Johnny Marr — £500 · Sweet Spot Tone

• Clean amp — always. No overdrive or distortion in The Smiths. The complexity comes from arpeggiation and chord choice, not gain
• Capo at fret 2, 4, or 5 is used extensively — arpeggiated open chord shapes with capo produce the bright, ringing character of "This Charming Man"
• Arpeggiate rather than strum — right-hand technique picks individual strings in sequence rather than sweeping across them
• The Rickenbacker's jangle requires light picks (0.50mm) — heavier picks dull the high-end sparkle essential to the sound
• Two-guitar layering in studio recordings — many Smiths tracks have a rhythm guitar and a lead fill guitar running simultaneously. Live, Marr played both parts simultaneously
• Delay adds shimmer, not echo — the Korg SDD-3000 is set to very short delay times (80-150ms) at low feedback. It widens the sound without creating obvious echoes
• Open chord shapes with the capo provide the ringing open-string quality — bar chords are almost never used
• The Roland JC-120's built-in chorus is often used at subtle settings — the dual speaker stereo spread adds width

• ✗Using the same amp EQ as for a solid-body guitar — semi-hollow guitars have natural warmth that makes amp bass and treble settings behave differently. Start flat and adjust from there.
• ✗Using a high-gain distortion pedal instead of amp gain — British crunch amps have a specific harmonic character when driven from their own gain stage. A pedal changes this character.
• ✗Clean amp at too low a volume — even a clean amp provides warmth and tonal character that the pedal sits in. An amp at minimum volume has no character for the pedal to interact with.
• ✗Too many repeats at high mix — more than 3 repeats makes the delay effect accumulate and overwhelm the dry guitar signal. Keep it to 2-3 repeats at a subtle mix level.
• ✗Over-warming the tone — punk guitar benefits from brightness. Too much warmth (low treble, high bass) makes the tone muddy and slow-sounding.
• ✗Complex pedal rigs — punk is deliberately simple. A rack of effects and a complex setup contradicts the genre's philosophy and requires attention that should go on the performance.

If you like Johnny Marr's tone, these players use a similar approach — same gear philosophy, comparable sound characteristics.