OD is Glorious
Well-known member
- Build Rating
All of my years of playing guitar and I never played with a Rat circuit. Seems like I missed out on a great circuit thinking it was only for distortion. It goes from a great clean boost to a fully saturated distortion pedal: high gain. Since I never played with one I thought my tone potentiometer was installed backwards - turns out the tone knob acts like a filter - Tayda calls it tone, but should have called it filter. I can detect a slightly nasal midrange with some adjustments. I love that I can roll off the gain/distortion and make this circuit push my amp; I can articulate each note - dynamic! The circuit goes from that clean boost to thick, massive, saturation by turning the gain know - and I left all the 4 dip switches off. I like that I can use this as a transparent OD, a crunchy overdrive or even just a treble boost.
The Tayda SMD projects like this Rat seem like they take more time for me to run all of the wires for off board 9mm potentiometers, power, LED and jacks. Putting the circuit in a 1590a made sense to me because the SMD board is so diminutive. I used a Tayda matte blue 1590a with a film free decal and 2k clear coat. I added a 3mm blue diffused LED with no bezel (1/8" hole) The footswitch is a full sized with a Tayda breakout board and I used low profile jacks and a Lumberg D.C. jack. The knobs are aluminum Davies 1900s. The 9mm potentiometers have adaptor boards that I purchased from Amplified Parts.
I love this circuit and it sounds perfect on my Vibroverb and Super Reverb. Color me surprised. And there are more unexplored settings - see dip switch attachment. Edit 11/1: I engaged 3 and 4 on the dipswitches and the circuit got bass, Timmy-like.
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