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Fantastic OD. On the information pamphlet, they specifically say the unit is so cheap because they use cheaper parts, but ran in the optimal way. It has a solid metal casing, and all the switches and components seem to be good quality. Tone wise its great! good headroom and the tone knob feels like a tilt EQ with a large frequency band as well.

The Rat is an amazing sounding distortion pedal that will send your guitar soaring. Its clean, sharp and specific without creating mud and unwanted warmth. And *can* work nicely in series with warmer harmonic distortion pedals. The JHS mod helps with tempering volume and is a definite recommend if you're wanting a Rat. The filter is also very useful and has strong tone shaping qualities with a 'seesaw' like EQ. The distortion knob however feels like it only has one setting. Once you go past 25% it seems to hit full distortion no matter how high or low you have the knob, and turning it up to full feels unnecessary and over-compressed. In saying that, I've had great success with it by drastically turning down the volume going into the Rat with EQ pedals (or any pedal with a volume knob) and the Rat turns into a really wonderful and concise saturator that feels fantastic in series with lighter overdrives and softer harmonic pedals like an EH Soul Food. The Rat only gets used on one song in our live set, but without that track doesn't hit the same. Overall a great pedal. *But a situational one.*

There's not much to say about this overdrive because it's so great. It's almost a perfect harmonic saturator, and the building block for great driven tones. I run a JC120 amp, and this pedals gives it the meat it needs. No matter what settings you run on it, it always spits out a perfect medium-rare steak. An absolute MUST have.

The DD500 is a strymon killer. It sound's better in almost every way for almost half the price. Where the strymon timeline lacks in warm, tape sounding delays - the DD500 surprisingly delivers. The DD500 makes most of the timeline settings feel a bit 'gimmicky' because it focuses on being an amazing studio-esque delay pedal for the stage. The user interface is the best in it's class and very easy to use. The best thing about it is I can use it to change patches on my Big Sky, saving space on my board where a chunky MIDI switcher would go. The only downside is *DON'T EVER USE SHIMMER MODE* - It's awful. But I think Boss went out of their way to stay clear of gimmicky, toy like sounds that others have focused on to make the delay of all delays. An absolute winner.