Using a Distortion Pedal to Play Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit on Guitar

Video Transcript

"Hi, this is Joe Wiles again with the rock-n-roll conservatory on behalf of Expert Village. We're going to talk about distortion today particularly the distortion that was most prevalent in the early nineties for bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Smashing Pumpkins. The first one we're going to look at is one I don't want you to get it's called the Grunge pedal. You can get these on EBay for like twenty-five bucks and they kind of typify the sound of early nineties. They're basically to me their junk. That Grunge pedal is kind of marketing off the sound of the early nineties. If you want the real sound that real distorted sound of the early nineties, you're going to want to go for some different pedals. The first one is my favorite. It's called the Big Muff. It's made by Electro-Harmonix and it's the sound you'll here on Smashing Pumpkins “Siamese Dream” as well as a ton of other early nineties records. The next one we're going to talk about is the MXR Distortion Plus pedal. This was totally prevalent in the early nineties up through even now. A lot of bands still use this pedal as their signature tone in their sound and the last one we're going to talk about is the one that Kurt Cobain used a lot. It's called the Boss DS-1. It is this orange distortion box and you'll hear it on tons of Nirvana records. He used it live and if you really want to capture that Kurt Cobain sound, I high suggest that you pick up this pedal. Of course most amplifiers come with distortion on the amplifier. I would suggest that if you don't want to spend twenty-five, fifty or a hundred bucks on a distortion box just for now use the distortion box that's on your amplifier. In the next segment, we're going to talk about chorus pedals another staple of smell like Teen Spirit. I'll see you next segment."