About a Girl guitar tone
Nirvana
Big blackface Fender headroom switched to dirt by a cheap orange distortion pedal, through a sealed 2x12
- Tempo
- 122 BPM
The rig Nirvana used
Researched from interviews, production write-ups and gear histories — not guessed.
Guitar
Univox Hi-Flier, left-handed, with its stock Univox humbuckers
Amplifier
Jack Endino's 1968 Fender Twin Reverb, run as a head because its own speakers were blown
Microphone
Cobain's sealed-back 2x12 with 70- or 75-watt Celestions, close-miked with a Shure SM58
Signal chain
The order the original sound was built in. The exact settings get dialled for your own amp or modeller when you generate the tone.
Get this tone on your rig
Pick your amp or modeller and we’ll build About a Girl for it — with a preset file you can load, not a list of knob positions.
Why we think this is right
For the original Bleach studio recording, engineer Jack Endino identifies Cobain's left-handed Univox with stock humbuckers, Endino's 1968 Fender Twin used as a head into Cobain's sealed 2x12 with 70/75-watt Celestions, and a close SM58. Endino named a Boss DS-1 in the 1997 interview; his own FAQ is less certain between DS-1 and DS-2, so DS-1 is retained as the stronger attribution rather than absolute title proof. Exact pickup position, controls, pedal switching, amp movement, speaker model, microphone geometry, overdub allocation and post-processing are not documented. Existing scenes and values remain inferred reconstruction.
Sources
- https://www.endino.com/archive/arch9-1.html
- https://www.guitarworld.com/features/the-definitive-kurt-cobain-gear-guide
- https://www.prosoundweb.com/in-the-studio-an-interview-with-grunge-pioneer-jack-endino/
- https://guitar.com/features/artist-rigs/the-guitar-gear-used-on-bleach-by-nirvana/
- https://www.livenirvana.com/sessions/studio/december-1988.php
- https://www.musicnotes.com/sheetmusic/nirvana/about-a-girl/MN0083046
- https://www.musicnotes.com/sheetmusic/nirvana/about-a-girl/MN0083044