$20 Mosky Black Rat

[gregmon79]

How does the low end compare to the RT?

The low end is better with the BR in ways. Even with the tone dimed. The RT's strong suite has never been in the low end IMO. But then you start adding too much low end to a rat and it sorta ceases to be a rat. The rat is all about the high mid and that grind for me. And the RT delivers that in spades. Better than any other pedal I've tried. But that doesn't always work with just any band.

 

[cheechi]

in your opinion, which of the two would sound better if you had a clean blend to mix it?

 

[chanson]

How does the Mosky compare to the Rat 2?

 

[BurtMacklinFBI]

Just got mine, and I REALLY like it. If it had a clean blend and was a little lower gain it might be my favorite distortion pedal ever. Really jagged, gravelly crunch and a surprising amount of low end.

 

[BurtMacklinFBI]

Now that I think about it, have any of you tried both the Black Rat and the Dunwich Volt Thrower? I'm interested in people's opinions on how they compare.

 

[bimple]

Now that I think about it, have any of you tried both the Black Rat and the Dunwich Volt Thrower? I'm interested in people's opinions on how they compare.

I am still waiting on my Mosky, but I have played through a volt thrower, and would imagine that the volt thrower is much more bass heavy just because of the additional headroom on that pedal

 

[2010P]

Volt Thrower has so much bass energy in it that I can't imagine the Mosky can beat it, but I just fired up the Mosky again and in turbo mode with the dist knob at about 10, filter about halfway up it really is one of the better bass overdrive sounds I've heard, and I've heard a metric crap ton of pedals in the past few years.

I'd pick this over a Blower Box any day.

The Rat Tail still has a slightly more cutting midrange.

The bass Plague Rat I have is clearly superior.

Surprisingly, the Mosky just annihilates the Iron Pig V2.

I think a blend is unnecessary with the Mosky, but with one the sound would be clearly up there with the big boys, and possibly even better than some.

 

[robd]

Mine came from China in about a week. Surprised by how much low end it retains. Under $18 shipped with the Aliexpress new user code. Nice pedal - especially for that price

Thanks for the heads up

 

[cheechi]

I'd pick this over a Blower Box any day.

The Rat Tail still has a slightly more cutting midrange.

The bass Plague Rat I have is clearly superior.

Thank you for these.

I thought I was missing something, with the Blower Box having both bass & treble controls vs the rat's filter, the Blower Box has to do more or be more or something. I still love the look and the two LED eyes I'm having a hard time taking it off my board but yes this Mosky gives me a 'better' distortion sound. I'm still going to try to get a sound I like that the Mosky can't do and keep it there, but we'll see. If I had more time to test, I need to hear them both going into my flanger & phaser before I truly decide it's replaced.

The TC Mojo Mojo & the Mooer Fog (based on the Zvex Wooly Mammoth) are also in danger of being replaced if I buy a second one of these, one set with high filter & one with low would cover the sounds I get from all 3 of those. The Fog, both because of its size and its squeeze, I might set a different way and keep it on there.

 

[2010P]

Thank you for these.

I thought I was missing something, with the Blower Box having both bass & treble controls vs the rat's filter, the Blower Box has to do more or be more or something. I still love the look and the two LED eyes I'm having a hard time taking it off my board but yes this Mosky gives me a 'better' distortion sound. I'm still going to try to get a sound I like that the Mosky can't do and keep it there, but we'll see. If I had more time to test, I need to hear them both going into my flanger & phaser before I truly decide it's replaced.

The TC Mojo Mojo & the Mooer Fog (based on the Zvex Wooly Mammoth) are also in danger of being replaced if I buy a second one of these, one set with high filter & one with low would cover the sounds I get from all 3 of those. The Fog, both because of its size and its squeeze, I might set a different way and keep it on there.

You're welcome. Yeah, a lot of this is psychological in that it's hard to wrap ones head around a $20 pedal competing favorably against a boutique. But it's all resistors, diodes, op amps and solder at the end of the day, and all these parts are usually chinese made. A lot of it really is the pretty enclosure. And if anyone denies that I will just ask if they would buy the same boutique pedal (or pay anywhere near the same amount) if it came in a bare metal enclosure? Reverb.com is littered with custom builders who can't sell a damn thing because of their graphics. Yet it is what it is. I'm guilty of it too. That's why the Mosky was such a revelation to me.

 

[Nunovsky]

I just got mine and I tried it just for a short period and let me tell you: this thing sounds huge! What a great sounding pedal for such a small amount of money!
Thanks @gregmon79 for letting us know about this little gem.

 

[BunchyMutt]

Can’t wait to get mine! No idea when that’ll be though :/ no shipping info

 

[Will_White]

Got mine last night, I'm not a fan of the vintage setting but the turbo is great.

 

[gregmon79]

Thank you for these.

I thought I was missing something, with the Blower Box having both bass & treble controls vs the rat's filter, the Blower Box has to do more or be more or something. I still love the look and the two LED eyes I'm having a hard time taking it off my board but yes this Mosky gives me a 'better' distortion sound. I'm still going to try to get a sound I like that the Mosky can't do and keep it there, but we'll see. If I had more time to test, I need to hear them both going into my flanger & phaser before I truly decide it's replaced.

