What's a good stombox for grunge music?

[deadspeaker]

Hi I recentaly completed my first pedal(fuzz face) and have the parts to make a blue box. I'll make that eventually, but right now I'm thinking about building a pedal or 2 for grunge music(Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Soundgarden, Mother Love Bone, etc. etc.). Something heavy or something with feedback. IDK you guys know stuff about this! Any tips would be much appreciated.

[SISKO]

Boss DS-1  @ Tonepad.com

[AC30Dirty]

a BSISB II can cover Soundgarden pretty good IMOP. A modded TS9 can cover modern Pearl Jam and as far as there old stuff maybe the JCM 800 emulator pedal off of ROG i believe. You could also try a Boss DS-1 with the Melanhead mod!!!!!

[SonicVI]

Big Muff, definitely.

[tcobretti]

There are a lot of different tones there.  Soundgarden was always heavy amp distortion, while Pearl Jam was always fairly light amp distortion, while Smashing Pumpkins was often a Big Muff but also some other stuff.

The above recommendations sound good to me, but you really need to narrow your scope or build 3 or 4 different pedals.

[Somicide]

Big Muff Pi (works well with 2n5089s subbing the 2n5088s, IMO) and a DS-1.  Those will easily nail 90% of grunge tones, trust me; It's all I used to play

PS-
Keep in mind you'll want to do some definite tweaking of the amps in response to the pedals for the best sounds, but that should go without saying.

[ambulancevoice]

Big Muff, definitely.

+1

[Alex C]

DOD "Grunge?" 

[Steben]

DOD "Grunge?" 

no way...

[ambulancevoice]

DOD "Grunge?" 

no way...

+1 on that
the grunge is like a gritty version of the death metal dist

i think the ds-1 wouldnt hurt either, Nirvana used it on "Smells Like Teen Spirit"

[AL]

The first Mudhoney album was Superfuzz/Bigmuff. That should give a hint.

I always thought the "grunge" sound was a funny thing to label. It was just good, older equipment. Marshalls, Mustangs etc were dirt cheap in the '80's. Every pawn shop had a few.

AL

[trevize]

and the bigmuff will be useful also for stoner!

when I saw kyuss they used big muff for solos, one note rhythm parts and chord rhythm parts, for everything!

[deadspeaker]

Yeah  bigmuff would be cool. Thanks for the ideas. What is a BSISB II? I can't find anything with that name.

[bipedal]

I think BSISB was a typo.  Instead do a search for BSIAB = Brown Sound in a Box.

My 2 cents: the Rat II can do grungy tones pretty dang well.  guitargeek says Buzz Osborne (Melvins) uses/used a Rat, and if King Buzzo isn't "grunge", I don't know who is.

As noted above, there were a ton of varied tones used by bands that typically were lumped into the grunge bunch, even within the examples you mentioned.  Would be helpful if you could nail down a specific target tone or two...  Particular songs you've identified as having your ideal "grunge" guitar sound?

- Jay
 

[deadspeaker]

Well I just really like the whole grouping of sounds. I am aware that I'll have to build more than one box, but that is a plus! I think a big muff would work well for rhythm. There are 3 versions of the pi though. I'm not really sure which one has a good sound.

[ambulancevoice]

I think BSISB was a typo.  Instead do a search for BSIAB = Brown Sound in a Box.

My 2 cents: the Rat II can do grungy tones pretty dang well.  guitargeek says Buzz Osborne (Melvins) uses/used a Rat, and if King Buzzo isn't "grunge", I don't know who is.

As noted above, there were a ton of varied tones used by bands that typically were lumped into the grunge bunch, even within the examples you mentioned.  Would be helpful if you could nail down a specific target tone or two...  Particular songs you've identified as having your ideal "grunge" guitar sound?

- Jay
 

well, The Melvins are more of a sludge metal band rather than grunge

[bipedal]

Yeah, I'd agree that 'sludge metal' seems to offer a more clear description of the Melvins sound.  Dunno if they'd be big fans of being called grunge...

I thought of them because I recall a lot the bands coming out of the northwest (primarily) at that time seemed to mention the Melvins and Mudhoney (and precursors like Green River) as primary influences.  Mr. Cobain certainly referenced the Melvins a bunch.

Tangent: There's a pretty interesting book out there about Seattle's music scene: Loser: The Real Seattle Music story.  No real talk of gear that I recall, but it's quite comprehensive in tracing the various threads of music based there.  Amount of detail was a bit overwhelming, but cool.

Cheers,

- Jay