Grunge Pickups

  • Thread starter Thread starter Tacokiller10
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what the hell? grunge were single coils? uh. if you count nirvana as grunge...or as a band. then maybe. but since we all know they're talentless douchebags..(with the exception of dave grohl):

most grunge from the 90's era rocked humbuckers, i.e., soundgarden, alice in chains. jerry cantrell always used seymour duncan SH4 Jeff Beck hums in his bridge. i've got one of them in a fat strat, and I have a hot rodded duncan set in my Parker that has an SH4 in the bridge and a Jazz in the neck. honestly, i'd go for the seymour duncan hot-rodded set to get a nice grungy tone. i can get a wicked alice in chains tone with my parker through the JCM and a boost pedal.

what type of grunge were you into? AIC stuff used a lot of gain; hell his setup is so ridiculous to me even when it was simple (bogner fish preamp through some sort of power amp into marshall cabs, never bothered with a head apparently, and if you see his rack setup during the Dirt era, it's kind of ridiculous) (i don't think you can say grunge era guitarists weren't gearheads...when people say grunge, they think of kurt cobain, who played single coil shits through some standard amp only because clearly he didn't care what kind of noises he made from the guitar; hell, he could barely play the thing.)


also, with telepaul mentioning above, he's the one who got me to buy the boss SD-1, the super overdrive. it's the yellow one....also it's $40 compared to 100 something for a TS9. when i mix that with the gain from my JCM, i get a nice grungey crunchy "chukka chukka" kind of sound, then when i mix in my marshall guvnor, i get even more outta it

Alice in Chains wasn't exactly the definition of Grunge. Sure, they were from Seattle and in the right timeframe, but they were somewhat of an exception. Not that they didn't have any grunge in their sound, but they were less punk than most true Grunge bands.
 
ugh, seems like we have a few mainstream 'grunge' nirvana fans here...

i can't comprehend how anyone could ever think cobain was talented, either in lyric writing or guitar playing.

as for the above post, so then is my definition of 90's grunge wrong? soundgarden is about as heavy/dirty/metally as AIC, and they were considered grunge. what are some main grunge bands then that i'm not really aware of?
 
Theres not much "atmosphere" with the Ds-1.Its very flat sounding.Kinda good for grunge

There's a tone control on it too, no? I've never had any issues with getting mid-range/upper mid-range clarity out of boss gear. I wouldn't say a flat sounding pedal is good for grunge either, again, I'd want a good bit of mid-range honk. But if you have a DS1 and you think it's good for grunge, you shouldn't have a problem, no?

What kind of amp are you using?
 
ugh, seems like we have a few mainstream 'grunge' nirvana fans here...

i can't comprehend how anyone could ever think cobain was talented, either in lyric writing or guitar playing.

as for the above post, so then is my definition of 90's grunge wrong? soundgarden is about as heavy/dirty/metally as AIC, and they were considered grunge. what are some main grunge bands then that i'm not really aware of?

If you ever watch the Unplugged show, you would see that he can play guitar and sing to. You didnt really have to be able to play Stairway to Heaven if you wanna play grunge. Besides he sung a million times better than Bieber:laughings:
 
There's a tone control on it too, no? I've never had any issues with getting mid-range/upper mid-range clarity out of boss gear. I wouldn't say a flat sounding pedal is good for grunge either, again, I'd want a good bit of mid-range honk. But if you have a DS1 and you think it's good for grunge, you shouldn't have a problem, no?

What kind of amp are you using?

True...Im usin a Fender Frontman 212R (Its pretty badass for the price:D)
 
If you ever watch the Unplugged show, you would see that he can play guitar and sing to. You didnt really have to be able to play Stairway to Heaven if you wanna play grunge. Besides he sung a million times better than Bieber:laughings:

hahahah fine, i'll give you that!

sorry for causing such a stir, i was a bit miffed the night i wrote that shit anyway lol. just not a nirvana fan here, really, and i never saw what the big fuss was about cobain :\

ANYWAY! lol check out some stuff on youtube for duncan hot rodded set. if you're interested in my sound, check out www.youtube.com/ochsbeatdown and look for any of my videos involving my white parker on there; there's some alice in chains stuff that you could hear what i'm talking about with, but of course it's a camera mic, so its not the best
 
ugh, seems like we have a few mainstream 'grunge' nirvana fans here...

i can't comprehend how anyone could ever think cobain was talented, either in lyric writing or guitar playing.

as for the above post, so then is my definition of 90's grunge wrong? soundgarden is about as heavy/dirty/metally as AIC, and they were considered grunge. what are some main grunge bands then that i'm not really aware of?

