ProCo RAT

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dioxide
Posts: 1781
Joined: 15 Jul 2015

22 Jul 2020

Is there a RE emulation of the ProCo RAT? I recall something about the Pulveriser covering this, but I can't recall. Anybody know? Thanks.

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manisnotabird
Posts: 475
Joined: 20 Feb 2015
Location: Austin, TX

22 Jul 2020

There's an excellent free VST (sadly doesn't seem compatible with OS X Catalina). The Pulverizer's distortion is said to be modeled on a RAT but I don't think it sounds that much like a RAT pedal.

https://www.tseaudio.com/software/tseR47

EdGrip
Posts: 2343
Joined: 03 Jun 2016

22 Jul 2020

If you've got enough ins and outs to use it, an actual RAT is a good bit of hardware to have. A *lot* have pedals have come and gone here, but I still have the (lightly modded) RAT pedal from when I was 16. Now that I have the M4 interface I can run soft synths through it and that's been lots of fun. It's such a good distortion. (I bought a TB-3 recently and that's the reason I dug the RAT out of its drawer. As fun as you'd hope.)

From this article about Pulveriser:
https://melodiefabriek.com/blog/intervi ... ulveriser/
What kind of hardware was used as a reference for analysing/modelling?

Mats: Shure Level-Loc for the compressor part, the RAT distortion pedal for the dirt part and the filter we used a similar LP12+notch that could be found on the Nord Lead.
I don't know how ratty Pulveriser is in practice though.

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MrFigg
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Posts: 9124
Joined: 20 Apr 2018

22 Jul 2020

That TSE one I got two days ago and I already know I’m going to be using it a lot. Man it’s great!
🗲 2ॐ ᛉ

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TheDragonborg
Posts: 285
Joined: 10 Feb 2020

22 Jul 2020

EdGrip wrote:
22 Jul 2020
If you've got enough ins and outs to use it, an actual RAT is a good bit of hardware to have. A *lot* have pedals have come and gone here, but I still have the (lightly modded) RAT pedal from when I was 16. Now that I have the M4 interface I can run soft synths through it and that's been lots of fun. It's such a good distortion. (I bought a TB-3 recently and that's the reason I dug the RAT out of its drawer. As fun as you'd hope.)

From this article about Pulveriser:
https://melodiefabriek.com/blog/intervi ... ulveriser/
What kind of hardware was used as a reference for analysing/modelling?

Mats: Shure Level-Loc for the compressor part, the RAT distortion pedal for the dirt part and the filter we used a similar LP12+notch that could be found on the Nord Lead.
I don't know how ratty Pulveriser is in practice though.
Yes the Rat is the classic TB-303 distortion pedal...

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manisnotabird
Posts: 475
Joined: 20 Feb 2015
Location: Austin, TX

22 Jul 2020

If you wanna go hardware, I have the cheap Mooer Black Secret pedal which has both RAT and Turbo RAT copies and sounds great on guitar and synths, IMO.

EdGrip
Posts: 2343
Joined: 03 Jun 2016

22 Jul 2020

I put in a switch that goes from RAT to Turbo RAT to pure opamp clipping. ;)

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dioxide
Posts: 1781
Joined: 15 Jul 2015

22 Jul 2020

I downloaded the VST and did a few tests side by side with the REs I have. The Pulveriser isn't close. Surprisingly the two that came closest were the Blamsoft Distortion (not the Tube!) and... Kiloheartz Faturator!

They both get the tone more or less right, but aren't quite 100%. Has anyone here found anything closer, perhaps the Kuassa effects?

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Boombastix
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Posts: 1929
Joined: 18 May 2018
Location: Bay Area, CA

22 Jul 2020

The Plugin Alliance gtr dist pedals are good. Can be had for $10 when a sale kicks in. The black ones are very good for synths too.
They should work on Mac too.
10% off at Waves with link: https://www.waves.com/r/6gh2b0
Disclaimer - I get 10% as well.

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dioxide
Posts: 1781
Joined: 15 Jul 2015

25 Jul 2020

I take back what I said about Pulveriser. It CAN sound like the VST, but you need to give it a whopping 30db of gain before it hits the device. It does a decent job at maximum distortion settings, the other settings were trickier.

Here are some patches. Only the max distortion one is matched to the VST, the others are approximations.
PulverRAT.zip
(6.73 KiB) Downloaded 45 times

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DaveyG
Posts: 2499
Joined: 03 May 2020

25 Jul 2020

If you are handy with a soldering iron and want to get more real why not build a clone on stripboard. Pretty easy stuff - just one op amp, one FET and a bunch of discretes:

Image

I built a clone of one of their really early versions back in the 80's. I had a mate who loved to trace and sketch circuits for audio stuff. He even did some of the simpler synths although I don't know anyone who tried to recreate those (maybe Mr Behringer Senior haha?)

EdGrip
Posts: 2343
Joined: 03 Jun 2016

26 Jul 2020

dioxide wrote:
25 Jul 2020
I take back what I said about Pulveriser. It CAN sound like the VST, but you need to give it a whopping 30db of gain before it hits the device. It does a decent job at maximum distortion settings, the other settings were trickier.

Here are some patches. Only the max distortion one is matched to the VST, the others are approximations.
PulverRAT.zip
If you give me a project file with a sound or a synth going into your combi, I can run it out through my IRL RAT to compare if you like.

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dioxide
Posts: 1781
Joined: 15 Jul 2015

26 Jul 2020

EdGrip wrote:
26 Jul 2020
dioxide wrote:
25 Jul 2020
I take back what I said about Pulveriser. It CAN sound like the VST, but you need to give it a whopping 30db of gain before it hits the device. It does a decent job at maximum distortion settings, the other settings were trickier.

Here are some patches. Only the max distortion one is matched to the VST, the others are approximations.
PulverRAT.zip
If you give me a project file with a sound or a synth going into your combi, I can run it out through my IRL RAT to compare if you like.
The Combis are only an approximation, only one or two are close to accurate. I was using ABL3 to test, so it may not be close at all.

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