By virtue of their electrical properties, tubes generate a special waveform when they're saturated, which is why tube engineering has tremendous tonal advantages over solid state or DSP solutions, particularly for crunch and lead sounds. Tubes enter the saturation zone gradually or softly, which lends tube-driven tone its trademark yet totally unique character.
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Well maybe your teacher wasnt very good. Even if you dont think you are learning much from lessons , at least you are learning the most important things. When your learning on your own you probably wont know whats best to learn. Also you may not understand things that a teacher could explain clearly.