LEKATO High Gain Distortion Pedal, Analog Mini Distortion Effect for Electric Guitars, 2 Modes of Solo Vintage and Turbo, Aluminum Alloy Effect Pedal True Bypass, DC 9V

good pedal

Tone for days nasty distortion

This pedal has a good distortion. Especially for the price.

I'm reviewing the "Black Tank" distortion pedal. It is almost impossible to get any sort of gain matching with this pedal against a clean tone. It's got to have a +20dB boost at level 1 or 2 on the Level knob. Turn the level all the way up, with my pickup output all the way up, and this is so hot that my amp can be at less than 1 and it's too loud. Honestly, this is actually a drawback, because it's hard to make use of about 90% of the Level knob if I'm using this with other pedals and switching between tones. The distortion is about 80-90% laser, 10-20% fuzz. It's occasionally a little dirty and not in a great way. What it does best is one or two notes at a time, especially riffing on the lowest strings and soloing up high. It struggles with my 7th string at either B or A; it just sounds a little too distorted. The Filter knob is somewhat effective as it seems to sweep out some of the higher frequencies, but you do tend to lose whatever crunchiness might have been there and just get fuzzy booming if you go too far. My threshold for a 5-star pedal is basically "the knobs can't steer you wrong", meaning that you can't make an ugly sound no matter where you turn the knobs. On this one, you can definitely make the Distortion too high or too little (the entire lower half of the range of the Distortion knob is basically no distortion at all), the Filter too far, and the Level WAAAAY too high. So it's moderately effective, but not great. I give it a generous 4 stars because it's pretty sturdy and it doesn't suffer from weird overtones like I hear on a lot of low-price distortion pedals.

Like playing hard rock, hair metal, glam metal? This gets you 90% of the way there on its own, with very little fuss. I don't have an original Rat pedal to compare side by side with, but it's quite close to another clone I have used; not exactly the same, but similar enough that you won't notice unless playing side by side, and that could just be down to component tolerances. All that to say, it's an awesome middle-of-the-road distortion that works for both rhythm and lead. The controls are fairly forgiving, but start with everything at 1 o'clock and you'll probably be happy. It goes from super low gain to almost-fuzz, but I find it happiest as a medium distortion. It's not the quietest circuit in the world, but noise levels are tolerable. The switch between "vintage" and "turbo" is a little disappointing as I didn't notice much difference except that "turbo" is louder with the same noise floor, so ends up a little less noisy when you equalize the volume. Still, that doesn't take away from it being a solid distortion at a very fair price.

From both the knob dials and the filter knob that operates backwards from a normal tone control, it is easy to see that this is meant to be a version of a Rat. It has both vintage and turbo versions on a toggle switch, which I would assume are a conventional Rat and a Turbo Rat. The only real difference is that the Turbo mode has more clean gain. It must involve an LED, because a little red light shines out from the filter knob when it's on Turbo mode when you hit your strings, so I leave it on that mode because it's cooler. As far as the sound goes, it sounds really great. I have played a few other Rat clones, and I haven't liked them as much as this one. It can get really rough and distorted, but the filter does a good job of pulling back the top end harshness, and this one is actually much better at lower gain sounds than others I have tried. At really low levels, it just adds a little bit of brightness and shine, and even at middling levels, it can clean up significantly by dialing back your volume control (way more than most fuzzes I have tried). A real Rat is not much more than this, but it is more than this, and this is in a nice, petite package... and other than not getting the real deal, this is just as good. I think I have found my new drive obsession.

Decent beginner pedal. Tone is okay and has plenty of ways to shape the sound to what you are looking for. It has decent construction and should last a long time. I have used it with an Ibanez jazz guitar and a Fender Blues Jr. I would not hesitate to buy this for someone who is just getting into pedals and is looking for a beginner model.

The LEKATO Black Tank distortion pedal is based on the ProCo Rat, a venerable and well loved distortion pedal which was the first to use opamp based clipping. It’s a simple yet killer circuit for producing hard edged distortion. I have no complaints with respect to the Black Tank’s build quality. Everything seems solid enough and put together well. The knobs turn smoothly, the jacks are tight, and the switches work as expected. The enclosure is smoothly and attractively finished in black with white lettering. Despite the mini Level, Filter, and mode controls being crammed into a small space, I’ve had no problems adjusting them with my sausage sized fingers. Rounding out the design is a red status LED. The pedal is powered via a 9V center negative jack but you'll need to supply your own adapter or power supply. The pedal includes a Distortion control which sets the amount of desired distortion, a Level control for setting the output volume, a Filter control for filtering high frequencies as desired (rotating it clockwise results in more highs being rolled off), and a switch for switching between Vintage mode for a classic Rat sound to Turbo mode for the more aggressive Turbo Rat sounds. You can get a wide range of gain from the Black Tank. I have attached a video featuring some of the sounds you can squeeze out of it using the Vintage and Turbo modes. You can make it skinny or fat but I tend to lean towards the fat side. I like that it can venture into fuzz land without the bottom getting too loose. In summary, the Black Tank is an excellent introduction to the world of rodent inspired distortion pedals.