What do you do with your rat? - TWEAKED RAT CLIPS

[skullfxr]

Seriously. I have a custom slightly modded rat coming in to be demo's. What do you use yours for?

 

[guitarnerdswe]

Rat into Marshall = Funky rockin' goodness ala Nuno

 

[skullfxr]

Sweet will try. Gimme more ideas.... Lol. I can put it into the rockerverb too.

 

[skullfxr]

Oh... And no Ratt. jklol and couldn't resist.

 

[Findthetone1]

Oh... And no Ratt. jklol and couldn't resist.

I was gonna say put it in a Geico commercial

 

[cardinal]

I use it to boost an AC30. Distortion down very low but not off. Volume up very high, filter to taste.

I usually use an SD-1 with a Marshall, and by comparison the RAT has more output I think. Sounds good into the Marshall too but is a bit over the top.

 

[dirtyfunkg]

When I had a mid '80's Rat, I used it as the foundation of my distorted tone into a (relatively) clean amp. At the time, the amps were a Blues Jr., then later a Peavey VTM 60. I effectively used the Rat as a Marshall in a box.

I'd also use an SD-1 before the Rat to boost it into getting nice and tight for palm mutes and what not.

It remains my favorite distortion pedal. I'm upset that I got rid of it.

 

[Glencore]

Man, the Rat is probably my favorite distortion circuit, so many uses for that thing. I love slamming a Rat into a Big Muff, it just gives you this massive, filthy wall of Doom with the mids added back in that a Muff usually takes away. Sure its a little noisy but that's a small price to pay for the heavys.
What mods did you get on that sucker?

 

[fusedbrain]

I use it to boost an AC30. Distortion down very low but not off. Volume up very high, filter to taste.

I usually use an SD-1 with a Marshall, and by comparison the RAT has more output I think. Sounds good into the Marshall too but is a bit over the top.

When I had a mid '80's Rat, I used it as the foundation of my distorted tone into a (relatively) clean amp. At the time, the amps were a Blues Jr., then later a Peavey VTM 60. I effectively used the Rat as a Marshall in a box.

I'd also use an SD-1 before the Rat to boost it into getting nice and tight for palm mutes and what not.

It remains my favorite distortion pedal. I'm upset that I got rid of it.

This^
My buddy has an original from back in the day. I think it excels at hitting the front end of a cleanish or mildly distorted amp, with the distortion low and output up.
We did a shootout of all our OD pedals used as "amp in a box " into a deluxe reverb, and the Rat was impressive.
I was really surprised.
Love the RAT! Great pedal!

 

[Goat]

RAT + Crowther Double (or single) Hot Cake = Ass kicking gain tones!

Note: Turn down the amplifier preamp, and let the RAT/Hot Cake pedals furnish the distoriton.

I use this hand-wired clone:

 

[Devin]

I feed it cheeses

 

[japetus]

One of my favorite pedals ever was a 3 way modded Keeley Rat. It had the "PHAT RAT" mode which was an awesome boost on my JCM800 and 900. I plan to search out another one.

 

[skullfxr]

I feed it cheeses

Personally I use arsenic.

 

[LordThurisaz]

Rat into Marshall = Funky rockin' goodness ala Nuno

What settings? I imagine gain around 8:30-9:00, filter to taste, and boosted volume?

 

[LordThurisaz]

RAT + Crowther Double (or single) Hot Cake = Ass kicking gain tones!

Note: Turn down the amplifier preamp, and let the RAT/Hot Cake pedals furnish the distoriton.

I use this hand-wired clone:

The Rat is great and a classic for a reason, but the Crowther Hot Cake kinda... doesn't sound great, and don't get the reputation it has.

 

[Goat]

RAT + Crowther Double (or single) Hot Cake = Ass kicking gain tones!

Note: Turn down the amplifier preamp, and let the RAT/Hot Cake pedals furnish the distoriton.

I use this hand-wired clone:

The Rat is great and a classic for a reason, but the Crowther Hot Cake kinda... doesn't sound great, and don't get the reputation it has.

