ProCo Vintage RAT: Even Rodents Are Sought After When Vintage
Out of all the variations of the ProCo RAT distortion, William Benton easily crowns the Vintage RAT as the RAT King. This flexible pedal (he used it on bass in his former punk band, uses it on guitar for Lucky Pineapple and uses its filter functions when other distortions are engaged) is not to be confused with the Rat King, the sewer-dwelling TMNT villain who wore moth-eaten clothes and rags over his face -- that's a lot of unnecessarily planned costume-work for someone aiming to appear naturally vagrant.
WILLIAM BENTON: Well, I’m William Benton of the Louisville-based band Lucky Pineapple.
Before I got to this most vintage RAT, I’ve shopped through a lot of RATs and that’s the only I bought. I’ve had there for probably 10 years. I played that with the bass in a more aggressive funk band called Body Hammer that toured a lot. I still have that pedal. It’s still the most reliable. It was sold to me for $20.
There was a band -- Body Hammer started in Louisville and I heard them and it kind of reminded me of like an Amphetamine Reptile labeled band from Minneapolis which was a little outside of the standard hardcore that was going on in this town. So I sheepishly said, “Well, if you ever need a bass player, I would have fun with that.” And then within a few months they came calling, and this RAT was handed to me and said, “Well, it’s going to be pretty essential that you use this, this RAT pedal.” I’ve had it ever since.
It works great for bass. It works great for guitar. You have a lot of fun with the, between the distortion level and if you put any sort of distortion in front of it, you can play with this filter and get some pretty cool sounds. And that’s exactly what I have always done with guitar.
Post new comment