Tested: Where Does The Tone Come From In A Guitar Amplifier?

Why HN readers recommended it

Recommended as a systematic, surprising experiment, often cited in audio and gear-obsession threads.

This is a summary from the source dataset, not an endorsement by Hacker News or the video creator.

Video & recommendation details

Creator / channel

Jim Lill

Topic

guitar amplifier tone

Format

demo

Level

general

HN recommenders in dataset

3

HN mentions in dataset

6

Recommendation years in dataset

2024–2026

These counts and years describe the included Hacker News records; they are not YouTube views or the video’s publication date.

From the original HN conversations

Excerpts from the recorded comments. Follow each source for the full comment and surrounding discussion.

• Jim Lill has a video testing amp tone: [VIDEO] It's almost entirely EQ and distortion, applied in various orders (the exact signal chain matters, because EQ after distortion sounds different than distortion after EQ). By getting this right you can simulate any tube amp tone …

• I'd like to plug the YouTube Video by Jim Lill - "Tested: Where Does The Tone Come From In A Guitar Amplifier?" [VIDEO]

• I'm convinced that at least 90% of "analog sound" can be simulated by taking the ideal block diagram and replacing every link with a parametric EQ->waveshaper->parametric EQ chain. Configuring those added components correctly is left as an exercise for the reader. Jim Lill's video on …