From its humble beginnings as Pro Co’s first distortion pedal, the Rat quickly earned notoriety for its sizzling tones, strong output, and effective Filter control. The reissue Rat ($299 retail/$199 street) replicates the original’s metal enclosure, white graphics, and op-amp chip circuitry, and even has a mini phone plug-style adapter jack instead of the now standard 2.1mm barrel jack.

A welcome thing for fans of ’80s-era rock and metal, the Rat asserts itself with a ratty sounding distortion sound that attains maximum bottom and output with the Gain turned all the way up.

The Rat has a good amount of sustain in this configuration and finding cool tones with just about any guitar is easy thanks to the Filter control, which provides a thick tone with punchy mids when set to around two o’ clock. The Rat is not very dynamic, however, and doesn’t clean up much when you turn down your guitar. With its muscular output, however, you can smack your amp with a hot signal to get that combination of distortion and front-end overdrive that made the original Rat such a great match with older Marshalls and other tube amps. Also, in a comparison between our review unit and an original Rat, the reissue sounded even clearer and more defined, which is great.

If you want tons of sustain you’ll probably need to hook two Rats up (or get the gainier Turbo Rat), but if you’ve got a little space on your board for a classic distortion pedal, you might consider putting this early-style Rat in your rig.

KUDOS A uniquesounding distortion box.

CONCERNS Mini phonejack DC input may require an adapter to work with your power supply.

CONTACT Pro Co.,(269) 388-9675; procosound.com