Nirvana In Utero Distorted Guitar Tones Comparison

A comparison between the different distorted guitar tones in In Utero.
0:05 All Apologies
0:15 Rape Me
0:35 Heart Shaped Box
1:13 Very Ape
1:35 Sappy
2:19 Moist Vagina
According to Albini, Kurt used the following equipment:
- Univox Custom
- Fender Jaguar
- Fender Mustang competition blue
- Ferrington
- Veleno (Albini guitar, restrung for lefty)
- Tech 21 Sans Amp
- Boss Ds-2
- Ehx Big Muff
- Ehx Echoflanger
- Pedal X (handmade Ring modulator/overdrive made by an Albini friend)
- Fender Quadverb
- Randall amp
- A third amp which he couldn't remember.

[@baskah]

Thanks for the video. Love the raw In Utero sound! Keep it up

[@porradewww]

Thanks! New video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/fGbSmaKXapl2e7s

[@eeshsinger]

KZbin algorithm didnt fail me again cuz this video's awesome. Thanks for making this.

[@porradewww]

Thanks! I wasn't expecting this video would be so popular, thought it would be very niche thing, considering the multitracks were leaked a decade ago.

[@yoanndrumming]

Interesting! I think I hear 3 or even 4 guitar layers. Also I'm surprised to hear a clean part merged in the mix.

[@porradewww]

Very Ape, Moist Vagina and Pennyroyal have 5 guitar tracks, but only two or three guitar "takes". I think the rest of the songs would follow more or less this pattern.

[@jozaHC]

@@porradewww RFUS also seems to have a few guitar tracks. I guess that's why every guitar cover of that song on youtube sounds different, everyone hears something else

[@porradewww]

​@@jozaHC From the complete multitracks we have access, there were more or less two guitar takes recorded in 5 tracks . Other than Kurt's hands, which are not by any means easy to replicate, and the Quad, good part of IU sound is Albini mic techniques, which very few people in YT would have the condition to record in a similar way. RFUS gets worse because most people have the reissue Poly, which is not the same circuit and doesn't have the same sound.

[@BrattScorsa]

Yes. I recently found out a similar thing too, because I made a song cover for my youtube channel of "Heart shaped box" and after hearing carefully that song I just relized that its clean part has two guitars: the normal one and the other with chorus effect... You allways can find amazing things hearing separated tracks of a song.

[@kerryfromaj9032]

Hi. Nice to see a new post from you. I spent a lot of time between Vancouver and Seattle back then, lots of live shows and it was an interesting time of my life. I’m still working on your last lesson with my Digitech Whammy. At t 2-1/2 years learning guitar its finally all getting more like playing guitar vs learning guitar. It’s taken a lot of time and effort to learn guitar starting so late. I’m just working on learning both versions of Soundgarden and Johnny Cash Rusty Cage now. Your last Jack White lesson was a big part of my learning guitar, thank you for that.

[@porradewww]

Thanks! It may take a while before I do another song lesson, but soon as the pandemic is over probably I'll do some. I wish I was a little older to see Nirvana in Rio or São Paulo, but at least I saw the WS in 2005, great concert! One tip about Jack's solo, most of time he does upstroke picking and this is a good part of his sound (for beats/chords he does more downstrokes). Kurt is more complicated, sometimes very counter intuitive, the art of guitar has good videos about it.

[@shoutingmuteness3902]

Heart Shaped Box seems a lot like a PJ Harvey's song. Definitely influenced by her and a generous copy of hers.

[@lucaserojas]

The more conventional distorted guitar seems to be the DS2 into the Randall maybe. The other iconic sound is the Sansamp into the Quad Reverb with Utah Speakers.

[@anthonysclafani3963]

Albini said they used both a Randall & fender so a lot of these differences are probably from different amps

[@porradewww]

Yeah, he said he'd track all the three amps (there's a third which he doesn't remember) and Kurt 'd pick the best. I wonder if the same happened to the overdubs.

[@XxStonedImmaculatexX]

A Randall? His RG 120 perhaps? Thats very interesting, never knew that. So I’d say the Fender was a Twin Reverb and the “other” one was maybe the Mesa Studio Preamp?

[@anthonysclafani3963]

@@XxStonedImmaculatexX could be wrong but iirc there’s a quote somewhere where Albini (think it was him) said he brought the boogie rig to the studio but they thought it sounded meh so they didn’t use the boogie. Pretty sure most of IU is a quad reverb

[@suburbanindie]

I never knew there was flange on the chorus of Sappy

[@porradewww]

The Echoflanger was used all over the record. I highly suspect it was used in Word of Mouth sessions as well.

[@XxStonedImmaculatexX]

@@porradewww I already have an Echoflanger and just got the original Polychorus and realized that yea, I’m positive the Echoflanger was used for the entirety of Sappy. I dont think Kurt ever used the polychorus for Sappy live though.

[@jessielike2]

Thank you for the video! Do you know what guitar was used in Heart-Shaped Box and Sappy?

[@porradewww]

It's impossible to know for sure, but the best recreation that I've seen indicates it was the Competition Mustang and the Univox Custom respectively.

[@Pr3ttyBugsX3]

Heart shaped box sounds fucking awesome with just the bass line or what ever the hell you call it

[@johnpickk7526]

guitar line i guess lol

[@Pr3ttyBugsX3]

@@johnpickk7526 okay

[@jozaHC]

wow this is amazing. what guitars were used on frances farmer and rfus? what do you think?

[@porradewww]

Possibly the competition blue Mustang, it seems it was the main guitar during the session.

[@jozaHC]

@@porradewww so basically most of the album is comp blue mustang with hot rails in bridge, a broken down quad reverb, a ds2 with turbo mode off and an echo flanger from what I've gathered? thank you for the answer btw

[@porradewww]

@@jozaHC I think the Sansamp was the main distortion pedal, not the DS-2. Very Ape lead guitar might have a fuzz, see my other video.

