Sweater Weather

What is the Sweater Weather guitar tone?

The Sweater Weather guitar tone is a spiky, reverb-soaked clean guitar line that floats in and out, heard on The Neighbourhood's 2010s indie rock recording. It is a clean riff tone, and The Neighbourhood reportedly tracked it with a 1978 Fender Jazzmaster, which Zach Abels, who plays lead on the song, told MusicRadar was his main guitar, bought from an older guitarist in town who had played in Mellowdrone, a band he looked up to, though no source read here places it or any amp on the take; he described himself as the more ambient player, with a more reverb style and lots of pedals and effects, and Jeremy Freedman, who plays rhythm and, as the interviewer put it, plays Telecasters a lot, as the rock-and-distortion guy, the two working their parts around each other; in a Roland artist profile Freedman says he loves the JC-120 for its clarity and the way it takes pedals, and that pairing it with a warm tube amp like an old AC30 is a dream combo, which is his rig talk rather than a log of this recording; Abels says Sweater Weather was the first song the band wrote together, that he first played the guitar parts a little slower than on the record, and that when he showed it to Jesse Rutherford, Rutherford wanted to record it and made up the drumbeat everybody knows, so he had to play to it, the parts developing over time; Justyn Pilbrow produced it, and Abels says Pilbrow told him he played like the guitarists in My Bloody Valentine; written by Rutherford, Abels and Freedman, it was the lead single from the debut album I Love You, released in 2013, and it spent 11 weeks at number one on Billboard's Alternative Airplay chart. Here the guitar is a clean, spiky lead line floating in and out over the drums, from a player who calls his style reverb-heavy, so headroom and the reverb carry it rather than any drive.

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.

What gear did The Neighbourhood use on Sweater Weather?

A 1978 Fender Jazzmaster, which Zach Abels, who plays lead on the song, told MusicRadar was his main guitar, bought from an older guitarist in town who had played in Mellowdrone, a band he looked up to, though no source read here places it or any amp on the take; he described himself as the more ambient player, with a more reverb style and lots of pedals and effects, and Jeremy Freedman, who plays rhythm and, as the interviewer put it, plays Telecasters a lot, as the rock-and-distortion guy, the two working their parts around each other; in a Roland artist profile Freedman says he loves the JC-120 for its clarity and the way it takes pedals, and that pairing it with a warm tube amp like an old AC30 is a dream combo, which is his rig talk rather than a log of this recording; Abels says Sweater Weather was the first song the band wrote together, that he first played the guitar parts a little slower than on the record, and that when he showed it to Jesse Rutherford, Rutherford wanted to record it and made up the drumbeat everybody knows, so he had to play to it, the parts developing over time; Justyn Pilbrow produced it, and Abels says Pilbrow told him he played like the guitarists in My Bloody Valentine; written by Rutherford, Abels and Freedman, it was the lead single from the debut album I Love You, released in 2013, and it spent 11 weeks at number one on Billboard's Alternative Airplay chart.

Sources: MusicRadar: The Neighbourhood's Zach Abels talks Fender Jazzmasters, tones and writing hits, Roland: JC artist Jeremy Freedman, Wikipedia: Sweater Weather

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.