My First Distortion Pedal – The ProCo Rat 2

I  got my first distortion pedal in 1993.  It was a Proco Rat 2 and it cost about 80 dollars.  It was my main distortion pedal until about 5 years ago, when the wiring problem became really bad.  The battery connector came unhooked from the wires and I had to resolder a new battery clip onto the wire leads.  The solder I used was cheap and not so good, so the connection was not very stable.  I used a multiple ac adapter to power it, since it took an odd shaped design of adapter plug.  That worked for a few years, until my cheap multiple adapter actually caught fire and burned up my power strip.  The adapter input on the pedal had started to fall apart at the end there, and I had picked up a couple of new pedals so the Rat was eventually retired.  At times I do miss it and have thought about buying another or fixing up this one, but I have never gotten around to it.

The Rat pedal is nothing spectacular.  It sounds good and has a strong metal housing.  The main controls are Distortion, Volume and Filter.  The Distortion and Volume controls are the same as on other pedals, and the Filter controls the smoothness of distortion.  Roll if off and it is chunky and turn it up and it is smoother.  The logo is glow in the dark, and the on led is a red light in the middle of the “A” on the logo.  The control knobs are made from a hard plastic, with glow in the dark for the dial as well.  I don’t think you can see it in this picture, but I put a big scar in the volume knob somehow.  I don’t remember doing it, but I must have been wearing ice skates when I stepped on it.  It is not easy to damage these suckers.

As far as sound goes, well at the time it was the coolest thing in the world.  I am mainly a humbucker guy, and this lays on alot of gain so you can get a pretty thick high gain metal sound.  Going into a little 10 watt Crate amp it sounded pretty good.  Well, as I have gotten older and collected some other pedals it is not as great as it once was.  I might get around to fixing it up this summer, if I have some time.

The Valnott Stompbox: How To Make Black Metal

It wouldn’t be so funny, but it is true.

Digitech Jimi Hendrix Experience Modeling Pedal…

Usually in pedals I like to have things simple. I like to be able to fix things, resolder, repair…that kind of thing. But they started making these modeling pedals. They are pretty cool and sound nice, but I know when these things break there will be no way that I can fix them.

Well, not wanting to be a Hendrix clone I looked into the Hendrix pedal Digitech makes because I wanted an inexpensive Univibe. A good Univibe is 200 dollars. I got this Hendrix pedal for 90 dollars on ebay.

The pedal is based on some of Hendrix’s biggest hits. Here is a breakdown of the sounds:

1. Purple Haze
Intro and solo: Based on: Fuzz Face™*; 100-Watt Marshall® * Super Lead™* Amp; EMT Plate Reverb; Roger Mayer Octavia (solo)

2. Little Wing
Intro and Solo: Based on: 100-Watt Marshall®* Super Lead™* Amp; Miniature Rotary Speaker (Homemade at Olympic Studios in England)

3. Voodoo Child
Intro and Solo: Based on: Vox® * Clyde McCoy Wah™*; Brown Fender®* Bassman™* Amplifier; EMT Plate Reverb

4. All Along the Watchtower
Intro and Solo: Based on: Acoustic Guitar; 100-Watt Marshall®* Super Lead™* Amplifier; EMT Plate Reverb

5. Foxey Lady
The intro and solo use a DallasArbiter™ Fuzz Face™ distortion pedal, a Marshall™ 100 watt Super Lead™ amp, and an EMT Plate reverb.

6. Star Spangled Banner
Jimi used a Unicord™ Univibe™ pedal, Marshall™ 100 watt Super Lead™ amp, and a hall reverb. The solo adds a Dallas Arbiter™ Fuzz Face™.

7. Wind Cries Mary
The intro and solo both feature an EMT Plate Reverb and a Marshall 100 watt Super Lead™ amplifier.

Since I am not in a Hendrix cover band, and I am a huge fan of his but not someone who tries to emulate him. But this pedal is always on my pedalboard. I also bought the extra foot switch for it.

What makes this pedal great is that it mixes a nice reverb pedal with a univibe, fuzz, octave and some nice wah tones (though I don’t use those too much, I have a Dunlop Dimebag Wah for that). The switch lets you scroll up and down through the settings and you can select a clean and dirty setting by switching between toe down or heel down (or using the extra switch). I was surprised how good these sounds were. I use an Ibanez GAX and an Epiphone Les Paul through this pedal and into a Line 6 212 Spider and it still sounds pretty good.

If I compare it to the sounds on Hendrix records will it match up? I haven’t tried. I prefer guitars with humbuckers for one thing. Also, some of those Hendrix tones – which can be emulated using clones of the original materials or reissues – are so noisy and unstable using vintage or reissue effects. The sounds produced here are scalable and controllable. That is an improvement. The Voodoo Chile tone takes a loud, loud, loud amp to reproduce using analog equipment. Having that set of sounds in a portable and clean sounding pedal is a great thing. Some of us are looking for a 100 watt Marshall lead tone without the volume. It manages to avoid that. It also manages not to cost the same as a garage full of vintage equipment or reissues, which is nice.

This was the pedal that probably pushed me out of the purist mindset when it came to effects. Sure, I had a couple of digital effects around, but I definitely was not sold on the idea of a pedal that was so specific a digital model. In truth the pedal is very versatile due to the controls and the variety of sounds modeled. It is far from perfect, but it makes on hell of a good set of sounds for funk, jazz, fusion, blues and rock. Ultimately, you should not think of this as a shortcut to channel the ghost of Hendrix, but as an expansion with his name on it. There are sounds you can get out of this thing that are not Hendrix, but still very nice.

I only hope Digitech keeps this thing in production as long as they are in business.

Here is a Guitar World review for your consideration. The audio doesn’t really do the pedal any justice, but this is not one of those effects that require you to have a thousand dollar guitar to sound good either.