Lab Rat PCB Set

This is a PCB set for building your own Lab Rat preamp/distortion. This is not a beginner project, so if you’ve never built a pedal before, then this isn’t for you.

I’ve tried to make this as affordable and as easy to assemble as possible, but this is a high-voltage circuit and requires special care in assembly, testing, and use. Conspiracy to Commit Electronics is not responsible for any damage or injury caused by improper handling, assembly, or use of this circuit.

The Lab Rat is inspired by a classic aggressive op-amp distortion, with the output buffer removed and replaced with a 12AX7 running at high-voltage. The result is the same inherent distortion tone we all know and love, but with a little extra tube warmth and saturation on it. The original “filter” tone control has also been scrapped in favor of a “James” bass/treble stack for more flexibility. Lab Rat also has a nice wide frequency response, so you can easily dial in killer distorted tones on bass as well as guitar.

Each PCB also includes a “3PDT-TB” footswitch PCB and “12AX7-LEFT” PCB for mounting the tube socket. A pre-drilled enclosure can be purchased from Tayda Electronics, instructions here.

You can find the build document with the BOM, schematics, and enclosure drill guide here.