I thought the same thing when I first got my Crowther. I nearly sold mine, twice. The double HC has an extra adjustable gain-stage (green knob), which I use 80% of the time. It's meant to be used with VOX AC15/30, and other NMV amplifiers. The HC and RAT just blend well together. So much so, that there are a number of RAT+Hot Cake clones out there.

 

[LordThurisaz]

I thought the same thing when I first got my Crowther. I nearly sold mine, twice. The double HC has an extra adjustable gain-stage (green knob), which I use 80% of the time. It's meant to be used with VOX AC15/30, and other NMV amplifiers. The HC and RAT just blend well together. So much so, that there are a number of RAT+Hot Cake clones out there.

I think the Crowther is scooped and a bit too fuzzy for my uses.

 

[Goat]

I thought the same thing when I first got my Crowther. I nearly sold mine, twice. The double HC has an extra adjustable gain-stage (green knob), which I use 80% of the time. It's meant to be used with VOX AC15/30, and other NMV amplifiers. The HC and RAT just blend well together. So much so, that there are a number of RAT+Hot Cake clones out there.

I think the Crowther is scooped and a bit too fuzzy for my uses.

The Hot Cake is one of the most transparent pedals out there. You have to start with the tone knob at zero, then slowly advance it to your liking, or until you match your unaffected guitar tone. If the gain is too high, it will fuzz-up on you for sure, and the bass will come-on hard. You have to tweak the controls ever so gingerly...

The Bluesberry is meant for use with humbuckers, Hot Cake with single coils. It's not meant to be used with a pristine clean tone, or a already distorted tone. Edge of break-up Marshall, VOX, Matchless, and Ampeg are perfect. Remember... the HC was designed before MV amps ever existed.

Here are some comments, just to get an idea...

Here's my backstory with the Hot Cake:

I just bought my first amp, an AC15, and was playing with a friend of mine who runs the Radiohead gear encyclopedia (Check it out, it's called The King of Gear). I asked him what kind of drive pedal I should get for a "transparent sound," because even before my TGP days, I knew I didn't want the distortion to sound crazy unlike my amp. He recommended me a Timmy (lol) or a Crowther Hot Cake. This is actually what led me to places like TGP and TDPRI. While browsing these sites, I found the Timmy was universally praised and the Hot Cake was... misunderstood? Only Vox players ever lauded it, and even then they never delved into what about it's feature set made it so great... only that it was "made for the amp." Regardless, in The Battle of Paul C.s, the HC won and Crowther got my money, and also I upgraded to an AC30/started playing gigs.

Here's where it confounded me. I would always use it with the Presence knob rolled all the way back for gigs, because this knob would make it muddy in small amounts and icepicky and resonant in high amounts. Why?! People on forums said it was a "passive treble filter" but it didn't "feel" like it, and if it was, then the distortion character is just HARSH. I thought maybe it was a negative feedback loop letting in more low-mid from the clean sound at the front end of the knob and more high-mid at the back end. However, I couldn't be sure because there is barely any information on the web about this pedal at ALL. I shrugged my shoulders and went two years without thinking about it and leaving the Presence knob off.

Fast forward to this week, I'm recording keys with my band and wanted to use my drive pedals for a minute bit of EQ/ saturation prior to it hitting the DAW. In a musical mix, it's important for any instrument/sound to make sure there's enough mid and treble harmonic content relative to the fundamental note to make it "cut through." So I was using my WF Rat because it has a gentle bass cut, and I wanted to use the Hot Cake so I had another treble filter so I hooked that up too (Chain was Fuzz Factory > Hot Cake > Rat.) We open up a frequency analyzer to make sure the sound we're recording looks okay, and I start to play with the knobs a little bit. I turn on the Fuzz Factory and it's just noise, then I go to the Hot Cake for a second and begin to raise the Presence knob. I then notice the frequency plot react in a way i didn't expect, and that's how I arrived at the crux of this post:

