"Rape Me" clean tone?

[johnnykazz]

My current is really, really simple.

I have more, but this is what I use for recording:

2011 Kurt Cobain signature Jaguar

1984 MIJ Stratocaster

Peavey XXX 2x12 (godlike distortion, sounds huge when double tracked)

Fender M-80 (Beautiful cleans)

Electro-Harmonix Small Clone (used in combination with the Fender)

Vox Wah

I saw Dinosaur Jr. last night man, and I really really want a wah pedal haha. They rocked the #### out of a really small venue in Philly. J ran his sunburst Jazzy through 3 half stacks, it was so loud and so ####ing awesome! Sorry to change the subject so much, but I like talking about gear with people. Anyone use the new Digitech Whammy 5? They went back to the Gen 1 logo on the pedal and its getting killer reviews. It's awfully expensive though.

[johnnykazz]

I agree with everything you just said.

Most of the first songs I learned on guitar were also Kurt's creations. Even though they are purposefully simple, that guy was a serious songwriter and my mind does wonder whether or not Kurt was a better guitarist / musician then he let himself be perceived as, and what he may have went on to create had he not passed away. I hope everyone on this forum agrees, regardless of their opinion of Kurt, he should be looked at as one of many musicians that has shown that regardless of technical skill you have or choose to show, you are allowed to create and can still make music.

[redman1401]

Most of the first songs I learned on guitar were also Kurt's creations. Even though they are purposefully simple, that guy was a serious songwriter and my mind does wonder whether or not Kurt was a better guitarist / musician then he let himself be perceived as, and what he may have went on to create had he not passed away. I hope everyone on this forum agrees, regardless of their opinion of Kurt, he should be looked at as one of many musicians that has shown that regardless of technical skill you have or choose to show, you are allowed to create and can still make music.

He was definitely getting better, I mean look at the progression from Bleach to Nevermind to In Utero to "You Know You're Right". He's definitely a prime example of someone who let the rhythm of the music show emotion over some flashy over the top guitar solo or technical thing.

That being said the gear i use are a 94-95 mustang, a 97 jagstang, the cobain jag, a squier strat, an SX tele, running through my ds1 pedal that i modded by removing the d4 and d5 diodes to remove some of the hiss, an EHX small clone and thats all plugged into a 1988 fender princeton chorus or my kustom kg100fx half stack. With those i'm able to get a kurt-like tone which, when i play Nirvana stuff its clearly reccognizable, yet i can still play other stuff like AIC, The Offspring, green day, whatever and it work for everything.

[Rapeme]

hello there,

I just taken a MIM fender jaguar classic player HH and a fender champion 5 w.

I'm desperately trying to reproduce that fantastic intro sound, but not lucky. Can he have used an effect that escapes us? Any help is appreciated.

Thank you

frank

[James J]

Well there is more than likely compression, eq, etc on the studio track, but as far as Kurt having any effects on his guitars, no. He used either the Jag, or a Univox on this song, plugged into his Twin Reverb. The only pedals in his signal chain were as follows. Guitar-DS2-Echoflanger(vintage 70s)-Small Clone-Amp. 

[Rapeme]

Thanks a lot James.

Do you think that sound is all thanks to Twin Reverb?

 

 

[HNB]

I think it is likely. I have a twin reverb and it gets that sound well. If you use a Super Distortion or a JB with 1meg pots, you get that sound pretty easily. His Jaguar with the humbuckers still had 1meg pots. I think that helps make that trebley chime.

[robert(original)]

for me, i can get the kurt clean tone really easily by shooting about 3 packs of dope and inbetween nodding out playing really sloppy.

i keed, i keed.

i have a 70's peavey musician, i run it thru a carvin 4x12. don't have any pedals anymore, just my old teleguar, and my jag-stang.

[James J]

Alot of it has to do with the Twin Reverb and those two guitars. I think the only other electric used on the album was the 69 Comp Stang on Dumb. 

[Rapeme]

I'm still chasing that sound

[Kaine Delay]

I've been chasing the sound for this album while building my own sound as well and discovered the Echoflanger (or Poly Chorus - they were the same pedal) played a huge role in colouring his tone. While messing with the Poly Chorus' Filter Matrix setting, both layered or single takes bearing a certain wash about them, and the hi hi pitched feedback heard throughout the record, as if on cue, can be found and eerily resemble those tones heard on FFWHHROS, RFUS, Tourette's, Scentless Apprentice, Sappy, MV, and IHMAWTD. Here's one little clip of me filling in for Kurt's jaguar with a MIM Jaguar Blacktop HH - found at a pawn shop in East Vancouver by myself last month. 

 

Ok, I can't attach the raw file. I'll post a YouTube shortly. 

Quote

 

 

[Mirata]

He used a 1969 competition mustang the same one in slts video and in rio de janeiro and other clubs like crocodile cafe, he modified it with hotrails in the bridge and used a 1982 twin reverb silverface with 2 blown tubes it later got replaced by brand new ones from my knowledge

[Sebastian Z.]

On 8/15/2013 at 2:01 AM, Rapeme said:

hello there,

I just taken a MIM fender jaguar classic player HH and a fender champion 5 w.

I'm desperately trying to reproduce that fantastic intro sound, but not lucky. Can he have used an effect that escapes us? Any help is appreciated.

Thank you

frank

Hey, i just wanted to chime in that one thing i’ve tried when going for something vaguely similar was putting my jag-stang pickups out of phase and turning the amp up to get some more dirt on it. I felt that sound had some of the really pretty strange kind of ‘something” to be specific…

But i’ve been doing engineering stuff for a long, long time and eventually was messing with phase on some instruments recorded with multiple mics and the thought occurred that a part of the sound that i noticed and felt was present might possibly have some strange comb filtering/phase stuff from microphones not quite in phase…and i think that helps as well, and that theory was somewhat confirmed years later as i came across the multitracks for the b-side MV and on that one Mr. Albini definitely just had multiple mics on the amp while purposely ignoring the 3:1 “rule” and using the timing differences to work like a very strange eq. And then also there is a fair amount of bleed in those recordings and the original “scratch” guitar tracks (tracked live) kinda bled into the other instruments’ tracks and they were pretty out of tune (i was surprised!) and that might add a weird ghostly/out of phase type thing (i was also fascinated to (FINALLY!) figure out about the bass tone on that album…i had talked to several people and mostly they talked about using a very short (highpassed?) delay…but after hearing the multitracks, i think it is absolutely from the bass bleeding into the drum tracks (and also the multi mic on the amp, but the weird airiness i believe is the bleed into the drums.)

 

sorry for going on and on and on, this is a topic i’ve been fascinated with for a while and i’m at work and super bored and a bit “groovy” feeling right now…lol. I hope it might be of some use possibly.

Cheers!