Greetings, and welcome to another Dojo. Ever wonder what goes into modelling amps and pedals? Typically, when guitarists talk about whether an amp model “sounds real,” we describe it in tonal terms—gain, EQ, distortion character. But great tone is the successful solution to a complex, essentially time-based problem.

Without getting needlessly technical, an amplifier is not a static filter that reshapes frequency content and stops there. It is a dynamic system that responds differently depending on what just happened, what is happening, and how much energy (a.k.a voltage) is being pushed through it. For modeling technology to work convincingly, it has to track complex changes over time, not just measure a snapshot of a moment of “tone.”