DEMO Rat Salad (Chicken Wing Audio)

This post contains an audio or video demo
steviejr92 said:
So I need to order some boards! There are revisions done to the schem that weren't done to the board in terms of values. Now that i know people want them im ordering them now asap! If you want an enclosure I can certainly make one as a package! I actually got in some supplies so ill start right away! @SillyOctpuss and @Joben Magooch I will let you guys know when boards are available!
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Add me to that list, please!
 
Brett said:
Are those After Dark boards? I don’t even use distortion and have never owned a Rat but this sounds awesome! I’ll keep an eye out for if/when you make these available to purchase!
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Yes those are After Dark boards. Unfortunately the lead time for those boards is like 3 weeks....

Not to mention quite expensive. Ill be using JLCPCB to order some boards!

I will definitely let it be known when the Rat Salad boards are up for sale!
 
MichaelW said:
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:)

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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.

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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.

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What do you hear exactly between the two types of caps? My understanding is that the cap is pretty much out of the circuit with the tone pot all the way up. I've never bothered to do a test myself.
 
It's never "completely" out of the circuit unless you are using a "no load" pot. But to your point, it's how the guitar sounds when you roll off the tone. And more specifically, in a 50's wiring circuit all 4 controls are somewhat interactive. It's how the tapers work with the settings I normally use. For instance, on a Les Paul/SG I typically have the bridge tone rolled off to about 8. With a .015 PIO cap I know exactly how that will affect the neck volume for instance if I have both pickups selected and I roll the volume on the neck down a bit. I also know how a .033 PIO cap will affect it slightly differently. But throw in a film or poly cap, like an Orange Drop, it sounds different to me. My main lead tone on a Les Paul for instance is almost always both pickups selected with the neck volume rolled off just enough to have the definition of the bridge pickup cut through. For me, PIO tone caps have a "sound" that I can hear and it bothers me when I'm playing Orange drops or Mallory's.
It's less of an issue or less noticeable I should say on F style guitars or guitars with modern 4 knob Gibson wiring,
I know that I'm opening myself up to ridicule to even talk about this as it seems to be a frequent target for derision... :ROFLMAO: .

But like anything else gear related, I have favorite strings that I love, and I have strings that I hate. It's all just Swedish steel and nickel plating right? Strings are strings, it's all in your head. Pickups are just wire and magnets, all humbuckers are the same, the difference is all in your head. Alder, ash, Korina, mahogany, it's all just timber right? Well, you get the idea heh. I don't claim to be at the level of Eric Johnson, who says he can hear the difference of adding an extra washer on the input jack on his Strats. Or that he can hear the difference between brands of batteries used in a pedal, hahaha. But there are things I can hear that please me or bother me. And it's not uncommon for me to find myself wishing that I CAN'T hear some of the stuff that I do. For instance, I wish I had NEVER heard of Wudtone tremolo's (damn that @SillyOctpuss....) or Elliot Capos, (I own two), or Faber TOM bridges, or Music City wraparound tailpieces....or for that matter, Jason Lollar pickups heh, and on and on it goes......
But at the end of the day it's all about chasing toan, right? We all have our pet peeves as well as things that are important.
 
My Coronet has 50s wiring, basic metric CTS pots and a greenie .022 cap.
I find the volume pot fantastic. Very natural taper with tons of sounds, easy to dial in the right amount of gain. The tone pot however is linear and I find it too subtle, coming from Fenders. But with 50s wiring, rolling off the tone also lowers the volume and gain so it being linear allows more nuance. I just don't like how it's subtle until 2 and then I'm under water. I want to try an audio pot so the treble rolloff is evenly spread across the sweep.

Speaking of strings, I just put Thomastik flats on my Jazzmaster and I really don't like them but I'm not surprised they sound vastly different from Chromes. They have a different construction and finish. It's not all just metal or timber.

I don't know what it is exactly that you hear with different caps, theoretically all they do is bleed high end to ground, but if it's something you can consistently hear despite caps having tolerances, then for you it's real.
 
MichaelW said:
It's never "completely" out of the circuit unless you are using a "no load" pot. But to your point, it's how the guitar sounds when you roll off the tone. And more specifically, in a 50's wiring circuit all 4 controls are somewhat interactive. It's how the tapers work with the settings I normally use. For instance, on a Les Paul/SG I typically have the bridge tone rolled off to about 8. With a .015 PIO cap I know exactly how that will affect the neck volume for instance if I have both pickups selected and I roll the volume on the neck down a bit. I also know how a .033 PIO cap will affect it slightly differently. But throw in a film or poly cap, like an Orange Drop, it sounds different to me. My main lead tone on a Les Paul for instance is almost always both pickups selected with the neck volume rolled off just enough to have the definition of the bridge pickup cut through. For me, PIO tone caps have a "sound" that I can hear and it bothers me when I'm playing Orange drops or Mallory's.
It's less of an issue or less noticeable I should say on F style guitars or guitars with modern 4 knob Gibson wiring,
I know that I'm opening myself up to ridicule to even talk about this as it seems to be a frequent target for derision... :ROFLMAO: .

But like anything else gear related, I have favorite strings that I love, and I have strings that I hate. It's all just Swedish steel and nickel plating right? Strings are strings, it's all in your head. Pickups are just wire and magnets, all humbuckers are the same, the difference is all in your head. Alder, ash, Korina, mahogany, it's all just timber right? Well, you get the idea heh. I don't claim to be at the level of Eric Johnson, who says he can hear the difference of adding an extra washer on the input jack on his Strats. Or that he can hear the difference between brands of batteries used in a pedal, hahaha. But there are things I can hear that please me or bother me. And it's not uncommon for me to find myself wishing that I CAN'T hear some of the stuff that I do. For instance, I wish I had NEVER heard of Wudtone tremolo's (damn that @SillyOctpuss....) or Elliot Capos, (I own two), or Faber TOM bridges, or Music City wraparound tailpieces....or for that matter, Jason Lollar pickups heh, and on and on it goes......
But at the end of the day it's all about chasing toan, right? We all have our pet peeves as well as things that are important.
Click to expand...
I knew a guy who tied rubber bands on the springs of his Strat to kill artifacts he could hear from their vibration!
 
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