Educate me on Rat pedals and clones & 'tributes' etc

fretmeister

As it says!

I heard a demo of a "Brown Rabbit" pedal and liked it, then discovered it's supposed to be a modded Rat.

I've never tried a Rat - so, what's good, better, crap etc?

ta

stickyfiddle

The regular Rat 2 is the classic Rat sound. The common mods are:

-Different clipping diodes (or none). The usual Rat sound uses silicon diodes. The "You Dirty Rat" is germanium for more fuzzy flavour and the Turbo Rat uses LEDs- that's what the Rabbit uses for it's 2nd diode pair.

-Lifting a ground or 2 that turns it into a a light OD flavour (known as the Ruetz mod)

The wiki page is actually surprisingly good on all this! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro_Co_RAT

hugbot

Most people dont like the current production rat2 because it doesn't have the lm308 chip. Pretty much all of the clones do though.

The turbo rat uses LED clipping and is a lot louder and more midrange focused, the original is more full range. which sounds better will depend on your rig.

Johnnyseven

I've had a number of different Rat variations over the years. At the moment i'm enjoying my Turbo Rats, I currently have 3. The 2 on my pedal board are current run, small knob, Made in the USA versions which I have fitted an LM308 chip to. I also have an older big knob, non-LM308 version. From my investigations, I have deduced that there are 3 versions of the Turbo Rat:

Big knob LM308 version
Big knob non-LM308 version
Small knob non-LM308 version

I have fitted an LM308 chip to all my Turbo Rats, the 2 small knob versions sound pretty much the same - however the large knob version sounds better for some reason. A difference I have noticed between the big and small knob versions is they use different pots. The big knob versions use chunkier pots, the distortion pot seems to have has a nicer sweep than the small knob version and it seems to allow a better range in the lower to medium gain range. However the small knob version can be made to sound very similar to the big knob version.

I really want to try a big knob LM308 Turbo Rat to see what it sounds like compared to my other 3.

Johnnyseven

There's a big debate as to whether the current Rat2 and the older LM308 Rat2 sound the same or different, and if you put an LM308 in a current Rat2 will it make a difference in sound - all I can say is that changing the op amp in the current run Turbo Rat does make a noticeable difference, in a good way. 

guitarfishbay

I have the Mooer Black Secret.

It sound good and it was cheap but it is small and I do wish I'd bought a regular sized one.  If I remember rightly it is supposed to be a bit thicker and a bit less bitey than the original but I haven't personally compared the two.  The good thing about the Black Secret is it has both regular and turbo modes so you can figure out which is your favourite before buying a real one if you decide to go down that route.

Cirrus

guitarfishbay said:

If I remember rightly it is supposed to be a bit thicker and a bit less bitey than the original but I haven't personally compared the two.

This was my experience.

Dave_Mc

guitarfishbay said:

I have the Mooer Black Secret.

It sound good and it was cheap but it is small and I do wish I'd bought a regular sized one.  If I remember rightly it is supposed to be a bit thicker and a bit less bitey than the original but I haven't personally compared the two.  The good thing about the Black Secret is it has both regular and turbo modes so you can figure out which is your favourite before buying a real one if you decide to go down that route.

+1

I tried a bog standard "genuine" rat ages ago but obviously there's no way I could compare that to the mooer, you need to have the two things head to head to have any meaningful comparison.

But yeah the mooer one is pretty nice if you get it cheap enough. I'm under no illusions that the "genuine" one isn't probably built a bit better, but having had the two modes, I wouldn't be too keen on buying a rat which didn't have the clipping options since they make it a lot more versatile.

samzadgan

the most GAS worthy Rat clone for me is the one the Iron Pig...made by Acid Age now - they changed the company name from Earthboud Audio a while ago...but the pedal is still great...the old design was better in my eyes!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnL-_WQWJD0

Bidley

Love my boggo Rat 2.

Having heard a load of Youtube clips comparing circuits with and without LM308 chips, I'd say I wouldn't go out of my way to get an old one with an LM308 in it. But saying that, Youtube isn't that reliable so YMMV etc.

timmysoft

I've had the current Rat2 and the earlier USA made one with the LM308. I'd go with the current one, its filthy.

I'm not a big fan of clones,  tried a whole heap of them in the past and none of them stack up to the original. I di have a really rare Montgomery Long Tail for a while that was very, very good but in terms of value for money just get the current Rat2.

monquixote

Black Secret is ace and can do II and Turbo. 

Well worth a go IMO. 

timmysoft

monquixote said:

Black Secret is ace and can do II and Turbo. 

Well worth a go IMO. 

at volume i didnt think it was anywhere near the Rat2 for quality of tone and feel. Sounded decent down low but at stage volumes i just found the Mooer a bit "meh", i didnt use the turbo mode at all.

ThePrettyDamned

I had a go on a black secret and I have to admit, it was the absolute ballbags.  

I know it's best to get a quality item, but if you're after testing the sounds, the black secret is ace and pretty much (IMO) indistinguishable from the originals.  

Obviously, build quality isn't great - the big knob is on the PCB I think, so if you stomp that too hard, you could crack it, but it's still worth the asking price.  

What's the solo rat like?

monquixote

timmysoft said:

monquixote said:

Black Secret is ace and can do II and Turbo. 

Well worth a go IMO. 

at volume i didnt think it was anywhere near the Rat2 for quality of tone and feel. Sounded decent down low but at stage volumes i just found the Mooer a bit "meh", i didnt use the turbo mode at all.

I had a proper one at the same time and it sounded identical to me.

Bidley

ThePrettyDamned said.

What's the solo rat like?

I had one for a little while, it was like a Rat, but smoother and thicker. More 'amp-like' if you will. I really liked it, but the standard Rat 2 was a bit more versatile.

ThePrettyDamned

Bidley;166090" said:

ThePrettyDamned said.





What's the solo rat like?I had one for a little while, it was like a Rat, but smoother and thicker. More 'amp-like' if you will. I really liked it, but the standard Rat 2 was a bit more versatile.

Thanks. I've been tempted by them on eBay, they sometimes go silly cheap, but I wondered if there was a reason I hadn't heard of it and it was cheap...

d8m

This is Roland.