Amptweaker - Tight Metal

Mich P · Post by **Mich P** » 05 Feb 2014, 08:03

Great i love it .
Are you gonna do a small run of it ?
Mich P.

marmaliser · Post by **marmaliser** » 05 Feb 2014, 08:30

Mich P wrote:Great i love it .
Are you gonna do a small run of it ?
Mich P.

Or OSHPark maybe ?

J0K3RX · Post by **J0K3RX** » 18 Feb 2014, 00:44

Here are some pics of the TM Pro and the Fat Rock... Drooooool

J0K3RX · Post by **J0K3RX** » 18 Feb 2014, 00:49

Here is the Tight Rock and the Tight Drive

coldcraft · Post by **coldcraft** » 18 Feb 2014, 20:49

very nice

J0K3RX · Post by **J0K3RX** » 18 Feb 2014, 23:52

tcpoint wrote:
J0K3RX wrote:OSH...
How did the boards work out?

The boards work perfectly! The 1590b needed the holes for the on-board switches to be a little bigger and spaced apart more so I fixed that... should be 100% now.

J0K3RX · Post by **J0K3RX** » 19 Feb 2014, 01:18

Here are a couple pics of the ones I had made before I made some minor changes... These still work 100%, I just made the switch holes larger and further apart to except an on-board switch better. The other changes were the silk screen on the front with correct part designations and the pads are a little bigger... The new ones look silly good!!! The 1590BB is wicked beautiful!!!

J0K3RX · Post by **J0K3RX** » 19 Feb 2014, 02:01

New version..

tcpoint · Post by **tcpoint** » 19 Feb 2014, 05:35

Looks really good. I like the layout and the use of quad opamp.

J0K3RX · Post by **J0K3RX** » 23 Feb 2014, 06:39

I don't know if anybody likes or has a need for the "Sidetrak" feature on some of these Amptweaker pedals but I could find it to be VERY useful!! Can somebody with good switching/wiring abilities look at this and point out any mistakes or improvements, if you would be so kind? I am "switch-tarded" when it comes to this switching stuff! The reason I am trying to draw it out like this is because I want to make a small switch mounted board from the diagram...

J0K3RX · Post by **J0K3RX** » 14 Mar 2014, 02:45

Can you guess what this is?

I'll give you a hint.... it's red.......... and KICKS @SS!!

Pruttelherrie · Post by **Pruttelherrie** » 15 Mar 2014, 10:36

J0K3RX wrote:I don't know if anybody likes or has a need for the "Sidetrak" feature on some of these Amptweaker pedals but I could find it to be VERY useful!! Can somebody with good switching/wiring abilities look at this and point out any mistakes or improvements, if you would be so kind? I am "switch-tarded" when it comes to this switching stuff! The reason I am trying to draw it out like this is because I want to make a small switch mounted board from the diagram...

Why make it difficult? Put the 'bypass-loop' as a loop in the bypass-path of the 3PDT, and the 'effect-loop' after the TM in the effect-path of the 3PDT, done.

[edit] good stuff with the PCB's by the way!

J0K3RX · Post by **J0K3RX** » 15 Mar 2014, 16:57

Almost done tracing the TR... Not a lot of difference between the TR and the TM. There is a series of caps and resistors on a switch between the 3rd and 4th opamp starting after the tight control which is slightly different also. Some cap values around the 3rd opamp are different.... On to the tone controls which seem to be about the same and then the PlexEQ which on the TM is the trash switch and has different value caps here then the volume out to the last opamp and there are a couple omitted part and value changes. The power network looks to be the same. That's it... not a lot of differences but the differences are made where they count! This pedal I think sounds better than the TM for my personal taste. It has every bit as much gain and edge as the TM and actually seems to have a bit more gain and singing sustain... This is voiced with a lot more mids and definitely has more of a modded hot rod Marshall / Fortin Evil Pumpkin'ish bite! It's Brutal, the "Rock" part of the name is a little deceiving I think and a lot of metal players will shy away thinking it can't quite make the scene... They're WRONG!

