Pro Co RAT2 Distortion Pedal

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.

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....

The Pro Co RAT 2 is a rite of passage for guitarists. It is one of the few pedals that doesn’t just sit on a pedalboard; it defines the entire character of a rig. Whether you are looking for a subtle push or a total sonic meltdown, the RAT delivers with a specific, aggressive grit that has remained a staple for decades.

I used a Boss DS-1 for decades and thought I’d never need a different distortion pedal because it’s awesome. The RAT blows the DS-1 out of the water. It’s way more versatil, sounds much better, and way louder!

It is not a great but good pedal for the money. The build quality is very good, sturdy metal housing, tactile switch and the knobs are good quality. It is heavy enough to keep itself from moving on the floor, so far found nothing against the build. Now as for the performance, I am using this with bass (do not know whether its meant for the guitars only or not) and it requires a bit of adjustment for it's lo cut. If the song has distortion and clean both, balancing with the bypass is little tricky; had to cut the treble , lower the middle and boost the bass from the amp side. My sweetspot is 20% on the distortion, 70-75% on filter and volume and it delivers good level of OD. To make it even more dirty, I crank up the volume booster on the guitar rather than using the distortion knob. For the $70, this is a very good pedal over boss but don't expect augilar or TS808 out of this. For practice and experiment, I'm using it already; for live, I may or may not use this; for recording, nah... I will stick to my aguilar tubes.

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.

The ProCo Rat 2 is the quintessential distortion pedal for grungy punk rock and is still widely-used today by punks and rockers of all stripes. The Rat 2 comes in a near-indestructible steel casing with heavy-duty knobs and switch. I've been using this pedal (not this exact one, had to buy it again after selling it years back during lean times) for years without incident. The pedal itself couldn't be easier to use with a Volume knob, Distortion knob and a Filter knob. You can dial in many, many different tones (check out some Youtube review vids for audio examples) and with just a little tweaking, the tone will change drastically. The Rat 2 can achieve a nice fuzz-like distortion, warm blues, trebly-high metal tones and many others. For this reason, I really recommend spending some time with this pedal to get it dialed-in exactly how you'd like it and to familiarize yourself with its tonal range and possibilities. If you're thinking about purchasing this grunge box, a few notes: the Rat 2 does have a red LED (the original RATs did not) under the "A" so you can see when it's engaged, it is true-bypass, and most importantly, the plug for the power adapter is not the standard Boss-style plug (spacing the technical name), it's a 3.5mm (1/8" in.) plug. The power adapter plug can be an issue if you're using a daisy chain or power supply, but many of those will come with a 3.5mm adapter (most likely for this very pedal), or you can pick up an RPS-1 power supply. If you're sticking with batteries, getting to the battery case is no-tools-required, so no un-screwing four screws off the bottom of the case like a lot of other boutique models. I highly recommend picking up this pedal for its versatility and tone. My personal favorite use for the Rat 2 is tossing a Boss BD-2 in front of it and running it into my Vox AC30.

I was actually surprised at how much I liked this pedal. Of course, before buying, I took advantage of Guitar Center's "try anything" attitude, and checked it out on my setup (gibson explorer/fender american standard stratocaster on vox ac30 tube amp) at GC. I heard about this pedal at a workshop with the Supertramp guitarist Carl Verheyen as he was going through his "mini" pedalboard. I loved the tone that he was getting, and heard the words "Proco RAT2 distortion pedal" followed by the word "modified" and then "no longer making the mod kits". To my dismay, I couldn't find the modded RAT2 pedal on ebay, craigslist, or from a standard retailer. On my quest to find a distortion pedal that gave me versatility and a certain "lyricalness, with lots of sustain, but kind of fat and buttery, but still able to obtain a good bluesy crunch", so I said to the guy at the Guitar Center pedal counter. I got a strange look back from him and he said, "Why don't you try this thing, it's got a really unique sound" and he pulled out the rat. I loved it. Following my experience with the rat, I played through a T-rex Yellow Drive, a Box Of Rock, and a Swollen Pickle, but I didn't really like any of them that much. Don't get me wrong, they're great pedals, but they didn't have the tone I was looking for. So I returned them to the counter, still exhilarated by the sound of the glorious Proco RAT2 pedal. I picked it up for around $80 off of Guitar Center (I owe them for all the guitars I've tried out there), and took it home. I haven't been disappointed :) If you cut the tone (turn up the filter knob to about 3:00) and turn up the distortion knob to around 5:00 (volume at 12:00) then you'll get a really fat and buttery tone thats great for long wails and attempting to make your guitar sound kind of like a vocalist. It also does a great Santana sound, something I've been seeking for a while. You can also get a decent crunch sound, but you have to turn the distortion wayyyy down to around 8:00. Before I conclude this review, let me say this- Don't buy this pedal after reading about how awesome I thought it was, go to a music store or something and try it out for yourself. If you really want to save $2, then come back to Amazon and buy it. Otherwise, just pick it up where you tried it- you owe them, knowing how many times you've probably reaped the benefits of their large library of instruments. So yeah That's my review

I had a hankering for a fuzz, and decided to try You Dirty Rat. I did not know what to expect and it surprised me! First of all, build quality is as expected from ProCo, robust metal case and switch, built for years of abuse. From the website: "The key to the You Dirty RAT tone is in its germanium clipping diodes." Rat distortion nuanced with a warmer? more bottom end? addition to a classic fuzz tone. I like it, and if you can get one at a good price, go for it. Many germanium diode fuzz circuit clones abound, but at 100 dollar price point, it's worth it .

It's so easy to use, less physical labor, high responses to touch, so less time to operate and more time to concentrate on the progression, pleasant sound output and so many more.

OH BOY, WHERE DO I START? THIS IS ONE OF THOSE RARE PEDALS WHICH TAKE SOME EXPERTISE TO MASTER THE SOUND. BUT THE REWARD IS FANTASTIC ! ALONGSIDE MY RAT DEUCETONE (yes, that 6-in-1 pedal), "SOLO" IS LISTED IN MY HALL OF FAME OF DISTORTION PEDALS - ALL TIME BEST ! LOVE IT.

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I love this. It's not expensive, and it covers everything from mild drive to fuzz to boost. The amount of gain is nuts, and the tone (filter) is SO powerful. It's perfect, but probably not for modern metal because it's not tight enough in the extremes. Only negative is it has big feet, so you have to build up layers of velcro, unless you take the feet off. Amazing pedal!