amp-in-a-box

Amp-in-a-box describes an overdrive or distortion pedal designed to reproduce the sound of a specific type of guitar amplifier in a single stompbox¹. Such pedals model the circuit character of particular amps, sometimes using JFET transistors in place of tubes and including the filtering of an amp's tone stack²³. Examples include pedals voiced after Fender Blackface, vintage JMP Marshall, Marshall Plexi, sixties-era Supro, and vintage Orange amplifiers⁴⁵⁶⁷⁸. Depending on the design, an amp-in-a-box pedal can offer tones ranging from clean boost to serious drive or high gain, and some can act as a standalone preamp⁸⁹¹⁰.