Pro Co RAT2 Distortion Pedal

There a hundreds of distortion pedals on the market today. Sure, some are said to be the best at this or that, but for me the RAT is the one that does it all. And at a great price to boot. This pedal is not new to me. I've had a few of them in the past, but the RAT 2 is just a great as the older "vintage" models. Goes from a nice bit of drive that is far better than a Tube Screamer, to a near fuzztone, with some warm, smooth creamy tones in between. Remarkable. No other distortion pedal can do it as well. I've been playing for 5 decades and have had more than my share of them. But the RAT delivers. No joke. It just does it all, and well.The Filter (tone) is set up where the tone gets deeper by going clockwise rather than counter clockwise. That might thow a few folks off, but it's a little thing really. The Filter is the core of it's tone and the Distortion control is very linear in how it increases the distortion. By going higher with the Distortion control, the volume only goes up a little. That's great as making changes while playing is less of a hastle if you just lean over and bump it up a bit, the volume won't go through the roof.100% silent switching. No hum. No buzz. And no loss or increase of your overall level when you engage the unit. Flawless comes to mind here. Easy to set up. Strong as a Tiger tank. And just flat out gives you what you want without all the fuss of 6 or 8 knobs for you to mess with. And the three that are there all glow in the dark like all the RATs of the past. Kinda cool if you ask me.If one wants a good distortion pedal that will perform without issues, get yourself a RAT. If you want to impress your friends with how much money you dumped on a "boo-teek" pedal that sits in the RAT's shadow, buy that high dollar unit and you can at least "Look Good" while you play. But your tone will still stink. Its up to you. Me? Its a no brainer. I go with the RAT....

This can get an amazingly broad array of pleasing OD, distortion, and fuzz sounds- especially with another OD before and/or after if the amp signal is clean. I can hear crazy amounts of harmonics and octave notes at different settings. Simple and powerful 3 controls. You can hear the design influence of it's predecessors- fuzz face, tone bender, and Big Muff fuzzes. Many of those sounds are in this box. It's glorious and bombastic.I grew up and learned to play guitar in the 1990's, big fan of Nirvana. I didn't know what types of pedals Kurt Cobain or other famous people used. It didn't matter, we used what we had and turned it up LOUD to get there. Didnt know any better. This RAT pedal will get you all those similar, familiar classic sounds and, more importantly, search for our own sounds with it as a tool. There are copies of this circuit design out there, and I can now absolutely recommend the original here to anyone considering a cheaper copy, or an expensively revamped boutique version. This pedal is sweet. Just played it for an hour straight. No regerts.

Legendary pedal. Nothing more to say. Outstanding build quality and my all-time favorite sound.

I have a TS9, Fulltone Plimsoul, and Walrus AGES which are great but don't get too dirty. The RAT provides a great crunch and huge sustain. It is VERY reasonably priced and built like a tank. It is a little dark, but that is not bad and the filter works well to adjust to taste. It does add some noise -as expected.One minor hassle is that I had to unscrew the rubber feet and just put the screws back in and also had to remove the hex screw on the battery compartment in order for it to attach properly to the pedal board. The Velcro keeps the battery cover from coming off.I use this with my PRS McCarty which is sublime and it sounds great with my HSS Strat also. My amps are mostly the Fender Princeton and the Deluxe Reverb which love the pedal very much.

Good 80's style hair metal distortion. When you turn up the gain, you get a thick, crunchy distortion that works well with either single or double coil pickups. This pedal really shines at the low gain settings, however. Dial back the gain and this pedal works great at low to moderate distortion...almost like an overdrive pedal. The high gain is ok, but I find myself using this a lower gain pedal more often. Your mileage may vary. As with all musical items, it is subjective. It is a little bit bulky and takes up significant space on a pedal board. Also, the input and output are on the top of the unit and not on the sides. The 9v input is different than the normal Boss style that most pedals use and will require a different adapter. For these issues, I knocked off one star. This thing is just built awkwardly in terms of size and setup. Sounds great though.