"The Bat" Distortion (Rat)...

Coda

Well-known member
I built this pedal in August, but had to wait to post a build report. My wife likes bats (flying foxes, specifically), and she wanted to paint a bat on this pedal...because when I told her what it was, she thought I said "Bat." It has an LM308 (precious) chip in it currently. I've tried all sorts of things in it and it pretty much sounds the same. The OP07 and the TL071 were my favorite (an aside: I know that the TL071 has internal compensation, which would negate the purpose of the external compensation cap in the circuit. However, that cap is in the circuit and the chip is in the circuit, and all I know is that it sounded pretty good. My favorite Rat tone, actually. It has a bit more sparkle to it...especially at high gain settings. I guess its double-compensated?). The LM308 is the "favorite" chip for this circuit. I don't think it does anything special. I have that chip in now because I was basically trying to force myself to figure out the magic, and am too lazy to put something else in the pedal.

When I was younger I made a decision that I thought I would have to live with for my whole life. When picking out my first distortion pedal, I went with a DS-1 (Team DS-1). I was under the impression that once you made your choice you could never deviate from it. The Rat is a really, really good distortion pedal.

When I built this pedal, I was so focused on the chip thing that I completely overlooked the diode possibilities. This one is stock (Si). I am already planning another Rat that will allow me to switch between Si, Ge, Led, and no diodes. But that's for another build report...

Bat 1.jpeg
Rat 2.jpeg
 
Cool painting. It's funny how we come up with these imaginary rules, especially when inexperienced, and how they stick around. For me it was "all my gain has to come from the amp," "red guitars are never ok," and not understanding that there was a difference between combo amps and practice amps. I've still never tried a DS-1
 
When I was younger I made a decision that I thought I would have to live with for my whole life. When picking out my first distortion pedal, I went with a DS-1 (Team DS-1). I was under the impression that once you made your choice you could never deviate from it. The Rat is a really, really good distortion pedal.
I feel you on that. I loathed the Rat before ever playing one. Wrote it off as an 80's hair metal distortion or something and didn't want anything to do with one. Somewhere along the way, I decided to build one for a friend as a gift.

5 years later the friend never received the Rat and it hasn't left my board. Mine has a (probably) fake LM308 chip and it sounds phenomenal. Despite being the anti-thesis of what I thought I wanted, it's just perfect in every way.
 
Coda, there’s a pedal you should check out called The Drunk Beaver Bat Cold War. I think you’ll find it interesting. 👍🏻
 
Is is me, or does the facial expression on that bat look like he's having his temperature taken? :oops:

The compensation cap does nothing, nada, zip, zilch, bupkess, with the TL071 because pin 8 on the TL071 is not connected internally. 🤓

I'm with Chris on the diode clipping. Try LEDs. While you're at it, try two different colors, like red and blue for some cool asymmetry. No rules! :p

Don't forget to try the CDB bass mod. ;)
 
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