In a general sense: Overdrive refers to the sound made by a tube amp that’s pushed to its operating limit. … An overdriven tube amp creates distortion, but in the world of effects pedals, distortion stompboxes tend to be a bit more intense than overdrive stompboxes.

Besides, What pedals did Kurt Cobain use?

Pedals. Cobain used very few pedals onstage, usually only one or two. One of the mainstays in his arsenal was the BOSS DS-1 Distortion pedal, which he always referred to as a Roland EF-1. After Nevermind he switched to the BOSS DS-2 Turbo Distortion, which has added features.

Keeping this in mind, Is tube screamer overdrive or distortion? The Tube Screamer is an overdrive pedal, and not a distortion pedal. It adds grit and crunch to your tone and is popular with classic rock, indie and blues guitarists. Distortion pedals on the other hand are more aggressive and suit heavier styles of music.

Is a distortion pedal necessary?

As we’ve concluded in this guide, a distortion pedal is almost essential for electric guitarists, to allow you to access the full range of tones you will probably be used to hearing in the music you love.

What does distortion sound like?

When people say distortion, they’re mostly talking about a static, crackling sound, hum, or feedback of various types. Hollow sounding is usually tone or balance levels that aren’t optimized, or something with the room acoustics.

What pedals are used in Smells Like Teen Spirit?

His only effect on the song was an Electro-Harmonix Small Clone chorus, played clean on the verses and in conjunction with the Boss distortion on the pre-choruses and solo.

How do you get Kurt Cobain’s sound?

To get Nirvana’s tone with your amplifier, have the treble and mids fairly high (around 7-8) and the bass on around 5 to begin with. The distortion should be quite high for the chorus (usually between 8-10), unless you’re using a pedal.

Did Kurt use reverb?

He didn’t use reverb, either via his amp or an effect pedal. He really only ever used a boss ds-1 (later a ds-2) and a small clone.

What type of clipping is a Tube Screamer?

The Ibanez Tube Screamer uses symmetrical clipping and the Boss SD-1 uses asymmetrical amp like clipping.

What exactly does a Tube Screamer do?

A tubescreamer is basically designed to overload the preamp, causing it to get dirty. It’s best used with tubes, as they are most responsive with overdrive pedals. It basically can warm up your sound or when turned on in front of another drive pedal(distortion or overdrive) will saturate it more.

What is a Tube Screamer for?

These are mid-gain overdrive pedals originally intended to mimic the sound of a vintage tube amplifier. They have a unique, mid-boosted tonal characteristic that has lent the Tube Screamer a place on many pedalboards as a boost pedal into other pedals or amplifiers.

What is the point of distortion pedals?

Distortion pedals are usually meant to provide harder levels of clipping via one or more clipping stages. The more clipping stages a distortion pedal has, the higher it’s distorted gain. Because of the hard clipping typically used in distortion pedals, odd-order harmonic overtones happen.

Is amp distortion better than pedal?

Distortion pedals are considered more versatile with more parameters to shape your ideal sound. Their downfall is that some cheap pedals can sound unnatural. In contrast, the majority valve amp distortion provides a more, smoother, and overall, more well-rounded distortion.

Why does distortion sound good on guitar?

The distortion in a good guitar amp provides level compression and sustain, which makes the instrument respond more like a horn or bowed string instrument.

What is an example of distortion?

A melted crayon, a deflated balloon, a CD or DVD with scratches that no longer plays correctly — these things have all been affected by distortion. Other examples of distortion are things like your reflection in a broken mirror or the sound of your voice underwater.

Why is sound distorted?

Distortion is the sound heard where there is an unexpected change of the original signal to something else. It can also be the result of a corruption of the signal at the source. … For some reason, the sound coming out of the system has been negatively altered and we need to fix it.

What pedals did Jimi Hendrix use?


Jimi Hendrix’s Pedals

  • Vox V847A Wah. It’s fair to say that this particular pedal became an instant classic once Hendrix got his hands on one. …
  • Dunlop Hendrix Fuzz Face. …
  • MXR M68 Univibe. …
  • Tone City Tape Machine. …
  • Electro Harmonix Octavix.

What effects were used in Smells Like Teen Spirit?

During the verses, Cobain used a Small Clone effect pedal to add a chorus effect. “Smells Like Teen Spirit” uses a “somewhat conventional formal structure” consisting of four-, eight-, and twelve-bar sections, including an eight-bar verse, an eight-bar pre-chorus, and a twelve-bar chorus.

How do I get the grunge sound on my guitar?


The Simplest Way To Get The Grunge Sound

  1. Distortion, Chorus and Reverb, are the core of the grunge sound.
  2. If you can find a an amp with a foot switch, that enables you to switch between clean, overdrive and effects channels, you’ll be able to play many grunge songs just by getting an amp with these features.

What effects does Kurt Cobain use?

While Kurt Cobain used a few different pedals over the years, there were four main pedals: a BOSS DS-2, an EHX Small Clone, an EHX Poly Chorus, and a Tech 21 Sansamp.

Did Kurt Cobain use a SansAmp?

Allegedly, Kurt used a Tech 21 SansAmp as his main distortion pedal in the In Utero era. … This means that the SansAmp was likely used just on In Utero songs, while the Boss DS-2 was there for songs from Nevermind and Bleach.

What Flanger did Kurt Cobain use?

Kurt Cobain’s Electro-Harmonix Echo Flanger – Ground Guitar.

Is overdrive soft clipping?

Hard Clipping / Overdrive & Distortion

The next category of overdrive I want to walk you through is called hard clipping, unlike the Tube Screamer and Bluesbreaker that are soft clipping (meaning that there are diodes within the loop of the op-amp, so it doesn’t fully distort or “clip” the signal).

What is soft clipping vs hard clipping?

Clipping is a form of distortion that limits a signal once it exceeds a threshold. … Hard clipping results in many high-frequency harmonics; soft clipping results in fewer higher-order harmonics and intermodulation distortion components.

What is asymmetrical clipping?

This refers to how a signal gets processed in a guitar pedal. With asymmetrical clipping, the positive and negative amplitude peaks of the waveform are not clipped evenly (symmetrically), they are clipped unevenly (asymmetrically). … The BOSS SD-1 is a classic example of an asymmetrical clipping overdrive pedal.