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frigid midget wrote:Turbo vs regular: I think there's a youtube clip floating around that compares both side by side. Totally down to taste/preference. I personally like the regular Rat II the most, though the difference isn't even that huge imo.

Vinate Rat: Slightly different shade of Rat, and imo definitely not worth the price of a bitchin boutique peddle with lotsa knobs and tricks and gizmos.

Ruetz Rat with a trim pot: The range is so small, it's not worth it imo. It's not like you'll get tons of bass with the resistor out of the circuit, there's hardly any 'inbetween' setting worth going for a pot instead of a toggle switch. Lots of good tones can be had from a Ruetz'd Rat stacked with a muff or fuzz face or some other fuzz. But at that price point you might as well look into somekind of nice tweakable clone, or just something super versatile like a Dr Scientist The Elements, which covers a ton of different types of fuzzy distortion all on it's own

interesting...
i actually have an elements already but i wouldn't compare it to a RAT tonally and i think it's a pedal MUCH better suited to tube amps and higher volumes rather than solid state amps at any volume.

i'm definitely not wanting a huge bass boost, just a little push to even out the spectrum a little. thinking of grabbing a BBE sonic stomp or something to put afterwards and tweak the spectrum a bit.

as far as stacking goes I don't mind it with the ss/bs mini afterwards at a basically zero gain setting but it makes little difference. i'm not looking for high or even medium gain sounds and i've sold basically all my fuzz pedals, i'm realising i'm definitely not a fuzz guy unfortunately it just messes with the amplitude envelope and guitar character too much with everything i've tried. i'm talking like suuuuuuuper low gain here, there's this magical in-between spot where there's almost no audible clipping but a bit of colouration that makes the guitar more ballsy that i love. my main problem with the RAT2 is just the way it goes from totally transparent to fully distorted in the first 5-10% of the knob.

I could never get a rat to work with me until I got a dirge turbo rat, and ran it after a gb24 doing an octave down blue box-esque sound. I realized in the right setting it's perfect for cutting through a mix, and stacks great with my ss/bs mini and fuck. Also Sonny Sharrock used rats and that's good enough for me.

Get C11 right--roughly coequal for the old sound to the chip. LM-301 is cheaper than an LM-308 and pretty close, maybe even better for low gain use since it seems closest up to high gain sounds.

I don't get the appeal of the Ruetz mod, and there are dozens of us! Dozens! I'd just mess with the tuning if I needed more bass from a Rat. Which I don't, but I'm also not low tuning or dooming or anything, so I get how a guy could.

There are so many great, versatile RAT based pedals out there. I have a v.2 VFE Alpha Dog and it can go from velcro fuzz (germanium) to pretty much a clean boost to a great, light OD.

i'm curious about what else is out there, especially the ARC soothsayer. Mojo Hand Socrates sounds interesting too. and the BYOC kit.
i've had alright experiences with VFE pedals so i'll have to check that one out too.

The Earthbound Audio Iron Pig is a really versatile Rat. It has a rotary switch to select from a few different clipping options. It also has a switch between distortion mode (normal) and an overdrive mode which is lower gain. That might be of interest to you since you are looking for lower gain sounds.

John Matrix wrote:The Earthbound Audio Iron Pig is a really versatile Rat. It has a rotary switch to select from a few different clipping options. It also has a switch between distortion mode (normal) and an overdrive mode which is lower gain. That might be of interest to you since you are looking for lower gain sounds.

that was totally off my radar, thanks for the tip. seems comparable to the soothsayer which has an internal hi/lo gain switch. similar price too.

backwardsvoyager wrote:

John Matrix wrote:The Earthbound Audio Iron Pig is a really versatile Rat. It has a rotary switch to select from a few different clipping options. It also has a switch between distortion mode (normal) and an overdrive mode which is lower gain. That might be of interest to you since you are looking for lower gain sounds.

that was totally off my radar, thanks for the tip. seems comparable to the soothsayer which has an internal hi/lo gain switch. similar price too.

For a while they made a smaller version under a different name: Acid Age Electronics Acid Pig

That one had less clipping options but was smaller in size and still had the Dist - OD toggle. So, if you are looking for demo videos on line, it might be helpful to look for demos of that one as well. Most of the Iron Pig demos showcase the high gain settings.

I have an Iron Pig, and I can't say enough great things about it. Really versatile, and pretty much every setting sounds good. Plenty of low end as well!

I had one of the black on black iron pigs and honestly thought it sounded terrible and thin... rat tail was way cooler in my opinion, the 1+2 knobs had way more response and versatility than the clipping diodes in the iron pig. Note: I was using a solid state head.

kbithecrowing wrote:I had one of the black on black iron pigs and honestly thought it sounded terrible and thin... rat tail was way cooler in my opinion, the 1+2 knobs had way more response and versatility than the clipping diodes in the iron pig. Note: I was using a solid state head.

what kinda solid state head? i've been using a 70s yamaha SS amp and most of my preferred dirt pedals sound a bit weird through it, but i wanna keep using it cos of dem clean tones

watching demos of the Acid Pig it sounds pretty great, i wouldn't need the non-308 clipping options probably. Rat Tail also looks neat.
tempted to pick up a Soothsayer though since nobody here seems to have tried it yet.

I use my Iron Pig with a Sunn Beta Lead (solid state) and love it. But I run both the amp and the pedal really dirty, so that's probably not too helpful for you.

I had an Iron Pig and I thought it was only OK. Of all the rat pedals i've played, I think I liked the turbo rat the most. I think don or joe also had a cheap chinese rat that was actually pretty sweet too.

ChetMagongalo wrote:I had an Iron Pig and I thought it was only OK. Of all the rat pedals i've played, I think I liked the turbo rat the most. I think don or joe also had a cheap chinese rat that was actually pretty sweet too.

Dono had the (Little?/Small?/Tiny?/Petite?) Bear r:attack or something like that.
I'm pretty sure that has the ability to select different clipping diodes and stuff too.

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