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Any AU distortions that emulate or sound similar to ProCo Rat pedal?
Love the beefy sound of that pedal..I’ve already got Grind and FuzzPlus.
Comments
Apparently, there is one in Tonebridge.
Interesting. Do you know if you need to purchase the whole app or can I just buy the rat?
It’s all free!
The Proco Rat is a great pedal, not just for guitar, but keyboards and drum machines. The essence of the rat sound is that it is a gradual treble boost into the distortion element, followed by a gradual low pass filter. The treble boost on the input causes there to be a ton of gain applied to the treble/harmonics, but not much gain to the bass, so it doesn't get muddy or farty, it just gets ratty. Then the lowpass filter (6dB per octave) mellows out all of the highs you added. You could use that recipe of treble pre-emphasis/distortion/ treble de-emphasis with any distortion to get it rattier.
@Processaurus The Rat is my favourite 303 acid distortion, like you said it doesn't muddy things up too much.
I see ToneStack has a pedal called The Gerbil that looks like it.
Tonebridge looks pretty cool, not sure how I missed that one.
I think Bias2 is getting deleted, seems a bit complicated and lacks effects.
Yea but an emulator is so much easier
I love using tonebridge, I have a lot of presets saved. So many, that when I want to scroll through my list of them under favorites, It is so slow moving, and glitchy that I run out of patients. Like, getting to guns and roses - sweet child ) mine. I have to scroll through Accept, Amorphis, Death, AC/DC, Carcass, Fight, and a couple dozen more. Each artist with 3 or 4 presets. (I need them all!!!).
Anyway, if I try to use the search function, it tells me there is no GNR, or Sweet child song, or any others. It is like it isn't searching my favorites, I don't know what it's searching. So, It takes me a good 5 minutes to scroll down to the preset I want.
Anything I'm missing? To make this go faster?
@High5denied
Are you using the AU version primarily? I do, but I spend time in the standalone to try to organize my tones.
This is what I do in an attempt to make it as simple as possible.
In the standalone, I use the search or list to find tones I want. I left swipe and add it to a pedalboard. I organize my tones in groups, by pedalboard. Different board per group.
Now it is easy to find the tones I want. I find the ones I want to use currently, and make sure I pick on it to select it. This puts that tone into your tone browsing history.
Now, in the AU version, when I hit the search button, my browsing history shows up in the bottom of the panel. You can load a tone and save it as a preset in the AU preset list. You have to name it too, though.
This is easier for me than using a long favorites list. If you are just using the standalone, the pedal boards are all you need. You can load your tones directly from there. The AU doesn’t feature the pedal boards.
Also, as far as search goes, I believe it is searching published tones, not your favorites. Just guessing though.
Yes, mostly Stand alone ATM. Just doing a lot of Jamming. I haven't utilized the pedalboard really much at all. I think what you have written above will help me out greatly! I will give it a shot tonight. Thank you for the info, I appreciate it!
I think you might like Muckraker- though it’s not an AU
Looks cool. I’m veering away from anything that’s not AU. The workflow of IAA is just so pedantic.
Yes I know I’m one of the few- I am not bothered on the slightest if anything is au or not- it makes no difference whatsoever to me. I don’t quite get it though- because by avoiding non au- surely you are missing out on a lot (the majority) of effects?
Me, too. I use it all: AU, IAA, AB, no connectivity.
I appreciate the apps for what they primarily do. If I like the app, I make it work for me. There is always a way to get any app integrated in your workflow. Inconvenience may be a turnoff for some, but I enjoy the challenge.
There are some fine IAA apps. I don’t shun them flat out but they are not good for workflow in the studio for me or for live work unless I am just using one app. I still mess around with Egoist and SeekBeats and sample them.
There are plenty of auv3 effects. IAA fx never worked for me at all.
I’m actually looking for a RAT like distortion AU for iOS too. Any news on that? I love the one that is integrated in Logic. Grit or something.
Overloud’s TH-U app has one. It’s AUv3:
Overloud THU by Almateq srl
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/overloud-thu/id1478394489
I too would love a distortion AU similar to the ProCo RAT.
Maybe the folks at Nembrini will consider it?
It seems like it would be a challenge to emulate properly, but if anyone could do it...
@And_Nembrini Just wanted to tag you and let you know there's interest.
I'm doing this kinda stuff with Drambo AuFX.
The RAT uses a super simplistic antiparallel 1N914 silicon diodes design combined with a low pass filter. The diode limiter can be done using the Graphic Shaper and you'll need low pass and high pass filters like described on
https://www.electrosmash.com/proco-rat
(this shows both the diode clipping behavior and the filtering result).
The cool thing about doing it this way is that you can fine-tune the clipping curve to your liking. Maybe you want a saturation curve more like germanium diodes? No problem.
Thanks @SNystrom but I wouldn't like to load up the whole TH-U only for the RAT distortion. Would probably be too cpu heavy on my iPad.
Also thanks to @rs2000 that looks super interesting! But I guess too complicated to replicate it with a few eqs and saturation. Specially the dynamic response I guess.
Yes @Skyblazer I guess it makes sense to ask a pro guitar AU dev @And_Nembrini to maybe work on a proper RAT emulation. Would be super amazing and a good addition between tube screamer and fuzzface!!
You can run just the Rat emulation without the amp or speaker cab emulation.
It’s an 800+ MB install though. Hardly worth taking up all that space IMHO. I’m having good luck with @And_Nembrini apps for distortion.
But if he wants a ProCo Rat emulation that's what there currently is as AUv3 -- which is what he was asking for. I wasn't sure if he knew that you can run just the pedal without running the amp sim.
Sorry, I should have been more clear. I had an 80’s ProCo Rat when I was all hardware. I know what it is and what it sounds like. I was just pointing out that it would be worth looking at the @And_Nembrini apps for a similar sound without a nearly 1 GB download.
MiRack has a distortion module called “Rodent v2: ProCo Rat Emulator”.
Sadly, Nembrini doesn't have a Fuzz Face pedal. Perhaps you were thinking of their Marshal Gov'nor pedal?
A Rat would be a welcome addition, though!
Ahh!! That was it! I knew I had seen one somewhere, but just couldn't remember where. Yay. That one was bugging me.
I dunno how much the Rodent v2 sounds like the HW Rat, but I do know the other Nysthi amp sims are surprisingly good. Nobody seems to believe me when I say that, but I've had great results with a guitar rack I set up in there (except for IR cabinet emulation, which didn't work out so good and I did outside with Thafknar).
They do have a red fuzz AUv3 plugin, which one would surmise was inspired by the red Germanium-based FuzzFace pedal.
I'm definitely interested in trying the super simplistic Drambo solution. If you have the time to make that, please do. I'm not sure that I could figure it out myself, but I'd love to see the chain of modules used to achieve it.
You really should check out the audio quality of TH-U. It's exceptional. Meanwhile, maybe someone will make a nice standalone/AUv3 Rat emulator or someone will verify the capability to re-produce it with an existing distortion app. I'd look carefully into the capabilities of Nembrini's PSA 1000 since it features a buffet of distortion types with tweaking knobs. Rat's are mono so maybe PSA 1000 Jr will cover the need.