I really think the 90's sound was defined by one thing: -Whatever shit you had lying around that could make noise. Kurt Cobain pretty much exclusively used crap he found lying around for a few bucks in pawn shops.
I think kurt cared about his tone more than people give him credit for, especially in the studio. Why else would he put Seymour Duncan jb's in his guitars.
I think it was a mix of the two things. He did use cheap Boss distortion pedals, but he also used weird & relatively expensive stuff like Echoflanger and Polychorus pedals. Half his gear was easily replaceable stuff, the other half was hard to find and had to be babied by his guitar tech between shows. He was also supposedly picky regarding his Small Clone pedals, so he was always hunting for vintage units with the old chip. I think his nonchalance regarding gear is overstated and not quite accurate.
@@burriedabove yes i agree, it's hard to believe nirvana went to someone's country in 1992. i honestly don't even know how OP thought they could get away with this
I was born in the early 80’s and lived my teenage life through the 90’s. Somehow I miss the 90’s. Gosh durn it. We took what we could buy for the money we had. As long it made enough noise.
Great video! I think when it comes to technique one could also suggest playing around with Drop D tuning. It was quite popular with Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Tool, and Nirvana
I lived in Seattle & I bought a Mustang in 1980 with a Princeton Reverb amp for $210 total for both. THAT is why grunge players used them - they were affordable. Stone Gossard played Les Pauls because he could afford one. Pedals? Whatever you could afford... Amps? Ditto. People who weren't there tend to overanalyze this stuff.
This is so true. Kids these days who get into guitar because they like Nirvana feel as if they need to buy the signature Jag with a Sansamp, Mesa and so on.... it goes against the entire deal to seek out bespoke gear. I use an Epi Les Paul Gothic (because it was the only one in the shop, and the matte black looked cool, and I love the Alnico humbuckers in it), with a RAT clone (Mooer Black Secret) into a cheap small Carlsbro amp, that I bought only for £16 (about $20-25 maybe?). And I love it. I can get a great Bleach tone on it, or some Mudhoney stuff. I just want a reverb and chorus pedal. Or if the price is right for a small Fender Champion 20 or 40. And I'm pretty done for gear. No sig guitars, no overpriced pre amps or pedals, nothing.
I feel like the first half was based predominantly around Kurt's sound and gear taste as sort of a be all end all for grunge in general, which would make sense considering the amount of bands that came into existence as Nirvana clones. Kurt and and the fine folks of Mudhoney were the only real predominant Mustang users during that period, (at least that I can think of). There were a lot of Gibson and Gibson Style instruments as well Buzz Osbourne used a Les Paul, as did James Iha, Kim Thayil used a Guild S100, Tad Doyle used SGs when not using a humbucker loaded Jazzmaster, Mike McCready was also using a lot of Gibson stuff as well, L7 had Donita on a Flying V and Suzi Gardner on a modified Melody Maker) I'd say the Proco Rat deserved at least an honorable mention. Used by The Melvins, Tad, Nirvana (Pat's main distortion), L7, Hole (Eric Erlandson), and maybe AIC, though I've never seen it visually confirmed As for amps, Silverface Fenders were a big thing, the clean/distortion dynamic was huge. Marshalls never really went away, though the walls of dummy stacks were typically reduced to maybe a half stack or two at the most (there are exceptions, J Mascis for example as well as Nirvana's copious amount of taped label cabs) Preamp and poweramp setups were still a thing at this time, ADAs and Marshall JMP1s were still used a shit ton at the time (Gish was all ADA, Mellon Collie was JMP1) Late 90s was pretty dead on, though there was a lot more in the way of textural effects starting to pop up as well, albeit in a very different fashion to the 80s processing
In the 90's I was going the cheap route! lol I was using a Crate GX212 for an amp with a Fender Squier Strat (still own and play the guitar). It wasn't too bad!
Flippeneck 😁I thought you were older dude! I remember 90s music well,I was in my 20s,and in UK it was mostly chart dance, Manchester indie,trip hop,rap,and yes American alt🇺🇸
Another great current production guitar for 90's sounds IMHO is the Fender Duo Sonic HS. Found mine in a pawn shop practically unused and for half the retail price. Just needed a good cleaning.
