I love Rat pedals; it's probably my favorite classic stompbox. This is the best Rat pedal clone/variant I have ever tried. It has the classic Rat sound but without the noise as you crank up the gain; it still gets some noise as all drive/distortion pedals do when you crank them, but it is so much less than a normal Rat pedal and other clones. The Ratsbane, for example, can't touch this pedal, even though it is great (I'm a fan of Wampler pedals). I can even drive this pedal into metal territories without really needing a noise gate (it is pretty much required if you are using a normal rat with the gain maxed).
The only thing (which isn't a negative) is that the Tone (T) knob is reversed from the classic Rat function, so that it gets brighter as you turn the knob right/clockwise, which is how most tone knobs work (it's really a high cut filter that cuts less as you turn the knob). For some reason, the original Rat pedal has the knob work in reverse from how you would expect it, so maybe that's an improvement, depending on your perspective.
Anyways, I have over 30 drive/distortion pedals and have tried almost all the classics including duke of tone/king of tones, every wazacraft/keeley modded boss pedal, so many tube screamers/clones, OG Klon and so many Klones (been using the MXR sugar drive lately), most wampler drive pedals, most caitlinbread pedals, Emma, xotic, Diezel, etc., and this is the one drive pedal I will always keep. I just wish they could make a mini one!
