How Soon Is Now?

What is the How Soon Is Now? guitar tone?

The How Soon Is Now? guitar tone is a pulsing, swampy tremolo rhythm built on a single F sharp chord, heard on The Smiths' 1980s alt rock recording. It is a clean riff tone, and The Smiths reportedly tracked it with a 1963 Epiphone Casino tuned up a whole step to F sharp, which Johnny Marr recorded through a Fender Twin Reverb with its tremolo off, by his own 1990 account quoted on Wikipedia, before he and producer John Porter played the track back through four old Twins with their tremolo on, one pair on each side, stopping and starting the tape to keep the amps pulsing in time, in bursts of about ten seconds; Guitar World's feature has the first amp's tremolo at about 125 bpm feeding a second at about 375 bpm for a bouncing triplet pulse, repeated on a second pair, one pair panned to each side; Porter, writing to Guitar World afterwards, remembers the rhythm part first going down through a stereo Roland Jazz Chorus and a DI, with a Drawmer noise gate keyed by a 16th-note cowbell from his LinnDrum and the DI later fed through three Twins, and Wikipedia also gives three, so the sources differ on how many amps; the slide part went through a harmonizer in several passes, Porter says he played one of the slide parts, which Marr disputes, and Marr retuned the guitar to play the line in harmonics at the 12th fret, doubled several times; Marr wrote the song, first called Swamp, in June 1984 and recorded it with Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce that July at Jam Studios in London; it came out as a B-side of William, It Was Really Nothing, then as a single in the US in 1984 and in the UK in January 1985, where it reached number 24. Here the sound is a clean rhythm guitar played back through amps with their tremolo on at different speeds, so the pulse comes from the amps rather than from the playing or the gain.

You do not need that exact gear to land in the same place. What carries this sound is the gain structure, the EQ curve, the pickup choice and the order of the effects, and all four can be rebuilt on equipment that costs a fraction of the original. The numbers change from amp to amp, because a clean channel on a modelling combo and a small practice amp reach the same voicing from different knob positions. That translation is what Tonelify works out for the rig you actually own.

Published settings

What amp settings did Johnny Marr use on How Soon Is Now?

Volume 6, treble 7, middle 7, bass 4, reverb 5.5 and intensity 10 on the vibrato channel of four mid-1960s Fender Twin Reverbs with the bright switch on, with speed 1 on amps one and three and 6 on amps two and four, and the Casino's volume and tone controls on 10; for the slide, lead and harmonics parts, reverb up to 7 and the vibrato off. That is Chris Gill's settings box in Guitar World's feature on the song, which does not say where the numbers came from, and producer John Porter later wrote in to correct parts of its account, so read them as the magazine's reconstruction rather than a note from the session.

Source: Guitar World: the secrets behind Johnny Marr's tone on How Soon Is Now?

What gear did The Smiths use on How Soon Is Now?

A 1963 Epiphone Casino tuned up a whole step to F sharp, which Johnny Marr recorded through a Fender Twin Reverb with its tremolo off, by his own 1990 account quoted on Wikipedia, before he and producer John Porter played the track back through four old Twins with their tremolo on, one pair on each side, stopping and starting the tape to keep the amps pulsing in time, in bursts of about ten seconds; Guitar World's feature has the first amp's tremolo at about 125 bpm feeding a second at about 375 bpm for a bouncing triplet pulse, repeated on a second pair, one pair panned to each side; Porter, writing to Guitar World afterwards, remembers the rhythm part first going down through a stereo Roland Jazz Chorus and a DI, with a Drawmer noise gate keyed by a 16th-note cowbell from his LinnDrum and the DI later fed through three Twins, and Wikipedia also gives three, so the sources differ on how many amps; the slide part went through a harmonizer in several passes, Porter says he played one of the slide parts, which Marr disputes, and Marr retuned the guitar to play the line in harmonics at the 12th fret, doubled several times; Marr wrote the song, first called Swamp, in June 1984 and recorded it with Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce that July at Jam Studios in London; it came out as a B-side of William, It Was Really Nothing, then as a single in the US in 1984 and in the UK in January 1985, where it reached number 24.

Sources: Guitar World: the secrets behind Johnny Marr's tone on How Soon Is Now?, Wikipedia: How Soon Is Now?

Tonelify's tone matcher reads that chain and translates it to the amp and guitar you already own, returning gain, bass, mids, treble and presence values along with a pickup position.