Bass Rat

[Jopn]

Sometimes it's fun to build something that's pretty much the opposite of what you would personally use.  I had just such an opportunity arise when I saw an ad on kijiji for someone looking to trade some drum cases for a good bass distortion pedal.  I've play drums and gig around town, and definitely could use some cases, so I dropped him a line and we started on this project.

The build is a straight forward Slow Loris build, with the input cap put on a switch.  You'll see the LED clipping option actually only has one LED populated.  After much experimenting, this really turned out to be the clear winner for bass since it's literally half way between LED clipping and a complete diode lift.  Before noon on the gain pot it's still letting a good chunk of clean tone through.  Past that it gets into super clipping territory. 

This was also my first shot at etching a faceplate.  I was impressed that it turned out so well, but definitely have a few things different to try next time.

So here it is, the Bass Four Knob Rat (Bass FKR):

[icecycle66]

The Bass/Guitar switch is fantastic.
Excellent idea for a mod.

[thesameage]

Love it!

[bcalla]

That is slick!  Great job on the etch.

[nzCdog]

Tidy work dude, be cool to hear a demo!

[Jopn]

Tidy work dude, be cool to hear a demo!

Thanks!  Now that I've popped my build doc cherry, I should shop around for some nice shoes and try doing some demos

[AntKnee]

Love the guitar-bass switch idea! What cap value did you use for bass?

[cooder]

Very clever, cool and noice!

[Jopn]

Love the guitar-bass switch idea! What cap value did you use for bass?

Looks like I used a 470n.

[rullywowr]

Super awesome!  The etch and guitar/bass switch is fantastic.  Digging the square/rectangle clipping singular led too.

[selfdestroyer]

Very cool face plate and the insides are so clean. Great job.

Cody