spi
Well-known member
- Build Rating
I finally built myself a Rat.
My first exposure was over 10 years ago when my friend loaned me his Turbo Rat. At the time, it didn't make a huge impact on me, and I didn't understand the hype--it was just too fuzzy in high gain.
During the pandemic building spree, I asked that same friend to pick a pedal for me to make him, and he chose a Rat. I said "are you sure? There's 100s of pedals to pick from and you already have a Rat." Still, he wanted a non-turbo Rat, so I built a Muroidea.
When I auditioned it, I liked it more than I remembered. I also built an Informant, and it started growing on me, with the things I liked about it reminiscent of that Rat build.
I realized I should just build a Rat to have in my collection. I wanted clipping options and the Ruetz mod, which led me to the Slow Loris PCB from Madbeans.
The Madbeans PCB is a bit strange in using both 9mm and 16mm pots. The 9mm pots ended up being a bit shorter, and I couldn't fit the washer and nut, so ended up using just the nut. I soldered the pots and switches by placing the PCB on the topside of the enclosure, only to find when flipping it over to mount it inside, the hand-drilled holes were off just enough that it didn't fit right in the mirrored orientation, and I really had to force it in (hoping it wouldn't break something).
I wanted to try hand-labelling this one with a Posca Paint Pen. In the past I tried colored Sharpie Paint Pens, but they didn't work well--the paint washed out on top of dark color finish. The Posca works much better. I didn't seal it (because I was too impatient to get on with the build) and a lot of it rubbed off when I was assembling. I may patch it up later or even scratch it off and start over.
I played it a bunch today, and I'm definitely coming around to liking the Rat. Having built so many overdrives, I recognize there's something unique about it that other drives don't do.
Rated this 4 stars... 5 for the tone but docked a point for the 9mm pot weirdness.
My first exposure was over 10 years ago when my friend loaned me his Turbo Rat. At the time, it didn't make a huge impact on me, and I didn't understand the hype--it was just too fuzzy in high gain.
During the pandemic building spree, I asked that same friend to pick a pedal for me to make him, and he chose a Rat. I said "are you sure? There's 100s of pedals to pick from and you already have a Rat." Still, he wanted a non-turbo Rat, so I built a Muroidea.
When I auditioned it, I liked it more than I remembered. I also built an Informant, and it started growing on me, with the things I liked about it reminiscent of that Rat build.
I realized I should just build a Rat to have in my collection. I wanted clipping options and the Ruetz mod, which led me to the Slow Loris PCB from Madbeans.
The Madbeans PCB is a bit strange in using both 9mm and 16mm pots. The 9mm pots ended up being a bit shorter, and I couldn't fit the washer and nut, so ended up using just the nut. I soldered the pots and switches by placing the PCB on the topside of the enclosure, only to find when flipping it over to mount it inside, the hand-drilled holes were off just enough that it didn't fit right in the mirrored orientation, and I really had to force it in (hoping it wouldn't break something).
I wanted to try hand-labelling this one with a Posca Paint Pen. In the past I tried colored Sharpie Paint Pens, but they didn't work well--the paint washed out on top of dark color finish. The Posca works much better. I didn't seal it (because I was too impatient to get on with the build) and a lot of it rubbed off when I was assembling. I may patch it up later or even scratch it off and start over.
I played it a bunch today, and I'm definitely coming around to liking the Rat. Having built so many overdrives, I recognize there's something unique about it that other drives don't do.
Rated this 4 stars... 5 for the tone but docked a point for the 9mm pot weirdness.
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