First Plugin
While I was busy experimenting with the dsp valve code the Guitarix team began releasing LV2 plugin versions their amps, at first these were hard wired configurations as the standalone amp has so many options it was not possible to make the plugin particularly usable unless it was simplified ( this is now not the case as a fully configurable plugin has now been produced ).
With the aim of becoming familiar with the LV2 architecture I decided to code a plugin based on my experiments and hence was born my first guitarix preamplifier.
This consist of a 2 stage valve preamplifier with a feedback loop and presence and resonance controls. Distortion/saturation is controlled by the level of the input gain.
One Tone Control
While building a small practice amp I did some research into variations on a single tone control as I did not want the complexity of a full guitar tone stack.
After much experimentation I settled on a very simple circuit used in the famous Big Muff pedal from ElectroHarmonix as it provides a wide range of usable guitar tones and works extremely well in the amplifier which is loosely based on the Fender Champ topology. It comprises of 2 filters, one low pass the other high pass, blended together with a potentiometer.
Pedals galore.
Having been satisfied with the previous experiments with a simple 2 stage valve preamp wrapped around the tilttone control and resonance/presence feedback loops I thought it would be interesting to hear what it had to do with several other effects. Using the models already available in the Guitarix source I went into mass production!