Pro Co RAT2 Distortion Pedal

There a hundreds of distortion pedals on the market today. Sure, some are said to be the best at this or that, but for me the RAT is the one that does it all. And at a great price to boot. This pedal is not new to me. I've had a few of them in the past, but the RAT 2 is just a great as the older "vintage" models. Goes from a nice bit of drive that is far better than a Tube Screamer, to a near fuzztone, with some warm, smooth creamy tones in between. Remarkable. No other distortion pedal can do it as well. I've been playing for 5 decades and have had more than my share of them. But the RAT delivers. No joke. It just does it all, and well.The Filter (tone) is set up where the tone gets deeper by going clockwise rather than counter clockwise. That might thow a few folks off, but it's a little thing really. The Filter is the core of it's tone and the Distortion control is very linear in how it increases the distortion. By going higher with the Distortion control, the volume only goes up a little. That's great as making changes while playing is less of a hastle if you just lean over and bump it up a bit, the volume won't go through the roof.100% silent switching. No hum. No buzz. And no loss or increase of your overall level when you engage the unit. Flawless comes to mind here. Easy to set up. Strong as a Tiger tank. And just flat out gives you what you want without all the fuss of 6 or 8 knobs for you to mess with. And the three that are there all glow in the dark like all the RATs of the past. Kinda cool if you ask me.If one wants a good distortion pedal that will perform without issues, get yourself a RAT. If you want to impress your friends with how much money you dumped on a "boo-teek" pedal that sits in the RAT's shadow, buy that high dollar unit and you can at least "Look Good" while you play. But your tone will still stink. Its up to you. Me? Its a no brainer. I go with the RAT....

This can get an amazingly broad array of pleasing OD, distortion, and fuzz sounds- especially with another OD before and/or after if the amp signal is clean. I can hear crazy amounts of harmonics and octave notes at different settings. Simple and powerful 3 controls. You can hear the design influence of it's predecessors- fuzz face, tone bender, and Big Muff fuzzes. Many of those sounds are in this box. It's glorious and bombastic.I grew up and learned to play guitar in the 1990's, big fan of Nirvana. I didn't know what types of pedals Kurt Cobain or other famous people used. It didn't matter, we used what we had and turned it up LOUD to get there. Didnt know any better. This RAT pedal will get you all those similar, familiar classic sounds and, more importantly, search for our own sounds with it as a tool. There are copies of this circuit design out there, and I can now absolutely recommend the original here to anyone considering a cheaper copy, or an expensively revamped boutique version. This pedal is sweet. Just played it for an hour straight. No regerts.

I have a TS9, Fulltone Plimsoul, and Walrus AGES which are great but don't get too dirty. The RAT provides a great crunch and huge sustain. It is VERY reasonably priced and built like a tank. It is a little dark, but that is not bad and the filter works well to adjust to taste. It does add some noise -as expected.One minor hassle is that I had to unscrew the rubber feet and just put the screws back in and also had to remove the hex screw on the battery compartment in order for it to attach properly to the pedal board. The Velcro keeps the battery cover from coming off.I use this with my PRS McCarty which is sublime and it sounds great with my HSS Strat also. My amps are mostly the Fender Princeton and the Deluxe Reverb which love the pedal very much.

As most guitarists who play electric guitar and use effects know this is a pedal that has been around for many years. I have not played through the older original RAT so I can't compare the RAT2 to that but I find this to be a pedal that I could use and get by without anything else. I suppose I am like many players who think that the size of the pedal is clunky and won't fit on a current board, or think that it's just for hard rock or metal. The size is not an issue with me as I bought it to use with a wah on the floor and not part of my regular pedalboard; and, my intent was to use this for classic rock tunes that require a wah/distortion sound. I will use my A/B switch to go between that separate rig and my regular pedalboard. But now I have a dilemma. I play my USA Strat with Lawrence Wilde L45S humbucking pickups (single coil size) into a very good tube amp and I find this thing useable for anything from a light breakup tube-like blues tone to an all-out fuzz with sustain forever. I could use this in place of other pedals I use now.Will this replace the best overdrive, best distortion or best fuzz pedal out there? No. And that's a matter of personal taste anyway. But if you are a gigging player and don't want to take a $300 overdrive out with other expensive pedals that might go AWOL while you take your eyes off them, this pedal, or better yet, two of them, will get you all the dirt tones you need for a wide variety of musical styles. It's really a great pedal and now I feel rather silly for not having given this serious consideration long before now.I encourage anyone who tries this pedal to strum your guitar without the pedal engaged and lock that sound in your brain, and then engage the pedal. Unless you've got the pedal slammed to maximum distortion you'll hear the original guitar sound with distortion added and not a totally different tonal quality added to your original guitar sound. I've used both high end boutique pedals and pedals priced for the working musician and many just don't have that transparency. When you have this quality you can effectively use the volume and tone controls on your guitar. If you are a guitarist who likes to utilize your guitar controls you'll know what I mean. For example, a Tube Screamer is known to add a very noticeable midrange-hump to your guitar tone but if you're looking for a similar tube-like overdrive without the mid boost this will work. I know that fusion jazz guitarist John Scofield has used a RAT for a long time and I never could understand why he would use this pedal based on my previous misconception of this pedal as not useable for fusion or blues styles.If you are looking for a different type of dirt pedal and are tired of all of the Tube Screamer clones (a Tube Screamer is the standard and I'm not knocking it and have used one) try this and you might not feel like you've still got to add a second or third dirt pedal for distortion or fuzz. The build quality is excellent and the controls are smooth. It is well shielded and will hold up to stage abuse.