ProCo You Dirty Rat Distortion Guitar Effects Pedal

This is the only Fuzz in the Proco Rat series. I just wanted to clear that its a fuzz pedal. 😀 I have the You-Dirty-Rat for already a year now. It is different of the bunch like the FatRat, TurboRat, Rat2 etc. But this pedal rips it up like them. Those with original and other Rats, know the sound. This guy adds sputter and grimey grit to the already distorted sound and like I said before, the sound is fuzz! Filter knob really fattens the tone or brightens it. When darken at max, you get a filtered cocked wah kind of sound, it feels like a foggy smoky cigarette bar and the fuzz hustle and bustle through the crowd. Around the 12 o'clock and 1 o'clock position, the fuzz is tasty enough, but sounds great at max too. Not too muddy like some fuzz pedals, just more hairier and playable. The recipe is the germanium diodes in this that makes that clipping get dirty. I love the fuzz tone of this pedal, its everything a fuzz pedal supposed to be. Its angry, bites, and will have you strumming tunes for hours with drool unnoticeably falling out your mouth. At least, it happened to me. Build quality is tops! In thick metal enclosure, smooth turning knobs and a footswitch. I was surprised to find "Made in USA" printed on it. Have not saw that in years! There are "Made in China" Rats though, I saw a few in my time on Rat2 and TurboRats. If you already have this pedal and not satisfied but want more power and grit from a Rat, I suggest to skip this and go for a TurboRat which is to me, has a couple more notches of cranked gain than the You-Dirty-Rat.

I've been using one of these for a year now. I use it to tighten up my Mesa Single Rectifier. It works really well for this and sounds great. It gives a bit of a different coloring than a Tubescreamer, which is most guys' choice for a tiny more saturation and compression. It does this just as good, if not better than any Tubescreamer, however again gives you a bit of a different "flavor" if you will. The RAT has Loads of gain if you need it, and they are very easy to dial in. I really like the LED being in the middle of the A, it looks really cool, and of course True Bypass straight out of the box is awesome.

This is an awesome pedal for the amount you pay. It can go anywhere from a old metallica like distortion into fuzz territory and with the gain on a very low setting you can get a little bit of crunch for a good blues tone. Only thing I don't like is that I can't obtain any modern metal tones from this but that is most likely because I am running through a blues deluxe amp.