STOMP BOX STEALS: OVERDRIVE- PROCO Rat II ....the first OD ever made ...still relevant & still affordable!

Thursday, March 11, 2021

OVERDRIVE- PROCO Rat II ....the first OD ever made ...still relevant & still affordable!

PROCO RAT II OVERDRIVE

$70.00 USD

The Rat was the result of using an OpAmp connected to diodes to create distortion before it we had used transistors. The Fuzz was the first dirt pedal. They were based off of germanium transistors and then silicon transistors. Three months after the release of the Rat ...Boss brought out the DS-1 and not long after we had the Tube Screamer. The Rat has an overkill dirt voice. ProCo referred to it as a Fuzz quite simply as they saw it as a 'new tech' Fuzz. Later when Boss referred to their OpAmp pedal as a Distortion and Ibanez called their's as an Overdrive did we start having categories. The original OpAmp the LM308 B was technically junk as the big buyers of OpAmps were the home entertainment companies that wanted a dead clean OpAmp. So within a couple of years they were discontinued. Oddly the LM308 made a sweeter tone with more definition hence small quantities to this day can be found here and there. Gourmet pedal makers still make handmade repro's. In fact I have one. ProCo were forced to bring out the RAT II to have access to a constant supply of OpAmps.

The upside is like the Tube Screamer you lose the original but it kicked open the door for modified pedals that add many features and tweak the tones for different buyers and even different genres. What the RAT II lost in definition it made up for with more aggression and most notably girth. Many Metal pedals are really a Rat on steroids.

CONCLUSION

I use a few heavy Fuzz pedals and Fuzz/OD's that are great on certain parts of songs but I need something that takes my mammoth sound down to a charging rhino for other parts of the same tunes. The RAT II is just that rhino I need!

Yes I have one on it's way :-)