The Hot Cake's Presence knob is NOT a "passive treble filter." It is an additive EQ band centered at around 800Hz. When the Presence is at 0, the gain of the EQ is at 0 so it is "flat mids." This makes SOOOOOOO much sense to me now, because there are literally only two notable things about the Hot Cake according to the internet: It was made in NZ in 1977, and the older version had a mid-lift instead of a Presence knob. Clearly, all Paul Crowther did in 2003 was make that switch into a potentiometer and give us a variable amount of gain @800Hz. Think about the pedal's gain character: As you increase gain, the Bass and Treble come up. How would you remedy this? By boosting mids! I hope that all current and future Hot Cake owners will be able to see this through the magic of the Internet, because now that i'm understanding what i'm hearing and how it affects the rest of my rig, the Hot Cake is very easy to dial in for virtually ANY distortion sound from Boost, to Lo-gain transparent OD, to Lo-gain boosty mid hump OD (Klon, Presence @ 9:00), to Med-gain flat mids OD (Blues Driver, Presence Full CCW), a Med-gain mid-hump OD (Tube Screamer, Presence @ ~1:00), a hi-gain mid-hump like a RAT (Full CW), or a scooped mid fuzz machine like a Big Muff (Full CCW). Okay, so knowing this, there are my 2 ways to dial it in, one being my favorite. First one is to start with an idea of the EQ you want, so you'd start at Unity Gain with Drive off, and sweep the Presence to your liking (ie. do I want flat mids, mid-hump or mid-scoop?) Once I get my desired mid content, I'll then re-sweep the level to re-match the volumes (SUPER IMPORTANT, the resonant peak of the Presence boost will affect your overall volume/the volume hitting the front end of your amp). Once I get the volumes even, I'll start bringing in the Drive, keeping in mind that the more I bring this up, the less prominent my mid-hump will be due to the inflation of Bass/Treble with gain. Because of the interactivity of the Presence and Drive knobs in this respect, I find this way works best when the Hot Cake is playing the role of a low/med-gain OD, because once the Drive passes a certain point the resulting Bass/Treble boost dwarfs any mid-boost you could make. The other way to set it up (and my preference) is to start with setting the Drive to the amount I want and then using the Presence knob to normalise the excessive mid-scoop inherent in turning the gain anywhere past 9:00. This seems to be the easiest way to wrangle the pedal, just seriously be wary of how much the Presence boost affects volume/gain staging too. Lots of gain + mid hump = you probably don't need as much level. And etc.

I hope this has been informative, and I hope none of you spend nearly as much time as I did thinking a such wonderful piece of engineering is so utterly worthless.

https://www.thegearpage.net/board/index ... e.1881222/
https://www.thegearpage.net/board/index ... ke.122634/
https://www.thegearpage.net/board/index ... t.1733037/

 

[LordThurisaz]

The Hot Cake is one of the most transparent pedals out there. You have to start with the tone knob at zero, then slowly advance it to your liking, or until you match your unaffected guitar tone. If the gain is too high, it will fuzz-up on you for sure, and the bass will come-on hard. You have to tweak the controls ever so gingerly...

The Bluesberry is meant for use with humbuckers, Hot Cake with single coils. It's not meant to be used with a pristine clean tone, or a already distorted tone. Edge of break-up Marshall, VOX, Matchless, and Ampeg are perfect. Remember... the HC was designed before MV amps ever existed.

Here are some comments, just to get an idea...

Here's my backstory with the Hot Cake:

I just bought my first amp, an AC15, and was playing with a friend of mine who runs the Radiohead gear encyclopedia (Check it out, it's called The King of Gear). I asked him what kind of drive pedal I should get for a "transparent sound," because even before my TGP days, I knew I didn't want the distortion to sound crazy unlike my amp. He recommended me a Timmy (lol) or a Crowther Hot Cake. This is actually what led me to places like TGP and TDPRI. While browsing these sites, I found the Timmy was universally praised and the Hot Cake was... misunderstood? Only Vox players ever lauded it, and even then they never delved into what about it's feature set made it so great... only that it was "made for the amp." Regardless, in The Battle of Paul C.s, the HC won and Crowther got my money, and also I upgraded to an AC30/started playing gigs.

Here's where it confounded me. I would always use it with the Presence knob rolled all the way back for gigs, because this knob would make it muddy in small amounts and icepicky and resonant in high amounts. Why?! People on forums said it was a "passive treble filter" but it didn't "feel" like it, and if it was, then the distortion character is just HARSH. I thought maybe it was a negative feedback loop letting in more low-mid from the clean sound at the front end of the knob and more high-mid at the back end. However, I couldn't be sure because there is barely any information on the web about this pedal at ALL. I shrugged my shoulders and went two years without thinking about it and leaving the Presence knob off.

