Pro Co RAT2 Distortion Pedal

The ProCo Rat 2 is the quintessential distortion pedal for grungy punk rock and is still widely-used today by punks and rockers of all stripes. The Rat 2 comes in a near-indestructible steel casing with heavy-duty knobs and switch. I've been using this pedal (not this exact one, had to buy it again after selling it years back during lean times) for years without incident. The pedal itself couldn't be easier to use with a Volume knob, Distortion knob and a Filter knob. You can dial in many, many different tones (check out some Youtube review vids for audio examples) and with just a little tweaking, the tone will change drastically. The Rat 2 can achieve a nice fuzz-like distortion, warm blues, trebly-high metal tones and many others. For this reason, I really recommend spending some time with this pedal to get it dialed-in exactly how you'd like it and to familiarize yourself with its tonal range and possibilities. If you're thinking about purchasing this grunge box, a few notes: the Rat 2 does have a red LED (the original RATs did not) under the "A" so you can see when it's engaged, it is true-bypass, and most importantly, the plug for the power adapter is not the standard Boss-style plug (spacing the technical name), it's a 3.5mm (1/8" in.) plug. The power adapter plug can be an issue if you're using a daisy chain or power supply, but many of those will come with a 3.5mm adapter (most likely for this very pedal), or you can pick up an RPS-1 power supply. If you're sticking with batteries, getting to the battery case is no-tools-required, so no un-screwing four screws off the bottom of the case like a lot of other boutique models. I highly recommend picking up this pedal for its versatility and tone. My personal favorite use for the Rat 2 is tossing a Boss BD-2 in front of it and running it into my Vox AC30.

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....

I've owned over 3 dozen dirt boxes over the years, and I just love the Rat. It makes my tube halfstack sing, and my practice amp sound like a big amp. Its great as a stand alone distortion, running on a clean amp. It can get everything from that perfect bluesy grit to roaring sludge (just max out the distortion and use your neck pickup on an LP to sound EXACTLY like King Buzzo of the Melvins) and everything inbetween. It can also be used to boost an overdriven amp into better sounding territory. Case in point, my buddy has an old Peavy stack from the 70's in his garage. Its a solid state head on top of a vertical cab of two 14" speakers. On its own, you can use the gain and distortion knobs present on the amp to get a decent sound, but with his Les Paul it still sounded oddly dark. We put the Rat in front of it and with some fiddling got that perfect AC/DC style overdrive out of it. I think the main reason I love the Rat so much is not only the great tone and its sheer indestructability, but the filter knob. Normal tone knobs allow you to focus more on bass or treble, but usually if you boost one, you cut the other. The filter is more of a high end roll off, you can darken or brighten your tone accordingly, but when you DO go brighter, you still have the same bottom end. It doesn't CUT the bass out. So even with a more treble heavy sound, you still have a fuller rounder tone, it doesn't thin out so much. Its really an excellent pedal. I've heard that some claim you have to get an older one with the LM308 chip to really get "the sound" but that's a myth. Look on a few guitar forums or on youtube for plenty of tests and testimony showing the fact that the new ones do indeed sound the same as the old ones. A Rat is a Rat, whether they're coming from China or the USA. p.s. Mine is from 2010 and the face still glows in the dark. So I dunno what that other guy was complaining about.

Hands down the Rat should be on every rock and blues guitarist pedal board! Old school tone in a sturdy and reliable housing.

