Grobert Effects Pirate

Pirate is an analog distortion/fuzz pedal for demanding musicians.
The legendary Proco™ Rat™ with tons of new features.

It’s hard to say if it’s still distortion or fuzz. One thing is for sure – it kicks asses and gives you a lot of fun playing.

Immerse yourself in a world of new possibilities and unleash your creativity.

Pirate is based on the legendary Rat™  pedal. The standard for distorted guitar sounds from many eras. Pirate covers all of the sounds delivered by the famous original, but also gives you much more control over your sound. In addition to the standard three knobs, the pedal has been improved with many new options. Unleash your creativity!

Improvements over the original

• Booster

Optional transparent boost is always a useful feature. It makes your fuzz pedal not a one-trick pony anymore. The one-knob booster is switchable by additional, independent footswitch. You can also use the booster with your Pirate off. Treat it as two independent pedals in one box.

• Effects Order toggle switch
Do you remember about two effects in one box? You can arrange them in the order you want! The Booster before Pirate will boost the gain and increase the saturation. The Booster after Pirate will boost your output volume. How cool is that?

• DRY knob
This is your parallel dry signal control. You can mix it in to your Rat-overdriven sound. Mixing distorted signal with clean signal opens up completely new sonic territories. Now you can achieve the same distorted punch without loosing clarity. Despite high saturation, you can hear every single note perfectly. It’s especially useful for playing chords or rock riffs. This solution was inspired by professional music production techniques. Surprisingly many rock songs have a clean-ish guitar mixed in to improve the sound clarity. At 0% of DRY knob rotation you get no dry mixed in. At 50%, the dry signal is unity gain. By turning the knob even further, you are boosting your mixed in dry signal. Crazy!

• VOICE knob
This mod is also known as 4th knob, or Ruetz. It changes the character of a fuzz circuit from dark and thick to insanely piercing fuzz with pronounced upper mids.

• STOCK / INSANE toggle switch
That toggle switch lets you disconnect clipping diodes from the signal path. The result is pure insanity! Increased volume, sharp and grainy, bright fuzz sound. The toggle set to insane mode, deactivates second, right-hand toggle switch.

• STOCK / GERM toggle switch
This toggle switch works with the previous toggle set to STOCK. While having clipping diodes in your fuzz circuit, you can toggle between stock silicon diodes and NOS germanium AAP153 diodes for darker and softer clipping.

How does it look?

The enclosure is covered with unique and impressive, glitter black powder paint with insanely high gloss surface. The knobs and footswitch rings are illuminated red. The knobs are lit all the time, while footswitch rings indicate whether the Boost or Pirate is on or off. You can control the knob LEDs brightness with a trim pot on the PCB. You can also turn the illumination completely off with a DIP switch at the same place.

The pedal is covered by a lifetime warranty.

Specs

Power requirements – 9V DC center-negative

Current Draw – 105mA max.

Enclosure dimensions – 100x120x35 [mm] // 3.94×4.72×1.38 [“]

Total dimensions – 109x120x52 [mm] // 4.29×4.72×2.05 [“]

Manual