Actually more correctly - one of the dealers has announced a diminutive version of the Rat 2 pedal - containing the exact same circuit - with the now usual OP07DP opamp chip in place. I’ve been waiting for the Rat Distortion Website / Webstore or Instagram Page even to publish the final details - but those have still to materialise.

We know near enough everything we need to - courtesy of a YouTube demo by ACT Lighting - as below. The unit Is only 2 inches / 51mm wide - which is ...

This article was obviously triggered by this last Friday’s The JHS Show episode (as referenced below) - where Josh Scott and Nick White discussed Pedal Colour Theory - and which colour/s were most obviously associated with a particular effect type. Those two gentlemen discussed 6 varieties and I’ve expandanded the categories to 12 - for a more definitive take on the subject.

I’m of course no newbie to Colour Theory having an extensive background in Brand Strategy and Consumer Behaviour - ...

I would like to start by thanking Matt Knight and Joe Branton of Guitar Nerds who made this all possible and put me in contact with Steve Mac - guitarist and original member of the Australian Pink Floyd. This all stems back to the Guitar Nerds’ podcast for Friday 3rd July - an interview with Steve Mac, and the accompanying social media pictures of Steve’s home studio pedalboard - or literally ’wall of sound’.

I’m a considerable Floyd and Gilmour fan and avidly follow Björn Riis’s Gilmourish...

The venerable ProCo Rat was first introduced back in 1978, and became one of the key distortion / fuzzstortion sounds of the 80’s in particular. Numerous bands past and present have had this as one of their key tone ingredients, and earlier versions of the pedal are still very collectable.

The interesting tones that the Rat generated came about somewhat by happenstance in using a fairly inefficient OpAmp chip which had all manner of quirky functional qualities - not least its low...

I think that the Rat style is possibly my favourite style of dirt pedal. It really depends how distinctly you classify all the Marshall pedals I have versus the already 8 Rat-style pedals in the collection (Actually 10 really, but 7 in the top 16 feature).

So my current all-time Rat-style champ is not always associated with the genre even though it is a full-throttle OmpAmp-driven fuzzstortion chaos machine - I am of course referring to Dr Scientist’s formidable Frazz Dazzler ...

I have indicated several times in my posts that I love Compact Enclosure pedals the best, but I also have an affinity for Mini pedals - particularly Mini Boost, Compressors, Fuzz and Overdrive. I never thought it was likely to happen, but for my preferred Klone pedal I went from an original Mini Tumnus up to the Deluxe version, but that slot is now taken by the diminutive Decibelics Golden Horse - which I prefer to both of the Tumni!

I have also indicated many times that I’m not ...

Note - new / updated feature : [here]

I’ve always liked the ProCo Rat sound - as utilised by the Arctic Monkeys and hundreds of other indie and alternative rock bands. There is always the debate as to whether the Rat should be considered a Fuzz or more of a Drive / Distortion type pedal - I definitely have it as a fuzz pedal - it has that very obvious fuzz sizzle to its core tone. I might concede this to the neologism - fuzztortion which covers both - but the fuzz stays! The Rat&...

When I got back into guitar I had some foolish odd notion that I did not like fuzz, and would only concentrate on Overdrive and Distortion sounds. Yet I soon realised that many of my favourite saturation sounds are in fact fuzz-based, and that fuzzes can be used in a variety of ways and in a number of different voicings. There are several different categories of fuzz from smooth warm vintage, through octave fuzz, fuzz-distortion (Muff | Rat), velcro / gated fuzz, and on to super-saturated ...