Guitars
A guitar’s pickups, switch, volume and tone, with the cable and amp input, solved part by part. Flip the switch, split a coil, turn the knobs and watch the curve. Pin a setting to compare, change any part, and listen.
Swipe sideways for the whole drawing. Tap a part to change it. The pickups are on the left, and the cable and the amp input hang on the right.
At this setting
0 dB is the pickup’s raw voltage, before the coil, knobs, cable and amp input shape it. The peak up top is the pickup’s resonance.
Pin this curve keeps what the graph shows, up to three pins in their own colors. Pins stay when you switch guitars, so you can lay a Strat’s neck pickup over a Les Paul’s. In a sweep, the lightest line is the knob at 0 and the darkest is 10.
Listen
The amp input
Driven by
What the cable plugs into
Warnings. The summary above the graph turns red if the guitar can’t be solved as set, usually from a part at zero or a shorted pot track.
How this tool works. We solve each guitar with the circuit bench’s engine at 161 frequencies from 20 Hz to 20 kHz, cable and amp input included. Each pickup is a voltage behind its coil’s resistance, inductance and winding capacitance, and a humbucker is two coupled coils. With several pickups on, each one’s share is solved with the others shorted, and the shares add up.
The curves are linear. They leave out the pickup’s magnetic nonlinearity, the width of string under it, and the body and neck. The played string has the first two. Coil values are measured where a part’s description says so, typical otherwise. For an amp’s tone stack, try the tone stack and filter tool. To play a guitar into a whole pedal or amp, use the circuit bench.
Spot an error, or want a circuit added? Email info@swellamps.com. A schematic or a clear photo of one helps. Anything you send may be used to improve these models and our desktop app.
© 2026 Swell Amplification LLC. All rights reserved. The simulator and tools, their circuit models, drawings, presets and text are the property of Swell Amplification LLC and may not be copied, reproduced, redistributed or used to build another product without written permission. The original circuits are historical designs documented in public sources, and no claim is made to them. Everything here is provided as is, without warranty of any kind, for study and personal use. Results are simulations of typical parts, not measurements of any real unit. Don’t rely on them for the safety of any build or repair. Tube amplifiers carry lethal voltages.
Product and company names are trademarks of their owners. They are used here only to identify the circuits these models are based on; this site is not affiliated with or endorsed by any of them.
From Swell Amplification, swellamps.com.