There aren’t many individuals in the
modern amplifier industry that have
carved out the kind of legacy that James
Brown has. No, we’re not talking about
the late, great, gyrating, velvet suit-wearing
soul legend—we’re talking about the famed
amp designer that brought us the Peavey
VTM, Classic Series, Triple XXX, JSX, and
of course, the 5150. Brown’s work has had a
significant impact on the face of contemporary
rock. And his amp designs have been
instrumental in the evolution of the tones
of Joe Satriani and Eddie Van Halen.
Brown has since gone into business for
himself with the Amptweaker pedal line,
which has been a hit with the underground
rock and metal crowd, as well as a new
generation of blues and classic rock guitarists.
His new pedal, dubbed the TightMetal,
tends toward the thrashier side of the sound
rainbow. But it’s a versatile tool too, with a
smorgasbord of vicious distortion options
and a smooth, natural-sounding noise gate
that expands its usefulness.
The Devil in the Details
The TightMetal addresses the concern that
most metal pedals only offer a caricature of
the tone of bigger, metal-oriented amps without
any of the feel and reactivity that makes
those amps a more direct connection
between players’ hands and the music.
Brown’s concern for real-world performance
situations is evident in many
of the pedal’s player-centric features.
The rollbar keeps knobs and settings
secure on hectic stages, the simple, yet
effective magnetic battery drawer couldn’t
be any more convenient, and a dedicated
LED illuminates each knob when the
pedal is used with a power supply. The
pedal can also be powered by either a 9- or
18-volt power supply, with the latter causing
the tone to open and clean up more,
and react more like a 100-watt amplifier
with a sharper, more immediate attack.
The pedal features true-bypass switching,
and once you’ve switched the effect on,
it’s controlled via four main knobs—Gain,
Tone, Volume, and Tight. The latter is a
powerful voicing control for morphing the
tone from loose to tighter and chunkier.
One of the TightMetal’s primary missions
is to maximize the impact of quick
palm-muted riffs without sacrificing
harmonic content. Just in front of the
knobs, you’ll find two slide switches that
are critical to achieving that objective.
The first of these, the Mid slider, emphasizes
the midrange when you move it to
the left. But move the slider to the right
or Thrash direction and the low end is
boosted while the mids are scooped. The
noise gate meanwhile, is activated when the
pedal’s Gate switch is moved to the right,
or Chomp setting. Combining the most
aggressive settings for each control delivers
nothing short of thrash heaven.
The TightMetal also features
Amptweaker’s standard series effects loop,
which can be set for either Pre or Post
to position the TightMetal in the effects
chain. Some really neat tones can be coaxed
out of the pedal using this feature. You
can place a compressor in the loop and set
the loop to Pre to smooth things out even
further. You can also use delays and reverbs
with the loop set to Post to craft huge,
spaced-out, post-rock soundscapes.
Evil Tendencies
This is one fierce-sounding little box, with
more gain on tap than just about any pedal
I’ve encountered. Thankfully, it stays solid
and tight—as intended—when combined
with the right amplifier, and a sense for how
to mute and pick with focused precision.
Pedals with high-gain, thrashy-metal
tendencies tend to work best with big-sounding
and bassier clean amps. So I
chose a 1976 Marshall Superbass head
coupled with an Emperor 4x12 with
Weber C1265 speakers for a 1978 Gibson
Les Paul Custom—which is just about a
perfect match for the TightMetal’s blistering
onslaught.
Even with the Gate off, the pedal was
tight in the low end, which worked great
for some Slayer-inspired, palm-muted riffs.
The Tone control, meanwhile, has a huge
range, but I had to keep it below the 12
o’clock position to ensure that the treble
didn’t become completely overpowering. Of
course, if death by high end is your thing,
the TightMetal has more than enough cut
in the treble frequencies to do the job. But
most players will get by with the Tone knob
set anywhere below 1 o’clock.
The amount of distortion that can be
dialed with the TightMetal should probably
be measured in tons. With the Gain
control at 10 o’clock, there was enough
distortion to handle ’80s glam metal and
bluesier hard rock. And as I brought up the
gain, the sound got spongier in the mids,
taking me into grungier and eventually,
doomier territory. This is where the Tight
control is most effective—enabling me to
square off the rounded ends of the tone
and transform it from a wide wall of devilish
sound to a focused punch in the jaw.
Kicking in the gate only made the
TightMetal angrier. And I tip my hat to
Amptweaker for developing and implementing
one of the most natural-sounding gates
I’ve ever heard in a pedal. As I played with
varying amounts of attack, the gate closed
quickly on the end of each note but without
any of the unnatural decay or ragged edges
that are typically a byproduct of aggressive
gating.
The Verdict
If you’re a metalhead in the market for a pedal
that handles tight-fisted metal riffage, it’s hard
to top the TightMetal. There’s more than
enough gain for the most savage metal and a
noise gate that reins in the background noise
that goes with extreme distortion and enables
extremely percussive palm muting and stops.
If you play with a brighter-sounding
amp and guitar, you’ll need to keep your
treble in check and tweak the pedal’s Tone
control to make sure that the top end
doesn’t take your head off. But if you long
for tones from just a little south of heaven,
the TightMetal just might be the chalice
that can quench your thirst.
Watch the video review:
Buy if...
you’re an insatiable thrash fiend in
need of supremely tight and gated
distortion.
Skip if...
the battle-din of metal isn’t your
calling.
Rating...
