Original Distortion pedal sounds/circuits and their clones

[Anderson]

Source Audio has a “Bass El Raton” engine in their drive pedals. Not sure how it compares.

[Anderson]

Here’s a video of the Source Audio Aftershock (With the RAT engine) compared to the MXR M85.

Source Audio After Shock Bass El Raton vs MXR M85 Bass Distortion - Rat based Bass Distortion

[howard]

Man, the Aftershock is such an awesome pedal for the price. So many options.

[Paul]

Source Audio pedals aren’t cheap but you get a lot of value out of them. I got the C4 and I found a bunch of clone presets based on originals (Moog, OC-2, Bitcrusher, etc.). That Aftershock sounds killer and can do some amazing fuzz too.

The new Ultrawave can also do distortion/drive stuff and I’m sure the community will add presets that are based on originals.

ULTRAWAVE Multiband BASS Processor // Demo by Nate Navarro

@DaveT

JHS pedals on YouTube goes into this extensively in his videos. He will do entire episodes on a selection of clones and their history.

Yeah I liked this episode where he was comparing Behringer with Boss pedals.

What's the Deal With Behringer?

[sfadams]

@eric.kiser

If any body has heard of a Rat clone for bass, I would like to hear about it.

Rattler Bass - JAM pedals

[howard]

I love the fact that a blend knob turns more or less any pedal into a bass pedal.

[Paul]

@Noisembryo has some RAT pedals on his board as you can see in this thread.

My First Pedalboard!

Here is mine, I don’t have pedalboard so I use pedals randomly when I need them depending on what I’m recording: [board]

Curious how he plays the original RAT. I actually got the Rattler on my board that @sfadams linked. That one won’t go off my board for a long time. The Aftershock was a really close call when deciding on a dirt pedal. With the Aftershock you also get a fuzz included similar like the Chase Bliss Brothers.

https://www.chaseblissaudio.com/shop-pedals/brothers

You can also combine two pedals to get the job done. For example when you combine a B3k with a rat tail/king pedal for a more dirty sound. I’ve seen on other forums lots of combination suggestions. I guess an EQ pedal before OD can achieve something similar?

At the moment I’m intrigued by blend pedals or actually 2 channel pedals with a clean channel and dirty.

[howard]

If I still had a board I would probably eventually have bought a Tyler.

KMA Audio Machines Tyler The Freq Splitter Demo

[Paul]

I love the owl and moon detail.
Blend, low/high pass filter sounds good too, yeah that is a really nice pedal.

[howard]

Yeah you could just throw all your dirt and modulation in the high pass loop and just compress the low end and end up with Darkglass Everything.

[itsratso]

love that channel. even though he is pretty allergic to basses.

[itsratso]

one of the coolest things about the hx stomp is the ability to blend your dry signal into any pedal. so i can have a bass klon. daveT also has a standalone pedal that does the same thing,

Post your pedal ideas

I did end up getting this! It totally works. I can use any guitar pedal I want and if it has low end tone suck, this puts it back. Or I can thin out the frequency range that gets the effect. It’s easily useful for distortion and chorus, maybe other things too. Thank you for hunting it down! [image]

[DaveT]

This is one of my favorite videos when it comes to history, progression, variants. Josh seems to cover a wider range of topics now, but some of the older videos could be the basis for a pedal PhD.

What Is A Blues Breaker?

[Noisembryo]

@eric.kiser

If any body has heard of a Rat clone for bass, I would like to hear about it.

You don’t need bass specific pedals, what you want as alternative is DI with another parallel output which is usually labeled as “amp” or “thru” or “link” and DAI with 2 inputs. Take a look at this cheap Behringer DI:

You connect your bass to the input and connect output of DI to channel 1 of your DAI. Then you connect “link” to the input of your pedal chain and output of that into channel 2 of your DAI. This will enable you to record both channels simultaneously and you can mix direct signal with processed one to your taste inside your DAW. Most importantly you will retain all low end that pedals usually high pass.

@Paul

Curious how he plays the original RAT.

Not sure exactly what you mean, I described above the process I use when I need to record processed signal so I hope I answered your question.

[Paul]

@Noisembryo

Not sure exactly what you mean, I described above the process I use when I need to record processed signal so I hope I answered your question.

That was exactly what I wanted to know, thanks!

[DaveT]

And here’s the other video I was thinking of on this topic . . .

History Of Guitar Distortion

[Anderson]

Watched that earlier. Good stuff. Wondering why he chose to actively leave out the Tube Screamer.

So, when manufacturers make new pedals in today’s age, do they tell you what it’s based from? Or do people have keen ears and can tell the sound? He clearly tells you what each of the JHS pedals is trying to emulate, but don’t know if others do too.

[DaveT]

@Anderson

why he chose to actively leave out the Tube Screamer

Some things get an entire show. I seem to remember him covering this somewhere. That history video also has a part 2.

[DaveT]

@Anderson

He clearly tells you what each of the JHS pedals is trying to emulate, but don’t know if others do too.

He will dedicate episodes to running through a set of clones of a particular circuit.

[howard]

@Noisembryo

You don’t need bass specific pedals, what you want as alternative is DI with another parallel output which is usually labeled as “amp” or “thru” or “link” and DAI with 2 inputs.

Another good option is a line selector or other blending splitter. But yeah a clean channel early on is simple and works too.

I had one on my board but never ended up using it really because all my pedals had their own blend functions.