Tight Metal - Reverse Engineer?

[Elijah-Baley]

Thanks, J0K3RX.

Eventually, I don't use a stripboard, but this kind of board, tinning the tracks with the solder.:

[...]

Sorry for the image, I couldn't link it and I didn't know it.

[bluebunny]

I drill my box by hand, I could to be not so precise

The "trick" with board-mounted pots (or switches) is to dry-mount them to your board, then fix to the enclosure, then solder them in place.  You should find that little bit of "wiggle" room can accommodate any imprecision in the drilling.

[Elijah-Baley]

Thank you, I didn't know it.

But you advise against to use even only short wires?

[bluebunny]

But you advise against to use even only short wires?

Nothing wrong with doing that too.   

[J0K3RX]

cool, glad to see this alive again....i did bread this, and was brutal,

i ended up ripping the gate out, though it was a cool feature  there was no real adjustment,

i also ripped out the tight pot section too

and ended up with pretty much a  bare bones schemo in the end....

just vol, tone gain...

Rob,

Agree 100% on the "tight" control! Even on the retail pedal it's a less than useless feature if you wanna call it a feature in my opinion... Should be called the "Thin, Not So Good, wtf is that, frequency damper".. Honestly the damn thing is tighter than a gnats @ss as it is and I never even touch that knob, unless of course it gets bumped up by accident in which case I turn it completely back off again! I figured since damn near the whole Amptweaker pedal line up has a "Tight" control that it must have some dramatically good effect on the attack or something but, that was exactly the opposite?    In regards to the gate I'm not sure what you mean when you say "there was no real adjustment"? On all of the ones that I have built if anything the gate has too much adjustment! By that I mean you only really need to crack it on just a hair to get rid of most of the nasty high gain hum and hiss... Anything beyond the "sweet spot" just muffles the notes and kills the sustain. That is why I don't like the idea of the dual gang Gain/Gate pot. It's a great idea just poorly implemented in this design.. The gate to gain ratio is way off, you could probably get better results with a 100k pot vs 500k..

I have one with a full tone stack that I have been messing around with off and on and trying some different gates like the one on the G2D Morpheus and the one used in the Elan Metalhead Excalibur preamp. I've been tinkering around with this Peavey JSX hum buster diode gate before I ever even got my hands on the Amptweaker pedals, I was putting them in the JFET pedals like the Black Forest and Engl etc.. I expected that the Tight Metal would have the same gate as the Peavey amps since they were designed by the same person and as soon as I played one I knew exactly what it was even before I tore into it! They're really good for what they are but, if you really want a good gate then get a Behringer Noise Reducer (NS-2 clone) or better yet a Decimator..  Also, have put an mxr micro amp type boost after it and really kix it up a couple notches! I haven't really found anything that sounds good in front of the TM.. Tube screamers, boost circuits all degrade the sound so, I am curious what he's using in the pro versions, maybe they sound like sh!t also..? Kinda like the "Tight" pot does...    I am curious to get a look inside the pro series but for now I will just keep messin around with what I have... I mean the basic design of these pedals is what everybody likes, all the rest is just ba bling ba bling..

[deadastronaut]

hi jim, yeah totally agree on the tight pot....must just  be their thang i guess..

a full tone stack would be useful defo....

as for the gate, yep it defo worked....i was just experimenting n stuff.....shrinking my breadboard etc...

massive gain pedal....i,ll probably bread it up again soon....ish

cheers man...

[Elijah-Baley]

I don't know Grind Customs, the shipping cost for Italy is "Flat Rate", and it means... ?

"Zero"?  I just happened to pass by there and picked up a couple of PCBs a few minutes ago.  Zero shipping to UK, so I guess Italy would be the same.

Hello bluebunny, may you confirm the "zero" shipping cost for UK, so even I can guess Italy would be the same?
Or somebody else can confirm it?

And what about the delivery time?

Thanks!

[bluebunny]

You'd best contact them directly and ask.

[Elijah-Baley]

Ok, thanks for the link .

[Belanger]

did you get the pics of the tight boost I sent you?  I'm assuming he probably uses something similar to it possibly without the wah (mid). high or tight knobs

cool, glad to see this alive again....i did bread this, and was brutal,

i ended up ripping the gate out, though it was a cool feature  there was no real adjustment,

i also ripped out the tight pot section too

and ended up with pretty much a  bare bones schemo in the end....

just vol, tone gain...

