School me on Rats

[MaxMaps]

The famous RAT - everyone has had them and the zillons of variants out there.

I could spend hours of my life deep diving into youtube gas frenzied ness but in the interest of rebuiling my attention span and dailing down my anxiety - I am gonna slowly step away from social media and see if that helps.

So I am asking the fuzz bros and not impulse purchasing - what is best? the LM308 clone, a big box Rat or the many variants out there?

I have owned the Rat Tail and a LM308 clone that an old forum member built but its been so long

Teach me friends

[echorec]

These two threads have a lot of insight:

http://ilovefuzz.com/viewtopic.php?f=149&t=60413

Big Ear Woodcutter (spec tribute rat)
Foxpedal Wrath (p&w rat)
1981 Inventions DRV (shiny rat)
Ibanez Fat Cat / L.A. Metal (california rats)
Fuzzrocious Rat Tail/King Rat/Rat Tail/Snail Mail/Baxstabber/etc? (pizza rats)
BYOC Lil' Mouse (solder rat)
Biyang Mouse (aluminum rat)
Blakemore ROUS (equalized rat)
Walrus Iron Horse (false rat)
Dunn Deceiver (doom rat)
Retro Sonic Distortion (clever rat)
Dimarzio Very Metal (spinal rat)
ProCo Deucetone (double rat w/ cheese)

viewtopic.php?f=149&t=65300&hilit=rats (going beyond Rats)

[friendship]

Welcome to Rat School. Here's a Rat.

[MaxMaps]

Hell yes rat school

[Dowi]

In my limited experience with rats I have found that the ones I enjoy more are with LED clipping or with no clipping diodes at all. That's all I have to say.

[D.o.S.]

Return of the Rat?

[Blackened Soul]

Rats are an odd pedal.. despite what people say they actually are technically… they hover in between a od a distortion and a fuzz. Not many pedals can you do altshogazeindierock, metal and work for bass… the first time I had one I didn’t get it, it sounded like generic rock tonez to me compared to my trusty dod deathmetal and boss odb3 which I used for years… I came back to a rat after a insanely long pedal search for a one pedal that worked on bass in a band.. granted with a blender pedal…. And also I found you can pull some nice filthy guitar tones out of the, plus running them into a muff gives you this impenetrable fuzz wall of doom

[fcknoise]

Rat into big muff is my favorite sound currently. I have a big box RI currently, but the EA Iron Pig is very good. At this point I essentially leave it always on

[Gone Fission]

Like Blackened Soul, I was initially disappointed with the Rat. My teen into early 20s sonic hunt was looking for a smooth, liquid sound, and the Rat isn’t about those things, at least not on it’s own. Run it into a squishing compressor and some serious delay (and if you can into an amp where the output transformer is saturating at least a bit) and it’s not incompatible with those goals if maybe not the ultimate thing. Wanting smooth I would overdo it on the filter, which is a bit meh. The beauty of the Rat is the jangle/edge/hash, that bit that makes notes stick out even when you’ve got a shit ton of gain or dense delay and/or reverb going on. So my advice for newbies is to open the filter more than you initially dialed it and see how it sits.

Oh, and at low gain with the filter up it’s like a treble booster that’s magic for power pop and such.

(Still on a 91 or 92 big box “Vintage Rat” with factory LM308, all stock. I’ve thought of making the mild tweaks and getting tantalum caps in it to make it pure vintage, but I’ve decided not to fuck with a good thing.)

[cosmicevan]

There are a few unobtanium Rats that I really like from Dunwich / Magic (Volt Thrower and variants) and Broughton Audio (Locust Star)...probably my favorite for guitar is the Electrofoods Nepenthes and I'm also SUPER into the #RIP from ILF's own dropping acid pedals / MAE. I've seen those pop up used for like $115 and less...gets a little dirtier than most but I think you'd be into that based on what you write on this site.

[chuckjaywalk]

My favorite will always be the Ibanez Black Noise but don't pay Reverb prices for a plastic pedal.

[Gone Fission]

#rip isn’t a Rat but it’s great. It can do Rat-ish things, HM-2-ish things, Fuzz Factory and Devi-ish things. It’s like the Bitquest of dirt pedals. The world is sleeping on it and you should buy it before someone catches on and makes it unobtanium. But definitely not a Rat.

[MaxMaps]

There are a few unobtanium Rats that I really like from Dunwich / Magic (Volt Thrower and variants) and Broughton Audio (Locust Star)...probably my favorite for guitar is the Electrofoods Nepenthes and I'm also SUPER into the #RIP from ILF's own dropping acid pedals / MAE. I've seen those pop up used for like $115 and less...gets a little dirtier than most but I think you'd be into that based on what you write on this site.

I think you know me friend

[cosmicevan]

#rip isn’t a Rat but it’s great. It can do Rat-ish things, HM-2-ish things, Fuzz Factory and Devi-ish things. It’s like the Bitquest of dirt pedals. The world is sleeping on it and you should buy it before someone catches on and makes it unobtanium. But definitely not a Rat.

I always get mixed up when I see LM. I double checked and yeah...Rats are LM308 and the #RIP is an LM386 based Op-Amp distortion.

[D.o.S.]

#rip isn’t a Rat but it’s great. It can do Rat-ish things, HM-2-ish things, Fuzz Factory and Devi-ish things. It’s like the Bitquest of dirt pedals. The world is sleeping on it and you should buy it before someone catches on and makes it unobtanium. But definitely not a Rat.

I always get mixed up when I see LM. I double checked and yeah...Rats are LM308 and the #RIP is an LM386 based Op-Amp distortion.

On this note, for Rats you're basically looking at two different Op Amps: The LM308 or the OP07. They do sound different, but a lot of people will just blindly proclaim that the 308 is better, which is not always the case - and if you're not looking to spend a ton of money, the OP07 variants can run a bit cheaper.