The Year of the Rat (1985)

The Year of the Rat is a careful reproduction of the 1985 Whiteface ProCo Rat, built around the same LM308 op-amp that gives that era's Rat its particular gain and compression, a chip long since discontinued by Motorola. Gain and Filter controls match the original layout, with the Filter working backwards from a normal tone knob: turning it up cuts treble rather than adding it, moving from bright and biting to dark and thick. It runs on a standard 9V supply. Despite the vintage-accurate parts this is a current-production pedal, aimed at players chasing the specific saturated distortion of the mid-'80s Rat rather than a modern reissue's voicing.