Ranking 23,000 Guitar Presets by Downloads per Day (and Where Mine Landed)

January 8, 2026

Replicating the sound of your favorite guitarist is difficult. Modern software plugins that emulate amps and pedals make it easier, but it's still not trivial. I created a Stairway to Heaven preset for the plugin AmpliTube, and over time I noticed it was getting a surprising number of downloads on ToneNET.

That made me curious how it ranked against other presets. The problem is that ToneNET doesn't offer a way to sort by downloads per day, which is a much better indicator of current relevance than total downloads.

So I built a small Python script that logs into my ToneNET account, scrapes the site, and ranks presets by downloads per day since upload.

When I ran it across roughly 23,000 presets, the top results were exactly what you'd expect: Metallica, Pantera, Pink Floyd, Van Halen. What surprised me wasn't the top of the list...it was where my preset landed.

My Stairway To Heaven preset was averaging about 15 downloads per day, placing it roughly in the top #70–#75 range (depending on the day).