The Ember Metal Distortion pedal is a high-gain metal and hard rock distortion pedal designed by James Brown, formerly of Peavey. James Brown is known for designing iconic amplifiers such as Eddie Van Halen’s 5150 and Joe Satriani’s JSX amps. The Ember Metal Distortion is based on the Amptweaker Tight Metal pedal.

Amptweaker was James Brown’s creative outlet from 2009 to 2019, where he designed various amplifiers for Peavey, Kustom, Bad Cat, and others. In 2020, James Brown sold the Amptweaker company and joined Fender as the lead designer for their EVH-branded amplifiers. Under new ownership, the Amptweaker lineup was fully redesigned with a different enclosure style and artwork.

The Tight Metal pedal gets its name from a low-cut filter that is placed before the distortion stages. This technique is also used in pedals like the Friedman BE-OD and Dirty Shirley, as well as classic high-gain amplifiers. By dampening bass frequencies, the tone becomes more percussive and cutting, especially when palm-muting.

The Tight Metal is similar to another Amptweaker circuit called the Tight Rock, with a few differences. The Ember project incorporates these changes as toggle switches, allowing users to access all the tones of both pedals and several new combinations. The only features omitted from the Ember version are the two effects loops found in the original pedals.

The Ember project is based on the final version of the original Tight Metal and Tight Rock pedals before the company changed hands. It also includes an optional charge pump, allowing it to be run at either 18V or 9V. The pedal features an internal slide switch to select the voltage. The noise gate functionality has also been slightly modified, as described in the build notes.

Summary created by AI from the original source.