Rat question- odd sound w/o diodes- over compressed?

[jimbob]

I have wierd issue with this Rat- after removing the diodes the sound stays the same- its an odd over compressed distortion. Any idea what may cause that issue?

[Mark Hammer]

Hmmmm, maybe its something having to do with setting the LM308 for a gain of over 2000!

I keep repeating it, but then I guess there's a lot of you out there, so I'll say it again.

Most distortion pedals employ significantly less gain than is used in the Rat.  A Distortion+ and DOD250 have a max gain of 213.  A Tube Screamer has a max gain of 118.  A Rat has a max gain of at least 2100 (two thousand, one hundred) for content above 1.5khz, and includes a compensating cap intended to exploit its otherwise limited gain-bandwidth product.

In some ways, the Dist+ and Rat both represent a sort of "double clipper" in that, even though there no overt or explicit clipping stage with diodes, etc., the signal fed to the clipping diodes is already "corrupted" in a way that ends up producing a pleasing distortion;  conceivably more pleasing than providing those clipping diodes with a pristine clean signal.

[jimbob]

The odd thing is when i do add the diodes the sound doesnt change. If i add leds it begins to sound sharper/crisper

[jimbob]

So I tried a Beavis Audio mod replacing the 47 ohm resistor with a 1k pot. Now that really mad a great difference!! Awsome mod to try!