Guitar Amp Tone History

Here is a brief history of the popular conception aims to reproduce the tone tube amp saturation. His was a remarkably saturated part of the sound of the guitar since the birth of guitar amp!

1950

Blues players and sometimes a little big band jazz players, pushed relatively low power valve amplifiers to their limits and beyond. Leo Fender designed the first commercially available amp valve high power in the 1950s, and legend says he was held in engineering until Dick Dale could not break it. Anyway, Dick Dale opened the way for a surfer style distorted.

The 1960

This time has heard the sound of the speakers broken accidentally, leading to experiments with intentionally reduced cones. Just something you can control, but effective nevertheless. Direct amplifiers still used by some electric blues and pop. Jeff Beck is one of the pioneers of the Fuzz Face, a saturated transistor used in previous rock and pop music in the early special effects.

1970

Several preamp stomp-box were produced to simulate the saturated colors of the tube amp, including the famous Tube Screamer Ibanez and many clones that continues to this day! We have also heard of hot rod amps Mesa Boogie valve with the tube preamp additional steps to give more control to the levels of saturation, the volume levels and EQ settings.

1980

Distortion (hard clipping) pedals were produced to support the styles of metal. Multi-effect racks and soil units were widespread, with the ability to switch between a wide range of overdrive sounds, in addition to other popular effects. In addition, several "experts" tailor-made amplifiers, generally produces a type of sound very well. The punk called the most unpleasant distortion sounds possible.

1990

The first taste of digital overdrive with the guitar signal passes through an analog-digital converter, then the software emulation overdrive model, including trim, or an amplifier tube, then a conversion from digital to analog. Some sounds are quite convincing, if used in imitation of the speaker cabinet models. Recovery of the preamplifier used fuzz grunge players, whose recovery overdrive brown tone of voice and a good fit for the blues and rock players.

2000 and later

The 2000's saw an explosion of numerical models as companies tried to secure their future by offering products that are increasingly popular for home recording, the living players and semi-pro musicians. The global financial crisis in late 2000 forced most companies to limit the development and focus on high volume low cost items. The most notable exception was a small company, Fractal Audio, which produced the Axe-FX is probably the first device to convince experienced professionals to the tone of the valve.

Here is another website with a brief history of the guitar amp. This article examines the evolution of pre-amps, in particular the details of the gain stages and how they have affected the overdrive sounds.