As most guitarists who play electric guitar and use effects know this is a pedal that has been around for many years. I have not played through the older original RAT so I can't compare the RAT2 to that but I find this to be a pedal that I could use and get by without anything else. I suppose I am like many players who think that the size of the pedal is clunky and won't fit on a current board, or think that it's just for hard rock or metal. The size is not an issue with me as I bought it to use with a wah on the floor and not part of my regular pedalboard; and, my intent was to use this for classic rock tunes that require a wah/distortion sound. I will use my A/B switch to go between that separate rig and my regular pedalboard. But now I have a dilemma. I play my USA Strat with Lawrence Wilde L45S humbucking pickups (single coil size) into a very good tube amp and I find this thing useable for anything from a light breakup tube-like blues tone to an all-out fuzz with sustain forever. I could use this in place of other pedals I use now. Will this replace the best overdrive, best distortion or best fuzz pedal out there? No. And that's a matter of personal taste anyway. But if you are a gigging player and don't want to take a $300 overdrive out with other expensive pedals that might go AWOL while you take your eyes off them, this pedal, or better yet, two of them, will get you all the dirt tones you need for a wide variety of musical styles. It's really a great pedal and now I feel rather silly for not having given this serious consideration long before now. I encourage anyone who tries this pedal to strum your guitar without the pedal engaged and lock that sound in your brain, and then engage the pedal. Unless you've got the pedal slammed to maximum distortion you'll hear the original guitar sound with distortion added and not a totally different tonal quality added to your original guitar sound. I've used both high end boutique pedals and pedals priced for the working musician and many just don't have that transparency. When you have this quality you can effectively use the volume and tone controls on your guitar. If you are a guitarist who likes to utilize your guitar controls you'll know what I mean. For example, a Tube Screamer is known to add a very noticeable midrange-hump to your guitar tone but if you're looking for a similar tube-like overdrive without the mid boost this will work. I know that fusion jazz guitarist John Scofield has used a RAT for a long time and I never could understand why he would use this pedal based on my previous misconception of this pedal as not useable for fusion or blues styles. If you are looking for a different type of dirt pedal and are tired of all of the Tube Screamer clones (a Tube Screamer is the standard and I'm not knocking it and have used one) try this and you might not feel like you've still got to add a second or third dirt pedal for distortion or fuzz. The build quality is excellent and the controls are smooth. It is well shielded and will hold up to stage abuse.

It is not a great but good pedal for the money. The build quality is very good, sturdy metal housing, tactile switch and the knobs are good quality. It is heavy enough to keep itself from moving on the floor, so far found nothing against the build. Now as for the performance, I am using this with bass (do not know whether its meant for the guitars only or not) and it requires a bit of adjustment for it's lo cut. If the song has distortion and clean both, balancing with the bypass is little tricky; had to cut the treble , lower the middle and boost the bass from the amp side. My sweetspot is 20% on the distortion, 70-75% on filter and volume and it delivers good level of OD. To make it even more dirty, I crank up the volume booster on the guitar rather than using the distortion knob. For the $70, this is a very good pedal over boss but don't expect augilar or TS808 out of this. For practice and experiment, I'm using it already; for live, I may or may not use this; for recording, nah... I will stick to my aguilar tubes.

Exactly the pedal I was searching for. with that extra gain and crunch, awesome tone!

Rich warm distortion.

It's so easy to use, less physical labor, high responses to touch, so less time to operate and more time to concentrate on the progression, pleasant sound output and so many more.

Tonları bildik ve efsane olan bir pedal. Hemen hemen her tür müzik için güzel ve uygun diyebilirim. Düşünmeye gerek bile olmadan alınabilir.

Ace sounding dirt pedal, solidly built. The box was pretty squished but, the pedal survived the international trip from Tenessee to Melbourne. It's different from my other distortions and adds another flavour to my board. To my surprise it is a fantastic overdrive for bass. The gain knob does clean up a bit, but i've found that you're better off rolling back the volume on the instrument instead. This helps retain clarity and allows a finer tuning than the pedal allows for. Unlike a Muff, the Rat sounds great at all gain settings, though you will want to use humbuckers if you live in an electrically nolisy environment.

Buen producto, entrega en tiempo y genial

this pedal has the ability to do any type of music you want! I like to play anything from really old school blues all the way to black and death metal (and a little bit of everything in between) and this pedal can do it all no problem. Use it on low gain settings for a nice TS type of overdrive grit or crank it up just over half and throw a boost on in front of the rat and you have a beautiful deathmetal tone (just ask obituary, they use a rat). If you max the gain you can get some fuzz-like tones that would make hendrix smile ear to ear. This pedal is amazing value for the money. it was packed very well and the handwritten thank you from jj music was a very nice personal touch. I am all around very pleased with this order and product