We will rebuild! (aka recovering from multi-fx)

[Shadoweclipse13]

That is definitely awesome. I can't wait to see this little board of yours together!

[sal paradise]

Fredric Effects Green Russian / 90s Rat (choices)

You're making some GOOD choices!

A Rat into a Green Russian is thick, creamy bliss. Goes together like turkey and Hi-C.

And nice find on the Llama!

Woah wasn’t thinking rat into green Russian…! Was planning either/or paired with the TS clone. That adds a whole new layer of things to try out.

[MrShake]

Oh my god, a lower-gain Rat into a big thick Green Russian is like a sumptuous hug of guitar fuzz. Mix and match to your heart's content, but definitely don't pass up a Rat into ANY Muff, but especially that Green Russian. Something about the low end and lower gain, they just play so well together.

[fever606]

Oh my god, a lower-gain Rat into a big thick Green Russian is like a sumptuous hug of guitar fuzz. Mix and match to your heart's content, but definitely don't pass up a Rat into ANY Muff, but especially that Green Russian. Something about the low end and lower gain, they just play so well together.

Can confirm... this is the only way I can make a Rat sound good in my setup, but it does sound SO GOOD...

[sal paradise]

Shit, went from ‘small board’ to 3 drives in a couple of hours

[MrShake]

Let the cheapos lead you where you wanna go. $25 Rat and Muff mini clones can start you off and hold you over until you find the ones you like most...

And then you have a spare Rat to put AFTER your reverb .

[sal paradise]

Let the cheapos lead you where you wanna go. $25 Rat and Muff mini clones can start you off and hold you over until you find the ones you like most...

And then you have a spare Rat to put AFTER your reverb .

You’re a terrible influence.

At this rate, in a few days’ time I’m gonna have a mini-muff into a mini-rat, then a muff into a rat after the reverb

[MrShake]

Shit, went from ‘small board’ to 3 drives in a couple of hours

Lord knows I have too many drives (fuzzes) on my board, but a TS for lowest gain, Muff for highest gain, and a Rat to cover everything in between sounds like a MARVELOUS setup for everything from classic rock to ambient/shoegaze. And I've never clicked with TS-style pedals, but those 3 are all able to mix and match very well with each other, so you could combine any 2 and have a great range of sounds.

[MrShake]

Let the cheapos lead you where you wanna go. $25 Rat and Muff mini clones can start you off and hold you over until you find the ones you like most...

And then you have a spare Rat to put AFTER your reverb .

You’re a terrible influence.

At this rate, in a few days’ time I’m gonna have a mini-muff into a mini-rat, then a muff into a rat after the reverb

Lol, yeah, most of all, don't let ME spend all your money, I'm just some dude who loves Rats, Fuzz, and reverbs, and love that there are now good budget options that hold up next to my fancier tools (toys, they're toys). You've obviously got good taste and sensible people here making suggestions alongside me.

But the way you can get a wide assortment of the minis for peanuts puts the sounds in your hands right away, and let the forum militants argue about whether one can even make rock n roll without a $400 overdrive. And they still seem to sell for about $20 on the used market, one could probably sell a bundle of them if they'd moved on to other stuff. Or keep them and use them to make a board full of stuff outside your wheelhouse.

That said, I'm on personal lockdown for a bit, I just got a Sonicake Rude Mouse (Rat), there's a Donner Triangle Muff clone and crazy deep Cuvave reverb on their way to me, and there may be one more surprise next week. I'm tapping out on buying after these, I have too many pedals as it is.

But, like, that's a LOT of pedal power to be able to recklessly impulse buy for under $100. And they sound f'in great... better than the hissy, tone-sucking Rocktek types when I was a young punk.

[sal paradise]

I already have the Russian muff clone & the rat, so I’ll play with stacking those first before buying Chinese mini versions

Really appreciate all the advice & ideas - made this experience & the outcome way more interesting than I had originally envisaged

[MrShake]

Ohhhhh yeah, you're gonna enjoy that.

Since we've geeked enough about the budget stuff, and you had some budget for a couple of nice pieces like the Llama, have you considered putting something in here (I know, I know, MINIMALIST, but for me, this is just a thought exercise!), something that's like, I don't know, a "chaos" pedal? Something to just inject some insanity? I lean to fuzz, naturally, so like DBA and Devi Ever and their ilk are the handful of pedals I have for this purpose, but it could be some batshit modulation pedal you keep at "randomize me" settings, just something whose only purpose is to take you outside the box?

This is turf that might be beyond me, because, like I said, give me a tweakable self-oscillating fuzz like the DBA Supersonic Fuzz Gun and I'm happy as a simple-minded clam, so maybe you'd prefer a ring modulator or pitch shifter or something. I just often try to keep something like that available to shake me up without feeling like I need more stuff or a new from-scratch setup, and with your return to the modular fold, something like that can be fun to drop in at different points in the line.

And I can't wait to see how this comes together for you and what you dig! In fact, I'm gonna go play JM - > Rat -> Muff -> reverb *right now*.

The fancy ones, you snobs.

[MrShake]

Can confirm... this is the only way I can make a Rat sound good in my setup, but it does sound SO GOOD...

So, I've been SUPER pissed off about the so-called "online guitar community" lately, because some of the previously overlooked lack of tact is under my skin, as well as all the other crap.

But can I just say that I appreciate that even though you and the Rat have never really bonded, you didn't include "is hot garbage" or "hair metal '80s trash" in your comment. Just that it doesn't work in your setup. As a reader, it's appreciated, homie.

And clearly, you're one of those people with good taste because that Green thing and that black Rat are like a damn Andes mint chocolate together, and game recognizes game.

[JSett]

Rat into Muff (or FF, for that matter) is a tried and tested recipe for success. Like salt on french fries.

Nail them to your pedalboard.

[MrShake]

Rat into Muff (or FF, for that matter) is a tried and tested recipe for success. Like salt on french fries.

Nail them to your pedalboard.

This.

People can quibble over which Rat or Muff variant, but really, it doesn't matter.

I realized it's like a circus tent. The Rat and it's mids are like the support pole in the middle that you cover in the tent itself, the Big Muff. You can't see the pole, but it's clearly under there, giving the shape, holding up that middle, while everybody notices when the red and white stripes of bass and treble come and go.

And once it's up there's a f'in ELEPHANT inside.

[JSett]

Maybe someone should start building a pedal with a Rat and a Big muff in the same box and name it something like the KING OF FUCKING TONE