Pro Co RAT 2 Distortion Pedal

R Bassett
July 4, 2007

Rating: 8/10

I purchased a Rat 2 distortion pedal in the late 1980’s/early 1990’s because Steve Vai and David Gilmore were both mentioning them in interviews. I use a humbucker equipped Ibanez and a 1987 Tokai Strat copy and the Rat compliments them both.

Build quality is superb, other multi effects have died after being walked on, immersed in “liquids” or have had switches & jacks worn out, the Rat is as good as new but for some light scuffs (the lettering still glows in the dark!)

The controls are quite effective in operation because they are so simple.
1. Volume – change from single coil (quite weak output) to humbucker and the volume knob can be set to balance out the levels with quite uncanny repeatability and accuracy.
2. Filter – does a convincing job of small breaking combo’s lows to allowing treble suitable for nu-metal or punk rhythm tracks. It is relatively easy to find a sweet spot for the single coils and humbucker sing through.
3. Distortion – from barely any (knob fully anti-clockwise) to infinite sustaining shred (fully clockwise) this pedal control can offer everything in between. It is worth noting that nearly every picture of the Rat 2 has the distortion knob set at the 10-o’clock position. This really is the sweet spot and allows Strat type guitars to effectively use their volume and tone controls (tip for “Strat” with this setting – select two pick-ups, roll the middle tone right off and you can get e very effective “Money For Nothing” tone, turn the control to 2-o’clock at the same pick-up and tone setting for a Gilmore “Sorrow” type sound.)

Finally, the price has not gone up that much since I got mine, therefore, it is very good value now.