A Small Portion of Rodent....

[duhvoodooman]

....specifically my Rabid Rodent distortion pedal, a modified build of the BYOC "Mighty Mouse" kit, which is itself a modified clone of the venerable ProCo Rat circuit.

I was fooling around with my Epi Elitist LP Std. played through my Fender Blues Jr., with the output to my Drive 2x12 speaker cab rather than the onboard speaker. I was intentionally looking for a bigger and somewhat darker sound than Blues Jr. will normally do. Then, to push it into Marshall-land, I added in the Rodent. Pedal settings were the stock Rat-style silicon diode clipping (rotary switch position 1) with the Sustain (distortion gain) set to 11 o'clock and the Filter at about 1:30, to roll off some treble (this Filter control takes treble off clockwise). The LP was set to the bridge pickup for the majority of the clip, but there is an overlay of a few notes through the neck pickup near the end. I was quite pleased with the tone--pretty much spot-on what I was going for. The recording sounds a little darker than the actual playing did, but it's pretty close.

BTW, first person to recognize the "source material" wins....my undying admiration!

http://www.box.net/shared/lrzcope0n9​

Pedal pic (this one is Childbride's, actually):

 

[sunvalleylaw]

Very cool sounds. I don't have an LP, but I will have to mess around to see if I can get that Marshally sound dialed in.

 

[Blaze]

Great sounding pedal DVM ,nice tone , keep on makin demo to hear all the tones comin from this powerfull mouse..

 

[marnold]

BTW, first person to recognize the "source material" wins....my undying admiration!

Hey Joe, where ya goin' with that guitar in your hand?

More gainy/hard-rocky than Joe B. tends to be, but I've never had a problem with bonus gain.

 

[SuperSwede]

Excellent sounding pedal!

 

[Algonquin]

I'm glad to see this was a pedal review and not a review of your favourite restaurant :thwap:

Cool sounding pedal DVM, and a great job recording it as well :AOK: Great post!

 

[SuperSwede]

I'm glad to see this was a pedal review and not a review of your favourite restaurant :thwap:
!

Actually, this is a review of his favorite restuarant.

http://www.terrierman.com/ratfood.htm

 

[duhvoodooman]

Very cool sounds. I don't have an LP, but I will have to mess around to see if I can get that Marshally sound dialed in.

You should be able to get pretty close with that Viking. You'll need to keep your settings brighter, though, since that's a darker sounding guitar, I would expect.

Hey Joe, where ya goin' with that guitar in your hand?

More gainy/hard-rocky than Joe B. tends to be, but I've never had a problem with bonus gain.

I knew you'd pick this up, Rev. Just wondered if anybody else might. Yeah, it's quite a bit crunchier than Joe's version, but I really wanted to emphasize the fire-breathing dragon that the Rodent can turn my Blues Jr. into. :rockon:

For everybody else, it's my pitiful rendering of a wee bit of one of mighty Joe Bonamassa's tunes, One Of These Days. Get yourself a copy of his latest release, Live From Nowhere In Particular, and listen to how it should be played!! Last cut on the 1st CD.... :AOK: :dude:

Actually, this is a review of his favorite restuarant.

http://www.terrierman.com/ratfood.htm

I'm an adventurous eater, but I'd draw the line there, I think! Gotta admit, thought--that last photo looks pretty appetizing....if you didn't know what it was!! uke:

 

[Tone2TheBone]

Childbride is getting a Rodent? Ooooo she's gonna love it.

 

[Blaze]

For everybody else, it's my pitiful rendering of a wee bit of one of mighty Joe Bonamassa's tunes, One Of These Days. Get yourself a copy of his latest release, Live From Nowhere In Particular

Here s the next Bonamassa ' s release

Now it's officially confirmed: the release date of the new album "The Ballad of John Henry" will be February 24th, 2009.

Mark that date on your calendars!

 

[duhvoodooman]

Childbride is getting a Rodent? Ooooo she's gonna love it.

Getting??? She's had it for better than a week. Give the lady a chance to check it out thoroughly. There are a LOT of tones in that little box--just ask SVL! :rockon:

 

[Tone2TheBone]

Getting??? She's had it for better than a week. Give the lady a chance to check it out thoroughly. There are a LOT of tones in that little box--just ask SVL! :rockon:

I guess I haven't been paying attention it's been crazy around here ya know.

 

[sunvalleylaw]

There are a LOT of tones in that little box--just ask SVL! :rockon:

I posted clips over here. http://www.thefret.net/showthread.php?t=9271

See posts 44 and 58.

Not very good playing in the clips, but I really was just trying to capture sounds for display. Most all settings are recorded, though as shown above, the dials could be twisted to get so many more tones.

I don't want to muddy this thread, but thought a cross reference to other sounds might be worth it.

 

[Tone2TheBone]

Yo Steve can you email me your clips at my work address?

 

[Suhnton]

Nice sounding pedal. How much does the circuit differ from the ProCo RAT?
I was never keen on the RAT sound, it just seemed too brittle sounding, but your pedal is nice and smooth.

 

[duhvoodooman]

The basic circuit is taken directly from the vintage ProCo Rat. The additions are just some switchable clipping modes on the original distortion part of the circuit, and the addition of a clipping stage in the opamp feedback loop to give a less gainy "overdrive" type of distortion more in the vein of a Tube Screamer. The total of six different clipping modes makes for one very flexible pedal!

I think the relative smoothness of the tone comes from the use of high quality components (metal flim resistors, box metallized film caps, the same LM308 opamp used in the original Rat, etc.), plus great care taken in hand-building the effect. I've sold several of these now, and everybody seems to love 'em. I sure like mine! :AOK: :rockon:

 

[Andy]

I have suspicion that the Fulltone OCD is based on the RAT circuit.
is this a possability?

 

[duhvoodooman]

I've read a couple of places that the OCD is not a modified Rat but rather a variation of the Voodoo Lab Sparkle Drive with a different clipping layout. I haven't compared the three circuits personally.

 

[sunvalleylaw]

Yo Steve can you email me your clips at my work address?

Sure Tone. Sorry I didn't see that before, but I just did it.