Supercool Pedals The Barstow Bat Distortion

The pedal creations that come from Supercool Pedals are always great-looking, great-sounding and creative, all the things you want from an effects unit. Today, we’ve got their latest release, a take on a classic, but with their signature Supercool spin on it. The Barstow Bat Distortion is reminiscent of a certain small, black box from the 80’s, with a couple twists and turns to bring a vintage circuit into the modern age…

The Barstow Bat is based on the legendary Proco RAT Distortion pedal, but with many modifications and additions that make it an incredibly versatile tone shaping and distortion tool. Carefully designed to add masterfully crafted saturation, distortion, and tone to your Guitar, Bass, (or any other instrument your imagination can conjure up), the Barstow Bat can create a wide range of sonic paths and landscapes ranging from searing distortions, to natural overdrives, crunchy leads, and dirty boosts, with loads of gain and signature style.

The main drive section is designed to deliver super saturation and signature slewy RAT distortion, with twice the volume output, which can lead to further overdriving your favourite amp or guitar pedal, or used as a unique boost effect by cleaning up the drive to use as a dirty boost. The Custom-designed active EQ section is designed to deliver a wide range of highly usable tones, no matter where the knobs are set. With the knobs at noon, the EQ section delivers the classic stock RAT tone. Adjusting the EQ can drastically or subtly change the Barstow Bat’s sound by either cutting or boosting frequencies; from scooped mids, to filtered or added treble, booming bass or crunchy colour.

The Barstow Bat is outfitted with two default clipping options that can drastically alter its tone and distortion characteristics. With the button in the OUT position, a pair of silicon diodes provide maximum distortion and saturation; perfect for a full-tilt standalone distortion effect. With the button pushed IN, TURBO mode is activated (similar to the famous TURBO RAT) which uses a pair of LED diodes that clip less, allowing more midrange and overall gain; perfect to overwhelm your favourite preamp, pedal, or amplifier with red-hot and searing boost.

This is one of those pedals that gives you *that* feeling as soon as you plug it in, instantly vaulting it near the top of an already crowded list of wonderful dirt devices. The Barstow Bat Distortion takes all that we know and love about a classic, and adds more, well, everything, to compete with any other distortion you can throw at it. Cheers and thanks once again to our buddy Jamie at Supercool Pedals for sending another gem our way – be sure to visit their website for more info and ordering. We also have a pretty sick demo video out now as well, so go and check that out on our YouTube channel as well – cheers!!

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