Pro Co Rat?

paulnb57

I have never owned or heard a Pro Co Rat pedal in action, what are they all about? They seem to have good rep, but what is so good (or bad) about them?

TTBZ

I like that they tend to sound like the good bits of the 90s and work pretty well as either a boost/light OD, distortion or thick fuzz. Not very transparent though but it's a great sound that can still work in a band whilst sounding pretty heavy, fuzzy and thick. I had a keeley one for ages and kinda regret selling it but I think a Turbo Rat will work just as well as I seemed to leave mine on the middle "mighty mouse" mode the most, which seemed the most amp-like.

RandallFlagg

What would you say is a definitive RAT sound, recorded examples?

AlexC

RandallFlagg said:

What would you say is a definitive RAT sound, recorded examples?

Graham Coxon’s fuzzy mayhem on Blur’s Song 2

TTBZ

Goatsnake's Flowers Of Disease album and Melvins Bullhead are pretty good examples I think. Really like the tone on Stoner Witch but not sure if that's a Rat, it sounds pretty similar to me.

Running the Rat into my old Laney pretty much nailed the Goatsnake tone. 

Edit - cheeky plug, used my Rat on all the double tracks rhythm guitar when we recorded this as well https://mesma.bandcamp.com/releases

lewism

RandallFlagg said:

What would you say is a definitive RAT sound, recorded examples?

Bernard Butler used them a lot, mainly the Turbo version, from Suede onwards.

althy

you can hear them a lot in 90's indie, pavement, pixies, blur, radiohead and in jazz too (frisell, scofield, rosenwinkel).  A truly great and identifiable effect, works great with any tube amp

mooer does a clone that's more faithful to the original pedal than proco's current production with the addition of a turbo switch, and they go for 35 second hand. 

TTBZ

There's also the Eno/Andoer one which is apparently the same as the mooer but can be had for 20 quid new

Babones

They were everywhere in the 90s, punk, Indie, Metal etc.

Pretty sure this is a Rat throughout.

timmysoft

althy said:

you can hear them a lot in 90's indie, pavement, pixies, blur, radiohead and in jazz too (frisell, scofield, rosenwinkel).  A truly great and identifiable effect, works great with any tube amp

mooer does a clone that's more faithful to the original pedal than proco's current production with the addition of a turbo switch, and they go for 35 second hand. 

The Mooer sounds like a toy compared to current Rat2 models. Nowhere near the depth or quality of the tone.

my choice would be a late USA built Rat, they can be had for £50-£80 and out of all the Rat and Rat variants I’ve owned, they are by far the best ones.

paulnb57

@timmysoft how do I tell a late USA made one?

althy

timmysoft said:

The Mooer sounds like a toy compared to current Rat2 models. Nowhere near the depth or quality of the tone.

my choice would be a late USA built Rat, they can be had for £50-£80 and out of all the Rat and Rat variants I’ve owned, they are by far the best ones.

Have to disagree. The mooer sounds spot on when replicating my 90's big box rat and the wf rat reissue which is not obtainable with the new rat 2 at all. 
i've only ever used rats at lower gain settings though (from 10 to 13 max) high gain might be a different story..

benecol

althy said:

timmysoft said:

The Mooer sounds like a toy compared to current Rat2 models. Nowhere near the depth or quality of the tone.

my choice would be a late USA built Rat, they can be had for £50-£80 and out of all the Rat and Rat variants I’ve owned, they are by far the best ones.

Have to disagree. The mooer sounds spot on when replicating my 90's big box rat and the wf rat reissue which is not obtainable with the new rat 2 at all. 
i've only ever used rats at lower gain settings though (from 10 to 13 max) high gain might be a different story..

I have to disagree too - I've had loads of Rats, and the Mooer has been the best.

JezWynd

RandallFlagg said:

What would you say is a definitive RAT sound, recorded examples?

I've always associated it with 80's LA hair metal. On a very different tack, Chuck Prophet uses one and he has a great Tele sound. It's a remarkably flexible pedal. I'm currently playing with a ProCo Solo, a kind of supercharged Rat. Stacks well with other drive pedals.

DesVegas

@JezWynd do you have pedals stacked before or after the rat?

JezWynd

DesVegas said:

@JezWynd do you have pedals stacked before or after the rat?

I've tried both and it works either way. I prefer the Solo into an SD-2 as you can use the Filter (on a Rat) or Scoop & Tone (on Solo) to shape the sound that goes into the SD-2. I use both with heavy distortion applied which gives a lot of sustain and random harmonics. It's a bit of a wild animal but you can coax some very cool sounds out of it. An SD-1 would probably work just as well (maybe a bit rougher sounding; the SD-2 is quite a smooth fuzz like sound on the Lead {high gain} side).

TTBZ

TS-type pedal works quite well into a Rat if you want to tighten it up a bit.

Dominic

Mooer is perfect re-creation 

pintspiller

Babones said:

They were everywhere in the 90s, punk, Indie, Metal etc.

Pretty sure this is a Rat throughout.

I think they used MT2

althy

hotcake+ rat and the other way round great into a vox's normal channel

DesVegas

Cheers chaps. I have a dope Fx zen drive on the board and a rat clone on its way so was interested to hear your thoughts