The TC Mojo Mojo & the Mooer Fog (based on the Zvex Wooly Mammoth) are also in danger of being replaced if I buy a second one of these, one set with high filter & one with low would cover the sounds I get from all 3 of those. The Fog, both because of its size and its squeeze, I might set a different way and keep it on there.

The Blower Box rules. I love that pedal. It's one of the few pedals that made all my sale off's over the years.

You're welcome. Yeah, a lot of this is psychological in that it's hard to wrap ones head around a $20 pedal competing favorably against a boutique. But it's all resistors, diodes, op amps and solder at the end of the day, and all these parts are usually chinese made. A lot of it really is the pretty enclosure. And if anyone denies that I will just ask if they would buy the same boutique pedal (or pay anywhere near the same amount) if it came in a bare metal enclosure? Reverb.com is littered with custom builders who can't sell a damn thing because of their graphics. Yet it is what it is. I'm guilty of it too. That's why the Mosky was such a revelation to me.

I would def buy boutique in a bare box. Graphics are great. But I play a pedal cause of the way it sounds. Not the way it looks. If it looks cool that's just icing on the cake.

I just got mine and I tried it just for a short period and let me tell you: this thing sounds huge! What a great sounding pedal for such a small amount of money!
Thanks @gregmon79 for letting us know about this little gem.

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Hell yeah man. I found I like my tone knob dimed. It really opens it up and brings the vibrant thunda!

Can’t wait to get mine! No idea when that’ll be though :/ no shipping info

Yeah that's the one thing that sucks about getting pedals from China, it takes forever and you can't usually follow tracking. It'll be there in a couple weeks though I bet.

Got mine last night, I'm not a fan of the vintage setting but the turbo is great.

Most def. I don't think I'd ever use this pedal in vintage mode. But turbo is raw as F!

 

[cheechi]

The Blower Box rules. I love that pedal. It's one of the few pedals that made all my sale off's over the years.
...
Most def. I don't think I'd ever use this pedal in vintage mode. But turbo is raw as F!

how would you set the mosky and the blower box if they are both in use on the same board? i do want to keep it and not just because of the looks. thanks in advance.

 

[gregmon79]

how would you set the mosky and the blower box if they are both in use on the same board? i do want to keep it and not just because of the looks. thanks in advance.

I would set the Black Rat For your more traditional style rat. Loud and mean. Dime the tone (if you can without it feeding back. I haven’t tried that yet in a loud, live mix). Then the BB I would set as a more refined type rat. Run the bass around 1 or 2 o’clock, gain around noon to 1 and the treble around 10 or 11 maybe. That’ll all vary depending on your bass and rig. But that’s how I’d run them.


I think the BB would do better at lower gain cause its able to get that fat low end. Then the Black Rat would be more for your higher gain dist. That would be my line of thinking anyway. You could also try and reverse those roles.

 

[Stan_da_man]

Just pulled the trigger on one of these. I play drop D for a couple of songs in our band and they're slower, heavier stoner riff songs. Currently use a Green Russian Muff but always feel it gets lost in the mix... hoping this can solve that!

 

[Maxfenderbass]

Just ordered one of these along with a Joyo UD. For $70 CAD, why not?

 

[BunchyMutt]

Just received mine. It's ridiculously small. From pictures I was thinking it would be a little longer and wider. time to test it out

 

[BunchyMutt]

After playing around with it for an hour it's one of my favorite distortion pedals that I've tried. The only other rats I've tried are the Iron Pig v2 and the Volt Thrower. I like the Black Rat far and away better than both. Compared to the Iron Pig all settings sound good to me and they're easy to get to, while with the IP was frustrating how few settings sounded good and it seemed like I had to adjust all the controls if I was going to adjust one. I know I'm in the minority but I've just never gelled with Dunwich pedals. They have a really dry quality to me that doesn't work with my rig. Certain frequencies are accentuated that I have a hard time dialing out. Comparatively, the Black Rat is juicy. While definitely capable of getting mushy it can easily be made articulate again by either rolling off the distortion slightly or boosting the filter.

The distortion knob is useful and super effective throughout the range, the volume control is natural, noise isn't bad at all, and the filter is great, although I only found it useful from 12noon to max (around 5 o'clock). Any lower and it got muffled sounding to me.

I actually preferred the Vintage setting sometimes. At lower gain it's got more of a tubist thing going on and there were times when by b string sounded phat on it, whereas the turbo's crunchiness is pretty in your face.

I couldn't exactly nail some the real grainy-but-articulate rat tones of, say, Smashing Pumpkins "Everlasting Gaze", but the punch in the gut and grind is there in spades.

The only thing that's annoying is that the power jack doesn't really stay fit but once I find a spot/angle that works it stays on. A bump though could easily power it down. For $25 bucks though I'm not complaining.

Definitely keeping this thing and would recommend.

Dark humor warning:

In conclusion, praise be to the child labor that made this.