Here’s a short but interesting article that appeared on the New York Times’ website about the creation of the iconic Rat distortion peddle. It also includes a short interview with musician and producer Gordon Raphael, who’s most famous for his production work on The Strokes’ first two albums.

From www.nytimes.com:

“Yes, there were literally rats down there,” says Scott Burnham, who in the mid-’70s hunkered down in a basement in Kalamazoo, Mich., in search of a new sound for garage bands. At the time, Burnham worked as Hippie in Charge of Technology — his official title — for a manufacturer of electric-guitar cables and accessories called Pro Co Sound. While customers wandered around the company’s first-floor showroom, Burnham tinkered below. “I had started thinking about what would make a killer distortion pedal,” he says.

Distortion pedals have been around since the 1960s; they scramble the signal from an electrical instrument and make it sound “fuzzier.” This is what adds growl to the Rolling Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.” Burnham wanted to create a distortion pedal that would capture the essence of stadium rock — the buzz of an amp cranked to teeth-rattling decibels.

Read the rest of the article here.

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