Drain You amp settings — Fender Champion 20

The Nirvana guitar tone for “Drain You”, dialed in for a Fender Champion 20 with a Fender Stratocaster. Studio version, Nevermind (1991) - Main distorted rhythm track

Original rig

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

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

Amp settings — Fender Champion 20

CHANNELVoice: Metal (2000s/High Gain voice)

Knob	Setting (0–10)
Gain	8
Bass	7
Treble	6
Reverb	0
Master	5

Don’t have a Fender Champion 20? See this song on other amps → Match your own rig →

Guitar

PICKUPbridge TONE10 VOLUME10

Signal chain

01Boss DS-1 Distortion

RECOMMENDED — not currently owned

Tone 5 · Level 7 · Dist 8

Why these settings

The Fender Champion 20 lacks a dedicated mid knob and physical presence control, so voice selection is crucial; setting the Voice selector to the high-gain Metal voice delivers the heavy preamp saturation heard on the album. Compensate for the thinner single-coil bridge pickup on your Strat by pushing the bass to 7 to recreate the thick low-end body of Kurt's humbucker-equipped Jaguar. Adding a dedicated Boss DS-1 or ProCo Rat pedal later will give you the exact raw, abrasive clipping of the record into a clean channel.

PRO TIPKurt achieved the massive width on 'Drain You' by quadruple-tracking full-chord barre shapes and striking hard near the bridge with heavy downstrokes.

Get this tone on your amp

These settings are for a Fender Champion 20. ToneAdapt matches any song to whatever amp, guitar and pedals you own — first match is free.

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Fender Champion 20 settingsALL SONGS FOR THIS AMP Drain You on other ampsSAME SONG, YOUR AMP Nirvana tonesALL SONGS Nirvana on the Fender Champion 20SAME ARTIST, SAME AMP Fender Stratocaster tonesSAME GUITAR Tone libraryEVERYTHING

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