Rat / You dirty rat

Pedro

Hello peeps. The bass player in our band lent me his 'you dirty rat' pedal ages ago and it's developed a fault with the switch (lets be clear about this - I DIDN'T break it!) which means the volume lurches up and down like hell when you engage it, and it sometimes stays high, and sometimes stay low. Most embarassing on stage.

So a) can I get a new switch for it easily, or

😎 does anyone know if the normal 'rat' pedal sounds the same? *edit* when i say sounds the same, I mean before the other one broke!

I like the tone of it but never use the filter control cos it's completely useless, just wondered if anyone could compare and contrast so I can get a replacement?

Thanks

Bob_the_godly_dude

When I first built my home made clean boost I had the same problem, turned out to be that the footswitch was dodgey and was locking in half on, although I didn't get the same sound when it didn't work, it was all fuzzey, presumably becasuse not all the batery power was getting to the OpAmp chip, so it was fuzzing the sound up. Was very annoying, but I swapped out the switch for a new one and no problems.

paul_

the dirty rat has more gain than the regular rat (hence the name).

the turbo rat is somewhat similar, but overall smoother and more tame (no harsh harmonic overtones jumping out at you, just a big sludge of them with the gain whacked up). so if you can't get another dirty rat i'd go for one of those. i don't like them as much as any other rat though.

slightly off topic, but since there's a "you dirty rat" i wish they'd come out with a stand-alone "clean rat" pedal like the clean rat setting in the deucetone. the lower-gain rat effect can be set to be really just a toneboost that is truly righteous... or you can get the most substance out of a light overdrive sound ever.

Pedro

Thanks guys. Just tryed out a little big muff in the shop and it sounds pretty cool - going to try to get hold of a replacement switch first though and get busy with the soldering iron

echelon

You Dirty Rat adds more gain to a RAT 2, but also contains a compressor, so the sound is all compressed and sustains longer.

This would probably be more useful to a bass-player than a straight fuzz box.

Doog

ProCo have set up a site just for the RAT pedals now, it's pretty cool, a lot more useful for A/Bing the different pedals than before.

http://www.ratdistortion.com/

paul_

that's a cool site andy, thanks for bringing it to attention.

echelon

Doog said: ProCo have set up a site just for the RAT pedals now, it's pretty cool, a lot more useful for A/Bing the different pedals than before.
http://www.ratdistortion.com/

WOW what a cool site! thanks for the heads up 😀

Pedro

Well I replaced the switch with a brand new one. AND IT STILL DOES THE SAME THING. AARRGGGGHHH. Can't see what's causing it, took the back off the pedal and laid it on it's side and pressed the switch by hand and sometimes it goes full volume and sometimes it goes really quiet, and there doesn't seem to be any reason for it. Maybe something on the PCB I couldn't see, or a crack or something. Dammit 😕

echelon

although that RAT site is good, they don't have a soundclip of the RAT2 running at very high gain.

Can any RAT owners quickly explain the difference in sound between a RAT2 running at full pelt, and a Turbo RAT with gain turned up?

thanks!

dinosaur

the dirty rat sounds more overdriven