OVERDRIVE- AMPTWEAKER Tight Metal (Standard) ...NEW ...Biggest seller got small ?

 AMPTWEAKER TIGHT METAL (Standard)  (new)

$190.00 USD

The company was founded by James Brown who was solely responsible for inventing the Peavey 5150 for EVH. He went onto designing many amps for many companies and was a consultant for many more. He sold Amptweaker two years ago to work for EVH designing amps again. I feel that he is getting older and wanted to semi-retire.

The new owners have dispensed with the original elaborate casings.They simplified the Standard guitar OD's They then killed off 34 pedals. Ouch! They now only sell 6 pedals.

Tight Metal formally came as a Standard, a Pro and a Jr. The Pro has been kept in tact but the Jr. has been dumped and the new Standard appears to be the former Jr. as far as features go. 

The company insists it has the Standard's specs and has not been dumbed down. Maybe? It could be true if only because 

it was the goose that laid all the company's golden eggs.

It is also assuring that it is still made in the U.S.

CONCLUSION 

When they sold the old model the Fat and the

The original
pedal

 Tight were 2 separate pedals. 

The only video of the new one is lame. 

The new pedal came out in Jan. 2021.

They need to get the pedal out to some serious reviewers.

There is a 'Will It Chug' video by Ola Englund the guru of Heavy Metal. He reviewed the old one on Aug. 2020. He thinks it is the best Metal pedal he has ever played. The video will not download so you will have to go direct to YouTube. I included video's of the old model. I find the overall sound impressive. This pedal's attack is nicely in hand thanks to both the 'Tight'...high pass filter control and the built in gate.

The previous model went for around $300.00 USD the new one is $190.00 USD.

          Prymaxe has it on sale for $140.00 USD 

HANDS ON

James Brown

The first thing that surprised me was that the casing is robust with a bit of reassuring heft. It has a very cool looking high tech grainy finish. The knobs are metal and have a smooth but firm sweep. 

Unlike the pic the Plexi is labeled 'Thrash'. It has a 3 way switch with Plexi unlabelled in the center position and 'Smooth' has been left as it was. Everything looks and performs totally Pro. All the tone choices are really good and are definitely usable. I could get both a super tight modern metal sound and a very usable fat one. I was also pleased that if you pull the gain back you can get an excellent modified classic Marshall sound. I found for old school metal sounds it is awesome with my Gibson SG Standard with hummies.

I tried a high gain and a Tele for modern settings but the real winner is my Ibanez with P90's.

It needs a few good reviewers to demo it. My only beef is the change of the original 

label with a pick shape that is slanted with the 'a' in the center to an uprighted pick with a skull. The skull thing is trite and cliche. It cheapens the whole vibe of the company not just the pedal. It is definitely very good value for money. With the sale price it is a steal.

UPDATE:

After using it in a very up tempo modern Prog Rock vien it does a totally convincing job of pulling off the gourmet stack thing. 2 Thumbs up!!!

 

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HEADS UP

Below is Brett Kingman's review of the Tight Metal Jr.

I figure at a minimum the NEW Standard model is as good 

as the old Jr. and this is an excellent demo.