The TightMetal Jr ranges from TightMetal to FatMetal tones, and includes a noise gate and a Tight attack switch. With ever-shrinking pedalboard real estate, a common request to Amptweaker has been for smaller footprint versions of our popular distortion pedals introducing the Amptweaker TightMetal Jr. This pedal shares most of the tone-tweaking features available on the larger TightMetal and FatMetal, and uses the same circuitry, while eliminating effects loops, lit controls, battery switches and boost features that some players don’t need in order to shrink down the size and weight. This pedal can even be used as a preamp, by running the output straight into the amp’s effects return or power amp input. Derived from the Pro series, the Tight control and Fat switches were re-configured into a 3-position Fat/Normal/Tight switch to dial in the attack of the notes from thick and heavy to aggressive and chunky. An EQ switch similarly provides Thrash/Normal/Smooth tone settings, which helps the pedals cover much of the range of both their standard and Pro parents. For the FatMetal tones, simply switch to Smooth and Fat, otherwise it’s a mini TightMetal Pro. In addition to Gain, Tone and Volume knobs, there’s also a manually-adjustable Noise Gate which can be cranked to stop notes hard and fast. And the great thing about a built-in noise gate is that it goes away when you turn the pedal off so your clean tone is unaffected!