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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Depends how good you want to get and how quickly you pick it up. I have been playing for just over a year and have been learning to shred for about a year. I practice about 1 hour every day and 4-5 hours on a weekend and i'm getting pretty fast now.
