Problem with Proco Rat/Setup

floydthebarber

I'm having a little problem with my vintage 85 proco rat. When I play play the low E string with a little "umph", I am getting a very noticeable volume cut. This only happens right as I pick the string, and the tone will come back when I let the note ring.

I play a fender mustang, jag and strat with jb's in the bridge, and I get this with all of them. I've tried playing through a couple of different amps and I get the same thing, and it seems to be more predominant when I pick right over the humbucker. I have checked pickup height it doesn't make any difference. I have other distortion pedals and the only one that gives me this problem is the rat. I had it serviced and checked over by my guitar tech, and everything is good.

Is this a problem with the rat or the guitars? has anyone else experienced this problem? Any feedback would be great.

Thanks!

spirograph

not a clue, but it might be an input issue. if its only when u hit a low note, hard, then its something in the early stages in the rat that cant handle the level coming from the guitar. im only guessing, cos i never experienced this myself.

tragictravisty

try backing the gain down a bit. does that solve the problem?

floydthebarber

when I turn down the gain about half way it will not happen but thats disappointing because I usually play with the distortion cranked, and I should be able to have full range. I did a little more investigating with a keeley ds-1 I just got, and it does the same thing, but its only faint, and gets worse as I move my srumming towards the bridge pickup. I also have a silver screw ds-1, and again its very faint(less than the rat and the keeley).

Now.......a friend of mine brought over a ds-2, and it didn't happen at all...Im stumped

floydthebarber

ok....after some more screwing around, I definitely think that the pedals cannot handle the output of the JB. I started playing around with the single coil neck pickups in my guitars, and there is absolutely no volume/tone drop when I strum. its weird that the worst pedal out of them all, the ds-2, was the one that could take the output of the pickups. Anyways, does anyone know anything about pedal electronics that would be able to give me some insight?

HNB

floyd the barber said:
ok....after some more screwing around, I definitely think that the pedals cannot handle the output of the JB. I started playing around with the single coil neck pickups in my guitars, and there is absolutely no volume/tone drop when I strum. its weird that the worst pedal out of them all, the ds-2, was the one that could take the output of the pickups. Anyways, does anyone know anything about pedal electronics that would be able to give me some insight?

My Rat handles a TB-4 (Fender spaced JB) fine that is in my Mustang. Is it maybe the amp that is clipping or cutting volume? Did you try the pedal and guitar with another amp? JB's are usually 16.4k output which is high, but shouldn't be high enough that a pedal can't handle it. (Kurt used tones of JB's and he also had a rat along with some other pedals, so it should be able to handle it.) There are some humbuckers a little higher also, etc. Does it still do the sound issue with the volume backed down a bit?

Maybe your amp is having trouble with the output from the pedal or maybe you have a bad cable? Try a different amp with all of your other stuff. A good process for finding the issue is try switching one thing at a time and see if there are changes. Amp, cables, pedal, guitar.

spirograph

is your pickup too close to your strings? try backing it off a few mm's.

spirograph

sorry - just re-read that, you said pickup height makes no difference.

floydthebarber

thanks for all the advice. I will start by checking my things one by one, starting with the amp. And now that I think about it, it could use a tube replacement/service. Hopefully its something as easy as routine maintenance.