Rob,

Agree 100% on the "tight" control! Even on the retail pedal it's a less than useless feature if you wanna call it a feature in my opinion... Should be called the "Thin, Not So Good, wtf is that, frequency damper".. Honestly the damn thing is tighter than a gnats @ss as it is and I never even touch that knob, unless of course it gets bumped up by accident in which case I turn it completely back off again! I figured since damn near the whole Amptweaker pedal line up has a "Tight" control that it must have some dramatically good effect on the attack or something but, that was exactly the opposite?    In regards to the gate I'm not sure what you mean when you say "there was no real adjustment"? On all of the ones that I have built if anything the gate has too much adjustment! By that I mean you only really need to crack it on just a hair to get rid of most of the nasty high gain hum and hiss... Anything beyond the "sweet spot" just muffles the notes and kills the sustain. That is why I don't like the idea of the dual gang Gain/Gate pot. It's a great idea just poorly implemented in this design.. The gate to gain ratio is way off, you could probably get better results with a 100k pot vs 500k..

I have one with a full tone stack that I have been messing around with off and on and trying some different gates like the one on the G2D Morpheus and the one used in the Elan Metalhead Excalibur preamp. I've been tinkering around with this Peavey JSX hum buster diode gate before I ever even got my hands on the Amptweaker pedals, I was putting them in the JFET pedals like the Black Forest and Engl etc.. I expected that the Tight Metal would have the same gate as the Peavey amps since they were designed by the same person and as soon as I played one I knew exactly what it was even before I tore into it! They're really good for what they are but, if you really want a good gate then get a Behringer Noise Reducer (NS-2 clone) or better yet a Decimator..  Also, have put an mxr micro amp type boost after it and really kix it up a couple notches! I haven't really found anything that sounds good in front of the TM.. Tube screamers, boost circuits all degrade the sound so, I am curious what he's using in the pro versions, maybe they sound like sh!t also..? Kinda like the "Tight" pot does...    I am curious to get a look inside the pro series but for now I will just keep messin around with what I have... I mean the basic design of these pedals is what everybody likes, all the rest is just ba bling ba bling..

[Belanger]

what you really should do is drill the enclosure, mount all the PCB mount pots and then solder your PCB to the pots so its custom fitted to that enclosure. I drill all of mine by hand as well and that will give you the best results I find. you can use solder lug pots and then just solder 22 gauge hook up wire to them and then do exactly the same thing, there more forgiving and flexible if your drilling does end up being less than perfect sometimes

If to buying from Grind Custom there's no added cost to the 10 $ to the board I could buy it with my next orders (in this winter?).

I would just to know one thing, can I use pot lugs with short wires instead those PCB mount pots? I drill my box by hand, I could to be not so precise, I prefer BB enclosures when I have 6 knobs and maybe to have more space inside the enclosure.

[J0K3RX]

did you get the pics of the tight boost I sent you?  I'm assuming he probably uses something similar to it possibly without the wah (mid). high or tight knobs

cool, glad to see this alive again....i did bread this, and was brutal,

i ended up ripping the gate out, though it was a cool feature  there was no real adjustment,

i also ripped out the tight pot section too

and ended up with pretty much a  bare bones schemo in the end....

just vol, tone gain...

Rob,

Agree 100% on the "tight" control! Even on the retail pedal it's a less than useless feature if you wanna call it a feature in my opinion... Should be called the "Thin, Not So Good, wtf is that, frequency damper".. Honestly the damn thing is tighter than a gnats @ss as it is and I never even touch that knob, unless of course it gets bumped up by accident in which case I turn it completely back off again! I figured since damn near the whole Amptweaker pedal line up has a "Tight" control that it must have some dramatically good effect on the attack or something but, that was exactly the opposite?    In regards to the gate I'm not sure what you mean when you say "there was no real adjustment"? On all of the ones that I have built if anything the gate has too much adjustment! By that I mean you only really need to crack it on just a hair to get rid of most of the nasty high gain hum and hiss... Anything beyond the "sweet spot" just muffles the notes and kills the sustain. That is why I don't like the idea of the dual gang Gain/Gate pot. It's a great idea just poorly implemented in this design.. The gate to gain ratio is way off, you could probably get better results with a 100k pot vs 500k..

I have one with a full tone stack that I have been messing around with off and on and trying some different gates like the one on the G2D Morpheus and the one used in the Elan Metalhead Excalibur preamp. I've been tinkering around with this Peavey JSX hum buster diode gate before I ever even got my hands on the Amptweaker pedals, I was putting them in the JFET pedals like the Black Forest and Engl etc.. I expected that the Tight Metal would have the same gate as the Peavey amps since they were designed by the same person and as soon as I played one I knew exactly what it was even before I tore into it! They're really good for what they are but, if you really want a good gate then get a Behringer Noise Reducer (NS-2 clone) or better yet a Decimator..  Also, have put an mxr micro amp type boost after it and really kix it up a couple notches! I haven't really found anything that sounds good in front of the TM.. Tube screamers, boost circuits all degrade the sound so, I am curious what he's using in the pro versions, maybe they sound like sh!t also..? Kinda like the "Tight" pot does...    I am curious to get a look inside the pro series but for now I will just keep messin around with what I have... I mean the basic design of these pedals is what everybody likes, all the rest is just ba bling ba bling..

