Guitar distortion distortion: rocking in the digital world

Since the days of the 1940s and 1950s, not much has changed in the guitar amplification world. Good engineering produced arobust design that has lasted several decades without much alteration. That is until recently, when advances in technologyallowed the production of electronic circuits that could perform several complex calculations on signals in real time. This hasrevolutionized the way audio components are built today, and piqued our interest in how to build a simple guitar distortionmodel that models a classic tube amp.

In this day and age, we can use computers and filters instead of large bulky circuitry to mimic this classic sound, therebyreducing the cost of this expensive equipment. All we need is a good program, and we're set! This project focuses on usingMATLAB for the simulation of distortion.