Original tone

Manchester Orchestra-Inspired Guitar Tone in GarageBand

A warm, wide, slightly gritty indie rock sound built from two separately recorded takes of the same chords. Our own tone, inspired by the band's general sound.

Our original tone, not a recreation. This is a sound we arrived at in GarageBand that reminds us of the broad, warm electric guitar we associate with Manchester Orchestra. It is not a recreation of any Manchester Orchestra song, and it makes no claim about the equipment or settings the band's guitarists actually use.

The amp does part of the work. The bigger part is recording the same chords twice, as two separate performances, and panning them apart. That is what makes this sound wide and full, and it is the step most people skip or fake.

The sound

This is not a heavily distorted sound, and there are no pedals on it. It is big chords, played cleanly enough that every note in them still reads.

Settings

These are the settings from the original GarageBand session. The short version: load the Small Tweed Combo model, turn Gain to about 8.5, switch the amp's reverb off, and leave everything else exactly as the model loads it.

Guitar
Guitar Epiphone Les Paul Custom
Pickup Bridge humbucker
Guitar Volume 10
Guitar Tone 10
Tuning E Standard: E A D G B E
Amp Designer
Starting Preset Brit and Clean, then customized
Amp Model Small Tweed Combo
Amplifier Small Tweed Amp
Cabinet Tweed 1×12
Microphone Ribbon 121
Mic Position Left as the model loads it
EQ Type Vintage
Pedalboard Plug-in turned off
Other Track Plug-ins Left at whatever GarageBand adds to a new guitar track
Amp Controls

Only two things were changed from the model's own settings. Numbers are the 0 to 10 scale printed on the amp in Amp Designer.

Gain 8.5
Bass, Mids, Treble, Presence, Master, Output Left exactly as the Small Tweed Combo model loads them
Amp Reverb and Effects

The amp has its own reverb, tremolo and vibrato, separate from Pedalboard. Having no pedals does not mean these are off, so the reverb switch was turned off deliberately.

Amp Reverb Off
Tremolo / Vibrato Left as the model loads it
Two Tracks
Track 1 Epiphone Les Paul Custom, bridge pickup, first performance of the chords. Pan -25
Track 2 Same guitar, same pickup, same amp settings, a completely separate performance. Pan +25
Volumes Roughly equal, so neither side leans

Why these choices work together

Small Tweed Combo. Apple describes it as a 1×12 combo that moves smoothly from clean into crunch, which is where the slight grit comes from without tipping into real distortion.

Vintage EQ. Apple says this EQ type emulates the response of American Tweed style amps, so it is the EQ that belongs to this amp family rather than one borrowed from another.

Ribbon 121. Apple describes the ribbon mic as capturing a sound often called bright or brittle, yet still warm, which suits big chords that need both body and definition.

Double-tracking: the part that makes it wide

Double-tracking means recording the same part twice, as two genuinely separate performances, on two tracks. It is not a stereo widener, and it is not one recording copied onto a second track. It is you, playing the chords a second time.

Two separate takes panned to -25 and +25 A listener sits at the bottom center of a half circle representing the stereo field. Take 1, the first performance, sits partly to the left, panned to -25. Take 2, a separate performance, sits partly to the right, panned to +25. Together they spread across the middle of the field. Hard left Hard right Center 1 2 You
  • 1Take 1: the first performance, panned to -25
  • 2Take 2: a separate performance, panned to +25
Two performances, panned apart. Schematic, not to scale. -25 and +25 are the values GarageBand shows on each track's Pan knob.

No two performances are identical. The timing of each strum drifts by a few milliseconds, the pick catches the strings a little differently, and each chord's attack lands with its own weight. When one performance comes from the left and the other from the right, your ears hear those small differences as two real guitars, and the space between them as width.

That only works if both takes are tight. The aim is two performances that agree closely, not two that wander apart, and two tracks at roughly the same volume so neither side pulls the image off center.

Recording the two takes

  1. Record take one. Set up your first guitar track with the settings above and record the chords.
  2. Make the second track. Select the first track and choose Track > New Track with Duplicate Settings, or Control-click its track header and choose it from the menu. This copies the amp setup to a new, empty track. It does not copy the recording, which is exactly what you want.
  3. Record take two. On the new track, play the chords again while listening to take one, so the changes line up. Play it fresh rather than trying to copy take one note for note.
  4. Pan them apart. Drag the first track's Pan knob to the left until it reads -25, and the second track's to the right until it reads +25. Option-click a Pan knob to send it back to the center.
  5. Balance the volumes. Adjust the two track volumes until neither side leans.
  6. Re-record, do not rescue. If one take drifts noticeably out of time, record it again rather than trying to force it into place.

Why copying the recording does not work

If you copy one take onto a second track and pan the two copies apart, the left and right sides carry exactly the same audio. Your ears hear identical left and right signals as one sound in the middle. You get one guitar in the center, only louder, and no width at all.

One take copied and panned apart is heard in the center The same recording is placed on two tracks and panned left and right. Because both sides carry identical audio, the listener hears a single guitar in the center of the stereo field, not two guitars spread apart. Hard left Hard right copy copy You hear one guitar, here You
  • The same recording, copied and panned left and right
  • Where you actually hear it: one guitar, in the middle
The same recording on both sides. However far apart you pan it, it is heard as a single guitar in the middle.

A common workaround is to slide the copy slightly later in time to force the two sides apart. That can sound wide on headphones, but it tends to sound hollow and phasey, and parts of it can cancel out when the mix is played in mono. Two real performances avoid both problems, which is why there is no shortcut here.

Check it in mono

Plenty of people will hear your music through a single speaker, such as a small Bluetooth speaker, where left and right are combined into one. Real double-tracking holds up well when that happens; faked width often does not. To check:

  1. Choose Apple menu > System Settings, click Accessibility, then Audio, and turn on Play stereo audio as mono.
  2. Play the song back in GarageBand. The guitars should still sound full and solid, just no longer wide. If they suddenly sound thin or hollow, something is canceling, and a copied take is the usual cause.
  3. Turn the setting off again afterwards, or everything your Mac plays will stay in mono.

Hear it

The tone in use: big chords left to ring out, with drums added underneath.

Sources

More: all guides, or browse the tone cards.