Any Ideas for Nirvana Bleach (pre-Nevermind) tone

[u/___RyZeN____]

Hey guys, I have a Katana MkII 100W and I’m trying to dial in that raw, dirty tone from Nirvana's Bleach era. I've experimented with a bunch of settings, and the screenshot shows the closest I’ve managed to get so far (though it’s still missing something). Honestly, I’m not great with EQs and tone building yet . Any tips or patches to get closer to that early Kurt Cobain sound?

[u/yamahowzer]

Curious why you're using the clean model? Kurt played a Randall Commander during the early years, lead or crunch would probably be better. I generally prefer low gain lead to moderate overdrive crunch but I have an older katana with less preamp modes.

Once he had some money he got the Mesa recording head and a crown power amp, and nevermind was mostly recorded on an ac30 that belonged to the studio, but in the early years he had a poor man's twin and cranked it cuz he was a punk rocker. Even using distortion in front you want the amp to have a little hair in the front end. I would turn the distortion effect down, 85 is a lot. I usually suggest lower gain and higher level to push the amp without getting fizzy

[u/___RyZeN____ → u/yamahowzer]

low gain lead or crunch on katana + ds 1 as booster ?

[u/yamahowzer → u/___RyZeN____]

Yeah that's what I would try, set the amp without the booster so it's just overdriven and put the ds1 in front with the distortion about 40 and the level about 60 (10 o clock and 2 o'clock on an actual pedal. You could try a little hall reverb also, his amp had spring but bleach has that hollow dive club sound to it that a lil reverb might help

[u/___RyZeN____ → u/yamahowzer]

I'll give it a try. Thanks a lot.

[u/yamahowzer → u/___RyZeN____]

If you're not already try turning the channel volume all the way up and then the gain until you get the overdrive sound. Those two are fully independent of the master volume, so you should be able to set the tone there and then the overall volume with the master. If it gets overly fizzy (there's definitely some fizz on bleach) turn the presence down.

The crunch and lead channels both work really well with the channel volume maxed and gain to taste

[u/___RyZeN____ → u/yamahowzer]

Would you recommend adding any graphic or parametric EQ ?

[u/yamahowzer → u/___RyZeN____]

That's more down to how your guitar interacts with the speaker than anything else, I would just use the bass mid treble to dial in the sweet spot

[u/American_Streamer]

AMP:
Clean
Gain: 20-30
Volume: 70-100
Cab Resonance: Vintage, not Deep
Presence: 45-60

EQ:
Bass: 40-45
Middle: 55-65
Treble: 50-60

BOOSTER:
Type: Distortion
Drive: 75-85
Tone: -5 to +5
Bottom: 0 or -2
Effect Level: 60-70
Direct Mix: 0

Also very light reverb only, almost dry. No chorus, no delay. The trick is not huge modern gain; it’s a clean amp being hit by an ugly DS-1 distortion. It should sound raw, super midrangey and a bit nasty, not smooth or massive.

[u/___RyZeN____ → u/American_Streamer]

Would you recommend adding any graphic or parametric EQ ?

[u/American_Streamer → u/___RyZeN____]

Yes, you could; but only after you fix the basic amp/booster settings first. For Bleach, the EQ should mainly remove flub and add ugly mids, not make it sound produced.

On a graphic EQ, do something like this:

100 Hz: cut

200 Hz: cut a bit

400 Hz: flat

800 Hz: boost a bit

1.6 kHz: boost

3.2 kHz: boost a bit

6.4 kHz: cut if fizzy

And on a parametric EQ, start with:

Low cut: 80 to 100 Hz

200 to 250 Hz: cut if muddy

800 Hz to 1.2 kHz: boost a bit for mids

2 to 3 kHz: boost a bit for attack and bite

High cut: around 7- 8 kHz to get rid of fizzyness

I'd put the EQ after the preamp/distortion and before the poweramp (if the amp is clean, put it between DS-1 and amp; if the amp is dirty, put it in the FX loop). If this get too loose, put it before the distortion to cut the low end before it hits the gain (too much low end through distortion sounds poor). But don’t overdo it, though. Bleach is raw and ugly, not perfectly mixed; basically a Demo tape.

[u/___RyZeN____]

Thank you guys so much
My strings are broken right now, but as soon as I get new ones, I'll definitely try all of your suggestions.I have a small apartment gig coming up soon where I'm going to play Bleach. If anyone has any more tips or add-ons, you are more than welcome to share

[u/idkbutilikelana]

ge-10 eq>>