[@rique_.leal.]

frances is 100% the compstang. RFUS is most likely the jag

[@anthonysclafani3963]

How’d you get the isolated stems?

[@porradewww]

It was a torrent with 33 multitracks., I can't remember the site. Some tracks have more than one stem. I think remixpacks.ru has some individual tracks.

[@gmoney4526]

What do you think he used the Ferrington for? He definitely used it but Id have no clue which song

[@porradewww]

Hard to tell. My best guess is that it was used for Dumb.

[@wastewoodrockers5526]

@@porradewww The Ferrington was damaged/destroyed in 1992. Kurt kept it in his bath tub along with some of his other guitars in the case of a burglary. Sewage flooded the bath and destroyed a few of his guitars, including the Ferrington. It wasn’t used on In Utero.

[@porradewww]

@@wastewoodrockers5526 This is fake news and you should do a better research before posting. This guitar currently is exhibited on Mopop with no damage at all. In fact, it was shipped with the other guitars for the mid 92 tour and can be seen at Dublin concert. Albini mentioned a Mustang/Jaguar hybrid and considering Kurt didn't have the Jag-stang yet and Earnie confirmed it was sent there's no doubt that it was present during the session, if it was actually used, it's up to debate. The damaged guitars were the blue Mosrite (given to Pat) and the Fender XII, which were not shipped to the mentioned tour.

[@wastewoodrockers5526]

@@porradewww Apologies, my mistake you’re correct!

[@XxStonedImmaculatexX]

@@porradewww It sounds to me like Kurt used his Stella on Dumb based on how the guitar sounds.

[@Darkaxelgaming-tt7ip]

Did Kurt have whatever brand that silver guitar was?

[@porradewww]

It's in the description, it is Albini's guitar and it costs a lot of money.

[@user-mk7kt5rj5q]

Next mevermind guitar tones?

[@porradewww]

I think this could be possible in a near future, at least with some tracks. I did a short video (non listed) comparing CAYA Devonshire mix vs ORG Pallas, to evidence Andy mix and mastering.

[@small6248]

Drain You is pretty well known amp wise, It was a Mesa Boogie Preamp/ Studio .22 with a DS-1 and slight chorus added in post, then it’s double tracked with a fender bassman running the same pedal, and the 4th track was a Mesa Boogie running with a DOD Grunge pedal, it’s mixed pretty subtly but it makes a huge difference. He may have used his Jaguar to play the Mesas while the Mustang was used to double track the Bassmans

[@small6248]

SLTS was recorded nearly to the same way, except the 1st main track used a ProCo Rat instead and the 4th track was a Mesa running a ProCo Rat and Small Clone.

[@small6248]

And let’s be real, the real tone of In Bloom is the double tracked Bassmans, that tone is thick, imo in bloom was all mustang

[@small6248]

Lithium was recorded with a Fender Bassman and a Big Muff Pi, some people say it was the Vox AC-30 however it’s pretty obvious it was the bassman, also double tracked with the same amp.

[@djlimitededition385]

Was there a chorus on the Heart Shaped box or what happened there? I hear a subtle chorus.

[@porradewww]

I don't know, but it seems he used the Echoflanger a lot in this record.

[@djlimitededition385]

@@porradewww ah nice, thanks!

[@gmoney4526]

what guitar you think he used on rape me and heart shaped box?

[@porradewww]

Once I heard a rumor which I tend to agree that the Veleno was used on Rape Me, besides Very Ape. Distortion seems to be the DS-2. HSB I'd bet in the Univox (both pickups on) or the Jaguar with the Sansamp.

[@mirata7748]

@@porradewww I would say Rape me was played with the competition mustang, HSB seemed as if it was played with the jag but id say it would be the mustang again, very ape was done with the veleno and maybe the Ibanez lawsuit lespaul. Distortion seems to be sansamp

[@mirata7748]

@@porradewww you can go checkout Aaron Rash's channel and JQ

[@porradewww]

@@mirata7748 Thanks for the advice! Aaron channel is pretty cool.

[@porradewww]

​@@mirata7748 Yes, Aaron videos seems very close (the closest I've seen). The Ibanez lawsuit probably wasn't at that session, unfortunately kurtsequipment hasn't been updated in a long time.

[@user-mk7kt5rj5q]

Serve the servants?

[@porradewww]

I used all the available multitracks, Serve is not, just like the rest of the songs on this album.

[@bingernugget]

heart shaped box sounds like he used the univox

[@porradewww]

I used to think this too, but now I'm leaning more towards the Mustang.

[@porradewww]

@Ronald Drump Didn't get it🤔 The Randall is a solid state amp, fet based I recall.

[@Nirvana_Replica]

Why no clean tones….

[@porradewww]

I wanted it to be used as a quick reference without the need to download the stems/multitracks and was more interested in knowing which songs had the DS-2 and which had the Sansamp. It"s a good idea, maybe I'll do it someday.

[@Nirvana_Replica]

@@porradewww nice man, you did used a veleno in here right? Did you used guild pickups though?

[@porradewww]

@@Nirvana_Replica I'm not playing here, it is Kurt, the audio is from the stems/multitracks. I'm aware of the Veleno with Bigsby and Guild pickups story, however Albini said in 2012 in the doc Rock Against Cancer (available on YT) that the Veleno with P90 was the guitar that Kurt used to record the album, so who knows which was used? In my Very Ape video I think I got a close result with P90. I do have a Gretsch with Bigsby and it doesn't sound close. Unfortunately Guild pickups are expensive, hard to obtain and require adaptations to be installed, so I don't think I'll try these.