You know that debate about Chinese pedals, clones and counterfeiting? This is pretty much the whole shebang in one pedal.
I mean, first there's the name of the "company"- Little Bear. This is a pretty transparent reference to Small Bear Electronics, a reputable company that sells components for making your own pedals. I bought all the parts, except the enclosures, for my homebrewed distortion pedals from them. The actual name for the company is unknown, and efforts have been made to make it appear to be a single individual, hand making these. If that were true, the guy drives himself like a sweatshop worker- he's always got 25-30 offerings on Ebay, Amazon, and Aliexpress. I have a feeling it's a front for a company that doesn't want trouble for obvious copyright infringement. Based upon components, I think it may be Motorola. Then, there's the pedal, itself. It's a Proco Rat- toggling between the "You Dirty Rat" "Turbo Rat" and "Vintage Rat" modes means this is a clone of the Mooer clone of the Rat- with a key difference- it looks like a Turbo Rat, and it has a Motorola LM308 chip- the exact chip used by Proco in the late 1980's and early 1990's. So, this is a no-bones-about-it clone.
On top of that, I tried to buy one on Ebay for quite awhile and was thwarted by last second bids- literally within the last 10 seconds a bid would come in that brought the price to just above the "buy it now" price on a parallel auction. This would, again, indicate to me that there's something dishonest going on.
But, I had indicated my interest, and the person who bought it for me is a much more masterful wizard at the Electronic Auctions, so I suspect that this was purchased for less than thirty bucks.
So, before I talk about the pedal, itself, there's a discussion to be continued, here. So far, I have sided pretty heavily with the Chinese, and the Cloners. The continuation would be if a blatant rip off of an already mid-priced device would change how I felt, in any way. Truthfully- it doesn't, but it does strike me as something different. Now, if I'm wrong, and this really is one dude in China, making and selling clones of various pieces of gear to satisfy his creative urges- then all this is moot. The majority of the evidence points more towards piracy and counterfeit. I don't think that's what Joyo, Donner, Biyang, Mooer, or Modtone is about. I think they're more about the same thing as every other company on the market- make money by building a better "mousetrap". The difference is that this is building somebody else's mousetrap, behind their back to sell in place of their mousetrap.
So, will I give my pedal up? Nope. It was a gift, and quite frankly, it's better at being a Rat pedal than most Rats out there. About the only thing a Rat can do, that this won't is that highly compressed nasal sound that Mike Campbell got on his back in the 1980's. I'm really good without that, thanks!
So, what should I do? I've decided to just be dead honest about it- It's a Rat clone- both words.
I cannot find fault with the build quality. This sucker really is a flat out tank, probably better than most Boss pedals. The powder coat is even applied better than most automotive parts. The LED's which are key for the optical clipping on the Turbo Rat setting ( my favorite setting- it's like a Rat on Mid frequency steroids) are hearty and strong.The battery compartment is snug and sturdy- heck the dials are firm, and metal. I will put this thing up against ANY pedal out there in terms of build. To get the hype out of the way- yes, like almost every pedal out there, it's point-to-point hand wired, and hand soldered. The difference is the shielding on the leads is thicker than most, and the solder points are finer. Truthfully, this is better work than I've seen on most electronics. If the "Little Bear" folks got it together to do their own designs, they'd be sought after, easily.
How does it sound? Well, depending upon the mode, I have everything from Jeff Beck to Johnny Greenwood. It's a hard clipping distortion with some fuzz characteristics. Which means- you've got more articulation than, say, a Fuzz face, or Tone Bender, but still not so much clarity and piano tone as a modern distortion pedal. Like my Buzz Boy, the MXR Distortion +, or a Metal Muff, it's in that strange place between fuzz and distortion. Which means I can't get enough of that sound. But, in all modes, Violin tone is easily reachable, and full bore molten crunch is a no brainer. The only curveball is that, like a good rat- there's no "tone" control, per se- instead there is a Filter dial, which filters out brightness by shaving off treble frequencies- in a stacking fashion- so, when you have the filter all the way down- no frequencies are filtered out. As you dial up the filter, you are cutting frequency after frequency off, starting at the highest , and working your way down, until, at full filter, you've just got the lowest end mids, and bass frequencies left. I prefer just to filter out the very top, so I've rarely got the filter up past the third position.
I'm not saying you should go out and get one- but, I am saying I'm glad I've got mine.
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