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Old school rat with the 308 in the big box is my favorite rat. Turbo rat ain't bad either. You should also try to check out a Bixonic Expandora. I really miss having one.

I just got a newer Rat 2 with an LM308n chip in it last night and I'm loving it. And I don't usually get along with rats.

I'm not up to date on distortion boxes, but hard to beat Zoom Tri-metal for heavy sounds.

I'm still on the lookout for a good/cheap Rat. So far I've resisted temptation and will be waiting on a solid deal to pop up.

Not exactly the coolest pedal, but I picked up Mooer Black Secret for cheap last year.
Sounds just like a Rat.
Not sure what you play, but I have the Black Forest thats on your list.
Versatile pedal, but more in the overdrive category and a little under the top compared to the other pedals you listed.
From the clip I watched of the Mantra, it seems to be similar to the Black Forest.

I ended up with a Walrus Audio Iron Horse, which is a Rat variant. It wasn't exactly what I was hoping for, so the search will continue. Next up will be a Quantum Mystic and/or a Fuck/Mini.

The Black Forest was on the list just because I knew I was going to pick one up sooner or later.

Keep an eye out for the Ibanez Fat Cat. A Rat clone, but a wee bit smoother and beefier. Still cheap enough if you can find one.

If you a fan of the rat, you should check out where it all began, the Systech OverDrive from the 70s. I think this might be the earliest non fuzz distortion pedal or thereabouts. When systech folded one of the main guys started proco rat and based the original rat on the Systech OD. cool pedal...gain, distortion, and eq knobs. actually all of systech pedals are pretty great sounding.

D.o.S. wrote:

or....a real rat fan could check out the model before the systech overdrive, the harmonic energizer to see where it all started.....probably/maybe mostly conjecture and hearsay. the harmonic energizer looks just like the OD, the knobs are gain, bandwidth, center frequency. its a fuzz with very cool control over the harmonic content at the frequency you dial in. so the sound just blows out in this rich harmonically thick fuzz.

so that was their first model, then the overdrive was the improvement, then the company folded. then proco rat starts producing the rat, which I'm guessing was where the improvement over the OD was headed and next systech model?

I actually didn't know any of that--that picture was completely sincere.

D.o.S. wrote:I actually didn't know any of that--that picture was completely sincere.

this is interesting .....

"SysTech (Systems & Technology in Music, Inc.) from Kalamazoo, Michigan, was a collaboration between Greg Hochman (Keith Emerson's Moog tech, later the North American sales director for Soundcraft) and Charlie Wicks (later the founder and CEO of Pro-Co).

Together with Bryce Roberson (a.k.a. Uncle Dirty, ex-lead engineer at Chess Records), they formed the Sound Factory in Kalamazoo in the early 70's. The company (consisting of Charlie's Sound Factory, Greg's SysTech and Bryce's Uncle Dirtys recording studio) occupied an old factory site on Kalamazoo Avenue.

Because of the brilliance of the principals, Kalamazoo became a Mecca for musicians from Detroit, Chicago, and beyond."

I don't know if you're being serious or not, but it surprises me that Systech isn't mentioned more on the forums, and as far as I know only one of their pedals has been cloned and is now a production model...its been promoted by dweezil zappa, as the pedal in question was a favorite of Frank's. Frank used a couple systech pedals but the harmonic energizer got all the hype. systech had a full range of very interesting pedals that shared a unique vision. as far as i know, i own all of their production pedals, but its hard to find much solid info. their envelope repeater pedal is pretty wild. anyhoo.

No, I was being serious. I knew about the harmonic energizer via Zappa but I didn't know about Das Rat.

so just as another option…recently i bought an MXR Super Badass Distortion…i have to say, it is one of the best distortion pedals i've had…i would even go so far to say its a little better than the SLOstortion I have. It covers a lot of ground and sounds amp like to me…oh yeah, and its fuckin loud…basically with distortion at 3 o'clock, the volume has to be at 9 o'clock!

Uncle Grandfather wrote:I don't know if you're being serious or not, but it surprises me that Systech isn't mentioned more on the forums, and as far as I know only one of their pedals has been cloned and is now a production model...its been promoted by dweezil zappa, as the pedal in question was a favorite of Frank's. Frank used a couple systech pedals but the harmonic energizer got all the hype. systech had a full range of very interesting pedals that shared a unique vision. as far as i know, i own all of their production pedals, but its hard to find much solid info. their envelope repeater pedal is pretty wild. anyhoo.

You should send some photos of your envelope repeater to Bart for his archive, seems he's lacking that one.
http://www.effectsdatabase.com/model/sy ... perepeater

Fredric Effects do a Harmonic Energizer clone too, paired with a (one knob?) IC muff fuzz.
http://www.fredric.co.uk/do-the-weasel- ... izer-clone