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Suede·Social·Issue No. 20
Tone recipes·2026 · JUL
Rock1983easy to fake

01The Smiths

This Charming Man

Layered arpeggios on a Rickenbacker 330 through a clean Roland JC-120, with multiple guitar tracks (up to 12 according to Marr) creating a chiming bell-like wall of clean tone. Each track is recorded with a slightly different EQ and panning. Chorus from the JC-120 itself adds a glassy shimmer. No pedals — the texture is the layering. The picking is fingerstyle in places, hybrid pick-and-finger in others.

02Signal chain

Guitar to amp, 0 pedals between.

  1. In
    Guitar

    Rickenbacker 330

  2. Out
    Amp

    Roland JC-120 Jazz Chorus

03Field note

The secret sauce

Twelve layers of guitar (Marr's number) panned across the stereo field. Each layer has tiny EQ and timing differences. The 'tone' is impossible to copy with one guitar live — but the song still works because the harmonic content is so dense.