Yeah, I got the pics of the tight boost, thanks.. The tight boost is a similar looking layout but it's different than the tight/fat rock, tight/fat metal.. Would need a lot better pics with the board removed from the enclosure and the jacks removed etc.. These are tricky pedals to trace, very eratic layout with traces going from one side of the board to the other and splitting off in different directions.. Definitely doesn't look like any auto-routing was used because it's just too "off the wall" to be AI.. The tight metal, fat metal, tight rock, fat rock are all built on the same board. The other pedals not sure about but they are different.

[Belanger]

ok ill try to get you those pictures of the tight boost for tomorrow. I find the wah feature pretty useless myself and as always the tight knob is pretty useless lol. the high knob is pretty cool to have tho because you can roll off some highs to simulate an added gain stage i typically use it in my fx loop, it sounds awful boosting the tight metal as well metal. I'm working on a JFET overdrive similar to the amt heater and I'm going to try using that with the tight metal 

did you get the pics of the tight boost I sent you?  I'm assuming he probably uses something similar to it possibly without the wah (mid). high or tight knobs

cool, glad to see this alive again....i did bread this, and was brutal,

i ended up ripping the gate out, though it was a cool feature  there was no real adjustment,

i also ripped out the tight pot section too

and ended up with pretty much a  bare bones schemo in the end....

just vol, tone gain...

Rob,

Agree 100% on the "tight" control! Even on the retail pedal it's a less than useless feature if you wanna call it a feature in my opinion... Should be called the "Thin, Not So Good, wtf is that, frequency damper".. Honestly the damn thing is tighter than a gnats @ss as it is and I never even touch that knob, unless of course it gets bumped up by accident in which case I turn it completely back off again! I figured since damn near the whole Amptweaker pedal line up has a "Tight" control that it must have some dramatically good effect on the attack or something but, that was exactly the opposite?    In regards to the gate I'm not sure what you mean when you say "there was no real adjustment"? On all of the ones that I have built if anything the gate has too much adjustment! By that I mean you only really need to crack it on just a hair to get rid of most of the nasty high gain hum and hiss... Anything beyond the "sweet spot" just muffles the notes and kills the sustain. That is why I don't like the idea of the dual gang Gain/Gate pot. It's a great idea just poorly implemented in this design.. The gate to gain ratio is way off, you could probably get better results with a 100k pot vs 500k..

I have one with a full tone stack that I have been messing around with off and on and trying some different gates like the one on the G2D Morpheus and the one used in the Elan Metalhead Excalibur preamp. I've been tinkering around with this Peavey JSX hum buster diode gate before I ever even got my hands on the Amptweaker pedals, I was putting them in the JFET pedals like the Black Forest and Engl etc.. I expected that the Tight Metal would have the same gate as the Peavey amps since they were designed by the same person and as soon as I played one I knew exactly what it was even before I tore into it! They're really good for what they are but, if you really want a good gate then get a Behringer Noise Reducer (NS-2 clone) or better yet a Decimator..  Also, have put an mxr micro amp type boost after it and really kix it up a couple notches! I haven't really found anything that sounds good in front of the TM.. Tube screamers, boost circuits all degrade the sound so, I am curious what he's using in the pro versions, maybe they sound like sh!t also..? Kinda like the "Tight" pot does...    I am curious to get a look inside the pro series but for now I will just keep messin around with what I have... I mean the basic design of these pedals is what everybody likes, all the rest is just ba bling ba bling..

Yeah, I got the pics of the tight boost, thanks.. The tight boost is a similar looking layout but it's different than the tight/fat rock, tight/fat metal.. Would need a lot better pics with the board removed from the enclosure and the jacks removed etc.. These are tricky pedals to trace, very eratic layout with traces going from one side of the board to the other and splitting off in different directions.. Definitely doesn't look like any auto-routing was used because it's just too "off the wall" to be AI.. The tight metal, fat metal, tight rock, fat rock are all built on the same board. The other pedals not sure about but they are different.

[Elijah-Baley]

I found a veroboard layout and it says VERiFIED! Does anyone know it?
Here's the link: http://guitar-fx-layouts.42897.x6.nabble.com/AmpTweaker-Tight-Metal-td9212.html

[asmiroth]

hi guys ive built the tight metal but it sounds heavy but on a fuzzy side. it lacks body and punch , what would seem the problem be?

[Elijah-Baley]

I built the layout on the link I posted above. It work really good.
What layout did you use?