Drain You amp settings — Orange Crush 20

The Nirvana guitar tone for “Drain You”, dialed in for a Orange Crush 20 with a Ibanez GRG121DX. Live at The Paramount, Seattle, October 31, 1991

Original rig

Fender Mustang (bridge single-coil) → Boss DS-1 → EHX Small Clone → Mesa/Boogie Studio Preamp (clean) → Crown Power Base 2 → Marshall 4x12

Aggressive, gritty distortion with scooped mids and cutting upper-mid bite; raw and punky

Amp settings — Orange Crush 20

CHANNELDirty channel

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

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Guitar

PICKUPbridge TONE7 VOLUME10

Signal chain

01Boss DS-1 Distortion

RECOMMENDED — not currently owned. This is essential to the Cobain tone; the amp alone will not replicate the DS-1's specific clipping character. Without it, use amp gain at 8 and accept a warmer, less razor-edged sound.

Tone 3 · Level 10 · Dist 4

02Electro-Harmonix Small Clone Chorus

RECOMMENDED — not currently owned. Used sparingly on Drain You; adds slight motion to clean sections. Depth switch OFF for subtle effect.

Rate 5 · Depth 0

Why these settings

The Orange Crush 20 is warmer and more compressed in the low-mids than Cobain's clean preamp + DS-1 setup. I pulled bass to 4 (vs a neutral 5) to prevent muddiness from your GRG121DX's humbuckers, which are hotter than Cobain's single-coil Mustang. Treble pushed to 6 compensates for the humbucker's darker voicing. Without a DS-1, the amp's dirty channel approximates the grit but lacks the DS-1's specific upper-mid sizzle around 2kHz.

PRO TIPCobain picked hard and close to the bridge for that spiky attack — move your picking hand back toward the bridge and dig in aggressively; soft picking will sound nothing like this tone regardless of settings.

Get this tone on your amp

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

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