Drain You amp settings — Fender Bassman 59

The Nirvana guitar tone for “Drain You”, dialed in for a Fender Bassman 59 with a Fender Player Stratocaster. Studio version, Nevermind (1991) - Main distorted rhythm track

Original rig

Fender '65 Jaguar / '69 Mustang (bridge humbucker), Boss DS-1 / ProCo Rat, Fender Bassman & Mesa Boogie Studio Preamp

Massive, thick, wall-of-sound grunge rhythm with gritty upper-mid bite

Amp settings — Fender Bassman 59

CHANNELNormal Channel (Input 1)BRIGHToff

Knob	Setting (0–10)
Gain	3
Bass	6
Mid	7
Treble	5
Presence	4
Master	6

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Guitar

PICKUPbridge TONE8 VOLUME10

Signal chain

01Krusher Kappa Electronics

Primary distortion source into the Bassman front end

Gain 8 · Tone 6 · Level 7

Why these settings

The Krusher pedal provides the core heavy grunge clipping, so the Bassman's preamp volume is kept low around 3 to prevent muddy double-gain stacking while utilizing its warm headroom. Mids are boosted to 7 to compensate for single-coil Strat thinness against Kurt's humbucker-driven tone, and treble is reined in to smooth out high-end fizz. Clean verse: bypass the Krusher pedal and roll guitar volume to 7.

PRO TIPHit open power chords aggressively near the bridge with a heavy pick, letting the lower strings slightly overload the pedal's front-end dynamics.

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These settings are for a Fender Bassman 59. ToneAdapt matches any song to whatever amp, guitar and pedals you own — first match is free.

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