I started playing guitar in the 90s and did have that crappy sound but it was only fun fot about a week. But along came the mighty Hellacopters and made it sound fantasic
One distinction...pro’s may have been discovering Mesa Boogie and PRS, but teenagers were making do with a Marshall Valvestate and an Arion effects pedal (Boss was really expensive back then)...gear is much better and affordable nowadays if you’re on a budget
Maybe I'm a weirdo and don't listen to the same 90s bands everyone else does, but I've never stopped wanting a Univox Hi-Flier (phase 2, gimme p90s and a trem!) and a Sunn Concert Lead amp head. Justin Trosper of Unwound played that, or an Ampeg Dan Armstrong, or an Epiphone ET-270 (where the neck pickup literally disintegrated during a gig and the bridge was replaced with some sort of humbucker), or a crazy Pleasant greenburst pawn shop type guitar (looks like a Teisco, built in Matsumoko, sounds like a box of rabid mice). I actually wish Epiphone would reissue the ET-270. Looks like a Fender Lead but has a tremolo and crazy cool dark red/black colorway.
I love this guy but I was looking for something besides grunge. I look up 90s rock and it’s always Killing in the name , Green Day, Nirvana, and a Foo Fighters song. Good video though As always.
Awesome video, Do you think an Epiphone Les Paul Muse would be good for grunge because I like the way single coils sound but I don't like the hum, I've checked out the P-90 pickups too.
I'm a heavy metal guitarist and was born in the 80s. My play style period is 1987 to 1992 maybe 1991. I love 90s rock but my influence stopped in the early 90s
Although I like 80's glam rock it got to be way too technical and you had to be a superfast shredder which took years to master. With Nirvana & Grunge, you could be a brand new beginner and learn those songs in a few hours easy peesy.
I grew up at the tail end of the 90s (January '99) and I still love 90s grunge and alternative, Nirvana and the Pumpkins are two of my favourite bands and I bought a Big Muff because I wanted to get Billy Corgan's tone on Siamese Dream (also my band was playing Today at the time I got the pedal so I wanted to try and be more "authentic") and it's still one of my favourite pedals that I still use
also nobody *genuinely* likes punk, pop punk and skatepunk, this goes for the melvins, nofx, suicidal tendencies, ramones, etc. Basically because all they do is talk about politics and whine about "the system". Nirvana were really just some guys having fun and thats *real music* .
@@elijahs4785 they use a memory man for delay I think. The ehx canyon is a excellent delay and 30£ second hand. Behringer have great delay too, it's about 20£ :)
Thats accurate and the sound his huge . you can see your passion for music in that video . IMO Grunge ( specially Nirvana ) brought back the garage side of music to the mainstream , it kills the 80s hair bands era that was getting to a ridiculous point anyway at the end of the 80s ( over the top hairs , make up , neon pink guitars ) . the 80s was " larger than life " lifestyle , the grunge era brought back a simplier lifestyle . Come as you are , dont accesorize too much , just be yourself , ripped jeans , flannels , simple riffs , no over the top shredding and solo . Vintage instrument like fender jaguar , mustang , etc... were once again cool to own . Thats what grunge his IMO . While i loved the 80s music ( best musical decade IMO ) , what Nirvana brought is simplicity , because frankly , the end of the 80s fashion / lifestyle /trends was getting ridiculous at some point . Hair metal had his glory years and it was time for something else .. and grunge was it . Anyway hair metal itself was getting way too mainstream with every bands writing power ballads to get on MTV at the end of the 80s .
I know we are not supposed to talk about Floyd Rose equipped guitars when speaking about that decade but... what’s that Superstrat hanging on the wall between the EVH and the Toronado???
Is the Neo Clone digital? I can't identify what exactly is wrong with its sound, but to me it just doesn't do a good job of replicating the sound of a large enclosure Small Clone chorus. It's like it's lost all of its warmth somehow.
I only watched to 7:32 so far, but I can already tell you. The Digitech Element XP has all of these pedal sounds on it, and only for a hundred bucks. Plus, it has the Digitech Grunge Distortion, which sounds more like Nu Metal tone when I use it.
I love alot of the SOUNDS of 90's songs but a majority of them im like "wtf are these lyrics, they must have been fucked up righting some shit like this😂" and then you look it up and they were 😭