Kurt was the reason I, and a whole army of other music lovers who grew up in the 90s, first picked up the guitar. He wasn't a staggeringly talented guitarist by any stretch of the imagination, but he could play well enough to play his own material, and was a great songwriter and an incredibly unique singer. I figure, anyone who inspired an entire generation worth of players deserves your respect, and if you heard me play today you'd never classify me as a "mainstream grunge" guitarist.

That said... "Grunge" quickly became an umbrella term for any relatively hard guitar based rock band in the early 90s. Nirvana was the most famous example, and a lot of the other "grunge" bands on the scene bore similarities - I'd say Pearl Jam could be classed as in the same genre as Nirvana, and to a point Stone Temple Pilots. However, a lot of other bands that broke out at the same time really didn't have a whole heck of a lot to do with the "grunge" sound. Alice in Chains and (especially on Badmotorfinger) Soundgarden were basically metal bands, though they broke clearly with their 80s predicessors in a number of ways (especially AIC, which brought some of the fraility and emotional vulnerability you did see from Nirvana to their sound, especially so on their acoustic-driven alvums). And the Smashing Pumpkins were practically a progressive metal band, in a number of ways. Really, for a lot of the bands now called "grunge," the only similarities were (sometimes) geography and loud guitars.
 
Kurt was the reason I, and a whole army of other music lovers who grew up in the 90s, first picked up the guitar. He wasn't a staggeringly talented guitarist by any stretch of the imagination, but he could play well enough to play his own material, and was a great songwriter and an incredibly unique singer. I figure, anyone who inspired an entire generation worth of players deserves your respect, and if you heard me play today you'd never classify me as a "mainstream grunge" guitarist.

That said... "Grunge" quickly became an umbrella term for any relatively hard guitar based rock band in the early 90s. Nirvana was the most famous example, and a lot of the other "grunge" bands on the scene bore similarities - I'd say Pearl Jam could be classed as in the same genre as Nirvana, and to a point Stone Temple Pilots. However, a lot of other bands that broke out at the same time really didn't have a whole heck of a lot to do with the "grunge" sound. Alice in Chains and (especially on Badmotorfinger) Soundgarden were basically metal bands, though they broke clearly with their 80s predicessors in a number of ways (especially AIC, which brought some of the fraility and emotional vulnerability you did see from Nirvana to their sound, especially so on their acoustic-driven alvums). And the Smashing Pumpkins were practically a progressive metal band, in a number of ways. Really, for a lot of the bands now called "grunge," the only similarities were (sometimes) geography and loud guitars.

Both of those paragraphs are extremely true :)
 
TAD and Mudhoney... That was true grunge. I think they basically used muffs and a rat or two in-front old tube fender amps.

Funny, I think they all used single coils or p90s
 
Kurt was the reason I, and a whole army of other music lovers who grew up in the 90s, first picked up the guitar. He wasn't a staggeringly talented guitarist by any stretch of the imagination, but he could play well enough to play his own material, and was a great songwriter and an incredibly unique singer. I figure, anyone who inspired an entire generation worth of players deserves your respect, and if you heard me play today you'd never classify me as a "mainstream grunge" guitarist.

That said... "Grunge" quickly became an umbrella term for any relatively hard guitar based rock band in the early 90s. Nirvana was the most famous example, and a lot of the other "grunge" bands on the scene bore similarities - I'd say Pearl Jam could be classed as in the same genre as Nirvana, and to a point Stone Temple Pilots. However, a lot of other bands that broke out at the same time really didn't have a whole heck of a lot to do with the "grunge" sound. Alice in Chains and (especially on Badmotorfinger) Soundgarden were basically metal bands, though they broke clearly with their 80s predicessors in a number of ways (especially AIC, which brought some of the fraility and emotional vulnerability you did see from Nirvana to their sound, especially so on their acoustic-driven alvums). And the Smashing Pumpkins were practically a progressive metal band, in a number of ways. Really, for a lot of the bands now called "grunge," the only similarities were (sometimes) geography and loud guitars.

interesting post, thanks for the heads up. also, yeah i've heard you play, believe me i know you're good lol. i used to actually be into nirvana a bit when i was younger but they never inspired me or anything, just dug a few tunes, plus i was infatuated with grohl's drumming at the time more so than the guitar writing of cobain haha..

i've been such a huge STP/AIC fan forever, they were why i started playing...always considered AIC as grunge, but you're right they were definitley more metal hard rock style than grunge i suppose...like you said, they were all labeled grunge back then. i never really classified jerry as anything, but a lot of his playing is a lot more blues based than other guitarists around then i think, that's why i always liked him the most
 
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