How to sound like your guitar heroes — even if you don’t have their gear
All I wanted to do as a teenager was sound like Nirvana. I remember walking into the local music shop, clutching my birthday money, dead set on buying the distortion pedal I'd seen in Guitar World. Never mind that I didn’t even have a decent amp to plug it into. I figured the pedal would do the magic. Instant grunge. Job done.
It didn’t really work that way.
The amp was a tinny 10-watt practice cube, and I didn’t know a thing about EQ or gain. But more than that, I didn’t realise how much tone was coming from Kurt’s fingers — the way he dug into the strings, the sloppiness that somehow sounded right, the rawness in his phrasing. You can’t buy that in a box.
Years later, I’ve learned (the hard way) that sounding like your guitar hero has far less to do with expensive gear — and far more to do with setting up your amp and how you play. Here's what I wish someone had told me back then.