MichaelW
Well-known member
- Build Rating
I mentioned in the Mailbox Thread that @steviejr92 sent me a prototype of his "Rat Salad" circuit with a custom made enclosure.
I built it out today and I have to say it may be my favorite Rat variant I've built to date.
Take the best of a stock Rat, throw in the eq flexibility of the 1981 DRV and add a taste of the Pandora and you'll get an idea of what this pedal can do.
The stock Rat is in there but it's sooooo flexible. The whole gain range is usable from low gain to full on distortion.
There's a "filter" control that takes the place of the "Cut" knob of a Rat but it works more like the 1981DRV in that it's much more range to dial out the muddiness if that's what you want.
There's also a "compression" control that blends in the two flavors of LED clippers so that it can act more like an overdrive and distinctly non-Rat-ish.
But a couple of tweaks and you're back in Rat land.
Then the enclosure design, super cool! I know Stevie is still tweaking the powder coating and silkscreening but it looks awesome to me!
And the amp jewel holds the two clipping LED's so you can see them light up when you play. Pretty neat stuff.
Awesome circuit Stevie!!! Way to go dude! I love it!!
Oh, forgot to mention, I used a "mojo" Motorola LM308 metal can IC
For the demo I wanted to use something gnarly to play through this pedal, so I decided to dig out my Epiphone Les Paul Special, which hasn't gotten a lot of love since I got my P90 Gold top.
I realized that I never really finished that guitar, I wanted to cut a bone nut for it and age the tail piece a bit. So I did that today and put a fresh set of strings on for the demo.
There was still something "off" about how it sounded, so I took a peek in the control cavity and remembered that when I re-wired it initially I didn't have any PIO caps on hand and decided to use Tropical Fish caps. Now I know a lot of you think that it's all in my head when I prattle on about PIO caps, but "I" can hear a difference. So I popped out the Fishies and popped in an .015 PIO for the neck and a .033 for the bridge and now all is well.
Forgot how much I love this guitar! It's got a set of Lollar P90's in it, 50's wind in the neck and a standard wind in the bridge.
I built it out today and I have to say it may be my favorite Rat variant I've built to date.
Take the best of a stock Rat, throw in the eq flexibility of the 1981 DRV and add a taste of the Pandora and you'll get an idea of what this pedal can do.
The stock Rat is in there but it's sooooo flexible. The whole gain range is usable from low gain to full on distortion.
There's a "filter" control that takes the place of the "Cut" knob of a Rat but it works more like the 1981DRV in that it's much more range to dial out the muddiness if that's what you want.
There's also a "compression" control that blends in the two flavors of LED clippers so that it can act more like an overdrive and distinctly non-Rat-ish.
But a couple of tweaks and you're back in Rat land.
Then the enclosure design, super cool! I know Stevie is still tweaking the powder coating and silkscreening but it looks awesome to me!
And the amp jewel holds the two clipping LED's so you can see them light up when you play. Pretty neat stuff.
Awesome circuit Stevie!!! Way to go dude! I love it!!
Oh, forgot to mention, I used a "mojo" Motorola LM308 metal can IC
For the demo I wanted to use something gnarly to play through this pedal, so I decided to dig out my Epiphone Les Paul Special, which hasn't gotten a lot of love since I got my P90 Gold top.
I realized that I never really finished that guitar, I wanted to cut a bone nut for it and age the tail piece a bit. So I did that today and put a fresh set of strings on for the demo.
There was still something "off" about how it sounded, so I took a peek in the control cavity and remembered that when I re-wired it initially I didn't have any PIO caps on hand and decided to use Tropical Fish caps. Now I know a lot of you think that it's all in my head when I prattle on about PIO caps, but "I" can hear a difference. So I popped out the Fishies and popped in an .015 PIO for the neck and a .033 for the bridge and now all is well.
Forgot how much I love this guitar! It's got a set of Lollar P90's in it, 50's wind in the neck and a standard wind in the bridge.
