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I am thrilled with the sound of the Ratt Deluxe v4.5 that I built with a GuitarPCB circuit board. I first started building audio electronic devices in the 1990s. Like many DIY’ers, I was inspired by Craig Anderton’s Electronic Projects for Musicians. I had copies of both the first and second editions. I also built a number of Paia Electronics projects.
Building this the Ratt was challenging for me because I hadn’t built an audio electronic project in years. I have a number of hobbies and I tend to rotate through them. I built the Ratt because I am trying to put together a pedal board. For distortion, I was using the Rat clone setting on a Zoom MultiStomp pedal. I decided I wanted a dedicated “Rat” pedal so I could use the Zoom pedal for other purposes.
I know that a person should not build a pedal solely to save money – at least not initially. To get up to speed, I spent more money on tools and parts than a Rat pedal or thea good Rat clone would’ve cost. However, I had a lot of fun building the pedal and now I’m “tooled up” to build more devices.
In building the Ratt, I junked the first circuit board because of my mistakes. I made some mistakes on the second board, but I did workarounds to fix them.
I used the OP07 op amp. I put the circuit board in a 1590BB enclosure. I used the 3PDT wiring board V6. Somehow, though, I wired it so that when the effect is active, the LED is off, and vice versa.
I would post photos, but the interior wiring looks sloppy and the exterior is nothing special. I had to re-drill the holes for the switches because of poor planning. I used an old-school Dymo labelmaker to label the pots.
The main thing, though, is the sound. It nails the sound I wanted!
Before starting the Rat project, I was considering doing some mods to my ancient (1990s) Crybaby wah-wah pedal. I’m now going to use the MoWah board and some of the ideas in the build guides. I also have a Mammoth fuzz that is close to completion.
GuitarPCB has certainly made my re-entry into DIY pedal building a lot of fun!
Welcome back to the community. And congratulations on the Rat.
As far as not building pedals to save money goes, that’s pretty much what got me re-started in pedals & electronics. I didn’t want to pay the exorbitant prices just to hear how a certain effect would work & sound in my rig. So far, I’m only about $3300 in the hole.
And using existing circuits to get clues about related circuits has always been a part of my paradigm. So, you’re not alone.
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