Oh, and one more thing I noticed... This board has a lot of empty parts, mainly caps according to the silk screen.. Probably explains why it says "Fat/Tight Rock" at the bottom of the board

I can almost guess the part values...

J0K3RX · Post by **J0K3RX** » 16 Mar 2014, 17:14

Ok, here's what I got so far... There are still some things I am confused about around the gate/gain area..

J0K3RX · Post by **J0K3RX** » 16 Mar 2014, 23:23

Anybody see anything that just doesn't look right? This thing is twisting my brain!! I am gonna have to trace/draw out the entire board, pain in the ass... There is some stuff that is just confusing me.

Another question; Since I really don't feel like fronting the $$ for the TM Pro or the Big Rock Pro, does anybody have any ideas on a 3 band EQ for these bad boys? I have some but, I don't know which one would be best..? I would really be interested to see what James Brown came up with! I have a layout now that has a Marshall type tone stack but not sure that's the best way to go and I am not a real big fan of the Marshall stack either.. Wampler has some good stuff but I am having a hard time squeezing that in there leaving enough room for the Thrash/PlexEQ circuit.. I want the stack to enhance the sound not mess it up...

J0K3RX · Post by **J0K3RX** » 17 Mar 2014, 06:33

Ok, just outa curiosity I changed only these values on my TM clone and SHAZAM!! Pretty damn close to the TR... Very close to be exact! So, aside from a few other minor changes (Tweaks) they are both the same.. Game Over...

jymaze · Post by **jymaze** » 17 Mar 2014, 12:32

So it is just mainly a difference in scooping factor in the post-eq... Predictable, but also a little disappointing.

It makes me wonder if I did not make a mistake on the TM t-filter. Could that 100n be in series with the thrash switch toward the ground? It would make the thrash switch less violent, keeping more mids.

Thanks for the schematics Jok3rx.

J0K3RX · Post by **J0K3RX** » 20 Mar 2014, 01:35

Is it me or are there some funny similarities in this Peavey Bandit schematic from 1995 and the Amptweaker designs? That's about 20 years ago and I believe James Brown was working for Peavey around that time... Seems to be a "Thrash" scoop filter right before the tone stack and a gate also..

coldcraft · Post by **coldcraft** » 22 Mar 2014, 14:09

J0K3RX wrote:Ok, just outa curiosity I changed only these values on my TM clone and SHAZAM!! Pretty damn close to the TR... Very close to be exact! So, aside from a few other minor changes (Tweaks) they are both the same.. Game Over...

seems like you could put a pot in series with the 22n to ground and control just how much scoop there is, right?

J0K3RX · Post by **J0K3RX** » 22 Mar 2014, 16:44

coldcraft wrote:
J0K3RX wrote:Ok, just outa curiosity I changed only these values on my TM clone and SHAZAM!! Pretty damn close to the TR... Very close to be exact! So, aside from a few other minor changes (Tweaks) they are both the same.. Game Over...
seems like you could put a pot in series with the 22n to ground and control just how much scoop there is, right?

Yeah, that would work. It's not anything we haven't seen in many other pedals except that this is a switch which creates a drastic change in tone rather than a gradual sweep... This one has much less scoop than the TM for more of a Marshall type tone just by using 22n and 47n in parallel. There are a lot of options here! I think the Big Rock Pro and the Tight Metal Pro are probably pretty much the same also except for these values.. He put a 3 band EQ on the "Pro" models, probably the same idea as the Peavey Bandit or the Peavey Studio Pro series. Then he puts the scoop filter either before or after the tone stack, not sure which would be better?

I think the "Thrash" switch has worked well for him over the years since you can find it in many of his designs going way back to the early 90's.... Here is another example, the Peavy Dirty Dog Distortion.

Amptweaker - Tight Metal [traced]