Modding a Rat to Overdrive

[Eaglestone]

Ok, so I love my Rat. But like a lot of people I like to use it more as an overdrive, with the Distortion knob around 9:00. I'm looking to mod it up into more of a less gain kinda overdrive, which it seems to me is the Reutz mod. My electronics experience is limited, but it looks like this mod can be done with only cutting 1 resistor.

I'm hoping to get a med-gain overdrive that still has some some bite too it. Tube Screamers don't go far enough for me, and the OCD I found too bassy. Fuzz doesn't work for me cuz I like to play 6 string chords, and I like to hear all the notes. Past 9:00 or so on the Rat and I lose to much note definition and sound like a hair band.

I would like to get the sound that I get at 9:00 but be able to push it a little further without it turning into a mud party.


Am I doing the right thing and cutting that resistor?

Any info on getting articulate strings coming through while keeping raspyiness and "artifacts" is appreciated.

[crazynoises]

My $.02:

I would try to explore every other option before doing the Reutz mod if I were you. The Reutz mod eliminates a filter so it changes your frequency response. It also changes your gain characteristics as a byproduct so you may find the pedal is more workable for you. But it's a tone changer primarily, NOT a gain changer. Some people like the sound with the Reutz mod, and some (like me) don't. But the key thing to me is that you said you love your Rat and you like the tone you get with the pedal at 9:00. So I wouldn't mess with a good thing unless as a last resort.

I personally think that my Rat has a very good linear and controllable gain/dirt response. It's one of the things I like about it. So if your sound is going from something that is nice and almost what you want to suddenly way-over-the-top muddy then it may be a result of the Rat interacting with your amp or some other pedal in the chain or your guitar volume or something. Which means you may be able to tackle the problem by changing something else in your chain rather than changing the Rat.

Only if you don't like "the Rat sound" would I do the Reutz mod or buy another pedal. Anything else, I would try to adjust other things to give you that bit of extra headroom. Maybe try to get the right amount of dirt from your OD pedal and just add a touch of Rat to add a bit of bite at the end. Or use the volume controls on the rat, OD, guitar and/or amp instead of the distortion so the Rat distortion stays at the 9:00 setting you like but you can dial in more dirt through some other means. The usual suspects.

[Eaglestone]

Thanks, this actually worked.

I used a Super Hard On in front of the 9:00 Rat and turned the volume down on the amp a little and it cleared things up a lot. I had tried the SHO with the Rat before, but the distortion was a lot higher and it sounded like shit. This worked out a lot better! I might try out an OCD style pedal before the Rat and use the Rat to just add a little hair. My amp is a late 70s Garnet Deputy that sounds awesome with just the SHO pushing it a little bit, so I don't need a lot to get a good rippin sound but I'm finding it trickier to get the next level up in terms of distorting.

[Eaglestone]

I think I'm just itchin to mod. Maybe I'll try and track down another one and see what happens.

[Eaglestone]

Anyone have any experience boosting a Rat with a Rat?

[Gone Fission]

Anyone have any experience boosting a Rat with a Rat?

There was a thread with a pic of a double-Rat pedalboard that the Raveonettes use. I think Future Sailors and probably more ILF-ers rock dual Rat boards.

[crazynoises]

I personally have never used two Rats together but I have stacked two distortion pedals before, many times. You just have to dial them both back so you get just a little flavor from each and then blend them together. It's a little tricky because as distortion pedals, they both tend to want to take over your amp/OD/booster/each other/other distortion source, so you have to experiment a bit, but it can definitely sound great if you get it right.

Graham Coxon and Bernard Butler both used multiple Rats in their chains. I'm sure there have been others. Lots of other famous players have run Rats into Muffs or Rats into fuzz even.

[theavondon]

Rat into muff is amazing, as is two dialed back rats. Just, chiming in.

[Bieling2]

I love my BYOC Mouse, 6 flavors of RAT and easy to build!

Position 1: "Vintage" Symmetrical Distortion
Position 2: "Turbo" Distortion
Position 3: Asymmetrical Distortion
Position 4: Symmetrical O.D.
Position 5: Asymmetrical O.D.
Position 6: MOSFET O.D.

[controlFreak]

If you decrease the capacitance of either filter in the feedback loop of the op-amp, you'll shift the bass roll off further into the mids for more of a treble boost effect. Doing this cleans up the drive at the expense of lows, but you can always filter the mids and highs post clip to even things back up.

[lamf]

Two rats 80s Jeff Beck ,

[culturejam]

Am I doing the right thing and cutting that resistor?

That will definitely dial back the gain a bit, while retaining the overall character of the Rat sound.

Cutting the resistor will do what you want, but replacing it with a trimmer or pot is much better. Then you can adjust how much gain is rolled off.

[autopilot]

2 rats sounds super cool, i was fixing a rat deucetone and cascaded both channels while testing it and sounded rad, i found that with the gain past 5 it sounded a bit scooped and without clarity

[Boxbie]

I'm going to un mod my rat when I can be bothered working out what I did to it in the first place.