friend and long-time Beta Lead abuser,
Buzz Osborne of The Melvins.
EFFECTS
As Nirvana became more successful and
began touring the world, it became crucial
that Kurt had a solid, dependable rig that
would sound the same every night, and
not break down. In order to streamline his
touring rig, he settled on a Mesa/Boogie
Studio .22 preamp, which featured an EL84
power section and extensive gain and
EQ controls. He ran these preamps into
solid-state Crest 4801 power amps, which
had tremendous clean headroom and a
penchant for being totally bulletproof. This
setup powered several stacks worth of
Marshall 4x12 cabs loaded with Celestion
Vintage 30 speakers. For studio recording
purposes, Cobain was known to use
a variety of amps, including a Fender
Bassman and Vox AC30 on Nevermind, and
a vintage Fender Twin for most of In Utero.
Cobain's staple effects included the classic
Boss DS-1, that venerable orange distortion
box used by countless guitarists from every
strata of the music universe. He felt this
pedal was a crucial element of his sound,
and it was used fairly religiously until after
the recording of Nevermind, when he
switched to the Boss DS-2 Turbo Distortion,
32
TONE TALK //
Kurt was not a huge effects user by any
means, but he became very well known
for specific effects, and for his use of
stompboxes, rather than the rack effects
that dominated the market during the time
Nirvana was coming to prominence. In fact,
a perfectly plausible argument could be
made that Cobain was indirectly responsible
for the entire stompbox renaissance. I won't
make that argument here, but it's not an
unreasonable hypothesis.
Smells Like Tone Spirit: Sound Like Kurt Cobain, Now