Drunk Beaver's Vitalii Bobrov Unleashes the Ultimate Rat-style Pedal - Dual-Channel with 4 Selectable OpAmps, a Smart HM-2 Tone Stack Mode, and 8 Clipping Options per Channel
It really doesn’t seem that long ago that I featured Vitalii’s original Cold War Bat - a 2 x OpAmp-switching Rat style distortion. At the time we had a brief discussion about a possible Deluxe version of that - and actually Vitalii had already started work on some ideas he had for a more extended version of that circuit.
Regular edition Heavy Bat above with Orange-banded Knobs
The Cold War Bat is already hugely impressive - and I really like the extra grit delivered via the Soviet UD1408A OpAmp option. While the Heavy Bat massively ramps up those capabilities much much further.
The Heavy Bat goes to 11! versus the 5 controls of the Cold War edition, meaning : - Clean Blend, Filter, Low, Mid, High, Distortion, EQ Mode : Heavy (HM-2) / Classic (Filter-only), Volume A, Volume B, Clipping Mode A : LED / None / SI / Soviet SI / Hybrid / Mosfet / GE / Bat, Clipping Mode B : LED / None / SI / Soviet SI / Hybrid / Mosfet / GE / Bat, Op-Amp Selector : Classic / Soviet / Modern / Ancient, dual footswitches : Bypass + Channel A/B.
The first Selector is the Heavy / Classic EQ Mode Selector - where Classic simply utilises the typical High-Cut Filter control, and the Heavy Mode brings in an HM-2 style Tone Stack - consisting of 3-Bands - Low, Mid and High controls.
Next I would turn your attentions to the Op-Amp selector which gives you 4 quite different flavours of Rat :
- Classic - LM208N : Stock / Standard
- Soviet - UD1408A : Gritty
- Modern - TL072 : Tight
- Ancient - KA741 : Fat
And finally you have separate Clipping Selectors per A/B Channel
- LED - symmetrical red LED - favourite for Left Red A Channel
- None - no diodes aka Boost
- Si - symmetrical 1n914
- Soviet Si- symmetrical KD521A
- Hybrid - 1n914/KD521 + D9
- MOSFET - symmetrical 2N7000 - favourite setting for Right Blue B Channel
- Ge - asymmetrical D9
- Bat - asymmetrical BAT85
I know of no more powerful or capable Rat-style pedal than the Heavy Bat, and you really do have an extraordinarily extended range available in a relatively compact horizontal BB-size enclosure. I would like to think this is all the Rat you might ever need!
Preferences
I of course mostly tend to keep it in 'Heavy Mode' for those extended Tone-Shaping abilities, and typically with the suitably Soft Sustaining Red LED - lit-up Bat's eye perfect for the Red Channel Clipping Mode, where I like the Mosfet mostly on my Blue Channel.
Generally I don't use Blend too much - and only really to soften the attack on occasion. Also Filter mode fully dialled down does not yield as much clarity as the Heavy EQ - which goes Brighter, Deeper, More Textured and Louder.
For the OpAmps - all those sound quite distinct - with the Classic LM208N sitting sort of slap bang in the middle. The UD1408A delivers more Grit, the TL072 is Tighter, and the KA741 is Fatter! All are valid and worthy, while I tend to spend most of my time between the Soviet Grit and Ancient Fatness!
Blend and Filter are mostly dialled down for me, Low at around 11 o'c, Mid at 2 o'c, High at 3 o'c. And Distortion at 11 o'c - with both Volumes around 1-2 o'c. All clipping modes are valid - but several need significant adjustments when switching between them, and each yields slightly different tonalities or frequency accents. So you need to be careful when pairing them up. While sometime having slight extremes is absolutely what is required too. Generally relatively easy to set up - despite all the controls.
Demo
Final Thoughts
I feel the Heavy Bat is pretty much perfect as is - and an incredibly formidable gain machine - capable of all kinds of things - and way beyond the typical Rat spectrum. I have some ideas for future nice-to-haves - which include having Separate Distortion controls to go with each of the Volumes, also would be cool if we had two Heavy / Classic switches - so we could set one Channel to Filter, and the other to Heavy EQ - for more distinct tonal variance.
It would also be really nice to have separate OpAmp selectors per Channel - that really would be the absolute ultimate scenario. As it is - the Heavy Bat is already several steps above anything else that is out there - and any Rat fan should of course have one. Those OpAmp and Clipping selections alone make it entirely worthwhile - and then when you throw in the HM-2 3-Band EQ and Clean Blend control - it's obvious that this is the current reigning King and Champion Rat!
These are made in relatively small batches - so you need to be quick to react when they appear on Drunk Beaver's Reverb.com Webstore - priced at a very reasonable $220. It actually pays to follow the Drunk Beaver Instagram Page - where those re-stock announcements are made.
Note that my own version is a custom all-black knobs edition, while the regular edition comes with those very fetching orange-band controls - per the second visual above!
Who here will be getting one of these? I know there are many Rat fans among you!
