The course

Twelve weeks, one signal chain

Every lecture is the next stage the signal passes through, taking as its input whatever the week before it produced. Follow the chain from string to speaker, or jump straight to a week.

  1. 01INPUT

    What Is Guitar Tone?

    Pitch, loudness, and timbre — and why two guitars can share a note but never sound the same

    A player's motion enters the system.

  2. 02STRING

    The Vibrating String

    Standing waves, harmonics, and how picking position becomes an early kind of tone shaping

    Motion becomes a standing wave of harmonics.

  3. 03PICKUP

    From Vibration to Voltage

    How a magnetic pickup turns string motion into the electrical signal the rest of the chain works with

    Motion becomes voltage. Position sets the blend.

  4. 04CIRCUIT

    The Guitar Is a Circuit

    Why passive resistors, potentiometers, and capacitors inside the guitar already start shaping tone before any pedal

    Passive volume and tone shape it inside the guitar.

  5. 05DRIVE

    Gain, Headroom and Clipping

    What actually happens, mathematically, when an amplified signal stops behaving linearly

    Gain pushes the signal toward a nonlinear ceiling.

  6. 06DISTORTION

    Inside overdrive, distortion and fuzz

    Why circuits that all clip the same input waveform can still sound distinct from one another

    Harder clipping squares off the wave.

  7. 07FILTER

    Filters, EQ and Tone Stacks

    Once a signal contains many frequencies, how a circuit reshapes its tonal balance

    Frequency-selective shaping picks winners.

  8. 08MODULATION

    Modulation: Phase, Pitch and Motion

    How continuously changing delay, phase, pitch, or amplitude creates the sensation of movement

    A slow control vibrates a parameter.

  9. 09SPACE

    Delay, Reverb and Space

    How a single feedback loop produces echoes, and how the same idea scales up into the simulation of physical space

    Delayed, decaying repeats build distance.

  10. 10AMP

    Inside the Guitar Amplifier

    Why an amplifier is a small signal chain of its own — gain, filtering, and nonlinearity, repeated and rearranged

    Preamp and power stages add harmonic density.

  11. 11SPEAKER

    Speaker, Cabinet and Air

    Why the same amplifier can sound dramatically different through different speakers and cabinets — the last physical stage before sound reaches the air

    Voltage becomes a filtered pressure wave.

  12. 12OUTPUT

    Engineering the Complete Tone

    Integrating the whole semester — reasoning backwards from a target sound to a deliberately engineered signal chain

    The pressure wave reaches an ear.