Fast forward to this week, I'm recording keys with my band and wanted to use my drive pedals for a minute bit of EQ/ saturation prior to it hitting the DAW. In a musical mix, it's important for any instrument/sound to make sure there's enough mid and treble harmonic content relative to the fundamental note to make it "cut through." So I was using my WF Rat because it has a gentle bass cut, and I wanted to use the Hot Cake so I had another treble filter so I hooked that up too (Chain was Fuzz Factory > Hot Cake > Rat.) We open up a frequency analyzer to make sure the sound we're recording looks okay, and I start to play with the knobs a little bit. I turn on the Fuzz Factory and it's just noise, then I go to the Hot Cake for a second and begin to raise the Presence knob. I then notice the frequency plot react in a way i didn't expect, and that's how I arrived at the crux of this post:

The Hot Cake's Presence knob is NOT a "passive treble filter." It is an additive EQ band centered at around 800Hz. When the Presence is at 0, the gain of the EQ is at 0 so it is "flat mids." This makes SOOOOOOO much sense to me now, because there are literally only two notable things about the Hot Cake according to the internet: It was made in NZ in 1977, and the older version had a mid-lift instead of a Presence knob. Clearly, all Paul Crowther did in 2003 was make that switch into a potentiometer and give us a variable amount of gain @800Hz. Think about the pedal's gain character: As you increase gain, the Bass and Treble come up. How would you remedy this? By boosting mids! I hope that all current and future Hot Cake owners will be able to see this through the magic of the Internet, because now that i'm understanding what i'm hearing and how it affects the rest of my rig, the Hot Cake is very easy to dial in for virtually ANY distortion sound from Boost, to Lo-gain transparent OD, to Lo-gain boosty mid hump OD (Klon, Presence @ 9:00), to Med-gain flat mids OD (Blues Driver, Presence Full CCW), a Med-gain mid-hump OD (Tube Screamer, Presence @ ~1:00), a hi-gain mid-hump like a RAT (Full CW), or a scooped mid fuzz machine like a Big Muff (Full CCW). Okay, so knowing this, there are my 2 ways to dial it in, one being my favorite. First one is to start with an idea of the EQ you want, so you'd start at Unity Gain with Drive off, and sweep the Presence to your liking (ie. do I want flat mids, mid-hump or mid-scoop?) Once I get my desired mid content, I'll then re-sweep the level to re-match the volumes (SUPER IMPORTANT, the resonant peak of the Presence boost will affect your overall volume/the volume hitting the front end of your amp). Once I get the volumes even, I'll start bringing in the Drive, keeping in mind that the more I bring this up, the less prominent my mid-hump will be due to the inflation of Bass/Treble with gain. Because of the interactivity of the Presence and Drive knobs in this respect, I find this way works best when the Hot Cake is playing the role of a low/med-gain OD, because once the Drive passes a certain point the resulting Bass/Treble boost dwarfs any mid-boost you could make. The other way to set it up (and my preference) is to start with setting the Drive to the amount I want and then using the Presence knob to normalise the excessive mid-scoop inherent in turning the gain anywhere past 9:00. This seems to be the easiest way to wrangle the pedal, just seriously be wary of how much the Presence boost affects volume/gain staging too. Lots of gain + mid hump = you probably don't need as much level. And etc.

I hope this has been informative, and I hope none of you spend nearly as much time as I did thinking a such wonderful piece of engineering is so utterly worthless.

https://www.thegearpage.net/board/index ... e.1881222/
https://www.thegearpage.net/board/index ... ke.122634/
https://www.thegearpage.net/board/index ... t.1733037/

What is a "Bluesberry"?

 

[Goat]

On the single Hot Cake, "Bluesberry" is an alternate setting. The V1 doesn't have it, V2 has switches inside to select HC, or Bluesberry. The latest Hot Cake has toggle switches on the housing. The Double Hot Cake pedal is "Hot Cake" side A / "Bluesberry" side B. Side B is buffered.