Robert Smith

• The Electric Mistress flanger is the signature effect — always on, set to subtle flanging rather than jet-plane whoosh. It detuned the sound slightly for the cold, eerie quality
• Clean amp — no overdrive. The gothic rock texture comes from the effects chain, not from gain
• Minor arpeggios using open chord shapes — Smith often uses simple minor chord arpeggios played on all six strings separately
• Neck pickup always — the warm, dark pickup position suits the melancholic character. Bridge pickup is too bright
• Heavy delay at moderate feedback — "Lovesong," "Pictures of You" — delay is used to fill space and create a dreamy, floating quality
• Semi-hollow guitar body contributes to the slightly hollow, resonant quality — a solid-body guitar through the same chain sounds more clinical
• Downstroke-only arpeggios at slow tempo — Smith picks individual strings downward rather than alternating up and down
• Chorus at moderate depth and slow rate — obvious but musical. Faster rates sound more like vibrato; slower rates are more diffuse
• The JC-120's built-in stereo chorus combined with a separate chorus pedal creates the lush double-chorus layering

Robert Smith of The Cure turned the guitar into a melancholic, atmospheric instrument — heavy chorus on clean tones, minor arpeggios on the neck pickup and a dark romanticism that defined the 1980s gothic rock sound.