my modeling amp. I found it has a very nice singing distortion. It really can make a guitar sing without being too harsh. It makes for a great unit even for those that don't play metal. I find it works nice with some jazz fusion.
I just got one in yesterday. I'm loving it so far
Can be very smooth as well. Check out Andy Latimer of the prog band Camel who has used one since they came out.
HAHAHAHA: BEST LINE - THE SCIENCE OF LOUD ! ! ! NO MID AND FULL FILTH , PLEASE ! LOVE YR VIDS. 2 CHEERS FROM CANADA !
Can you do a history video on how vintage good modern bad and analog good digital bad crap came to be?
People hate change. That's pretty much it.
@@ScienceofLoud I'd add a sentence about how it's much more charming to play into an edison-esque glass tube with a bunch of handwired hardware than it is to play into a computer.
@@hueysharapova7175 Sounds like what someone who hates change would say.
Brother, I can listen to you play 80's licks all damn night!
Colin! Make a video on polarity. All the RUclips videos on this topic suck! Help us out man.
I have a rat with a really bad buzz. Can't really find the source. Anybody have any ideas? Pretty sure it's a reissue
I have a Rat from 1981, its 17 years younger than me! Wait...damn I'm old.
Good video Colin! I hated Rat pedals for most of my life until I bought an EHX Flatiron Fuzz a year or two ago when they came out. That’s their Rat clone. I knew what it was when I bought it, but I was still curious, and I fell in love with it. All of a sudden I’m a Rat convert and I now own the Flatiron Fuzz along with a Rat 2 and a Rat Roadkill from the 90’s, and I’m on the prowl for more versions. Thanks for breaking it down for me! 🤘🏼🤘🏼🤘🏼
Surprised this pedal is just a little older than you. I was sure you were only a year or two older than I am and I'm 26! What's your secret dude?
Great demo, great playing. Love your concise. BTW, it is guns and roses, not guns and rosies 😁
You can tighten it up by running another drive or boost into it also. Really is a fun pedal with a surprising amount of versatility.
Great video! I really like your effect reviews and spot on explanations. Keep it up :)
I used to have a rat. Sadly I was too young and stupid to know what I had and sold it. Probably to buy something far less cool.
Slow to respond and does not amplify all frequencies equally but sounds amazing doing it.