How to sound like Mac DeMarco
Play a clean jangly guitar through heavy chorus and vibrato so it wobbles and drifts out of tune, then run the whole thing through Memory Station on a warm mood with the Haze knob up for that home-recorded lo-fi glow. The signature is the wobbly detuned chorus/vibrato guitar sitting inside warm, slightly worn tape warmth.
People ask me how to get that sound all the time, so I finally sat down to write it out. The good news is that most of it is attitude and one or two settings, not a rack of boutique gear. Here is how I think about it as someone who records at home and has spent a lot of hours chasing woozy, comfortable tones.
A short history of the Mac DeMarco sound
Mac DeMarco is a Canadian songwriter who became sort of the patron saint of slacker rock in the 2010s. Records like "2" and "Salad Days" are the ones most people point to when they describe the vibe. The songs are relaxed, a little goofy, sung close to the mic, and the whole thing feels like it was tracked in a bedroom with the window open and nobody in a hurry.
What makes it stick is the charm of cheap gear used well. Nothing sounds expensive or polished. The guitars are warm and a bit soft at the edges, the recordings feel a touch worn, and there is this gentle wobble running underneath everything that makes it sound like a memory instead of a modern session. That woozy, home-recorded quality is the thing to chase before you worry about any specific pedal or amp.
The players and their gear
The core recipe is a clean, jangly single-coil guitar. Think of a bright, chimey tone with the pickups clean and the amp mostly undriven, so you hear the strings and the character of the wood more than any distortion. Then that clean guitar gets run through heavy chorus and vibrato, and this is the part that matters most. The modulation is deep enough that the pitch actually drifts, so notes and chords sound like they are gently pulling in and out of tune. That is the wobble everybody recognizes.
I want to be honest here: I have not taken his rig apart, and the exact models people credit tend to shift depending on who you ask and which year you are talking about. The famous story is a well-loved chorus/vibrato pedal doing most of the pitch-warble work, but treat any specific box or amp as a starting point, not gospel. The effect matters more than the label on it. If your chorus or vibrato is deep and a little slow, you are already most of the way there.
Around the guitar, the recording itself is warm and compressed, tracked at home so it has that soft, slightly hazy character rather than a crisp studio sheen. The groove stays relaxed and never pushes. Vocals are soft and close, almost conversational. Put those together, a wobbly clean guitar inside a warm compressed room, and the sound falls into place.
How to get it: the Siesta plugin chain
Here is how I would build it in the box, start to finish. It is short on purpose. The whole point of this sound is that you do not overthink it.
The Mac DeMarco chain, in the box
- Clean jangly guitar with heavy chorus and vibrato. Start with a clean, bright guitar tone and no real drive. Then add a chorus or vibrato and turn the depth up until the pitch clearly wobbles and drifts. You want it obvious, to the point where sustained chords sound like they are floating slightly out of tune. That drift is the whole signature.
- Run it through Memory Station for the lo-fi tape warmth. Put Memory Station '03 on the track, pick a warm mood, and let it wrap the guitar in tape drift, gentle noise and haze. Push the Haze knob up until the tone loses its modern edge and starts to feel home-recorded and a little worn. It is free, so there is no reason not to try it.
- Keep it relaxed. Do not tighten the timing, do not clean up the wobble, do not brighten it back up. Sit the vocal close and soft, keep the groove loose, and leave the imperfections in. The comfort is the sound.
Memory Station '03 turns a recording into a memory
A whole lo-fi atmosphere machine that lives inside a chat window from 2003. Pick a mood and it reconfigures the tape drift, haze, noise and reverb behind it, then push Haze until the daylight comes out of it. A real plugin, not a demo, and always free.
Get Memory Station · Free →Dialing it in
- Let it drift, do not fix it. The instinct is to correct pitch and tighten timing. Resist it. The out-of-tune wobble and the loose feel are the character, so if it sounds a little wrong in a nice way, you are there.
- Go deeper on the modulation than feels reasonable. A subtle chorus reads as polish, not slacker rock. Turn the depth up until the pitch clearly moves, then back off just enough that it is musical.
- Use Haze as a tone control, not a garnish. Sweep it while the part plays and stop where the guitar stops sounding like a plugin and starts sounding like a cassette someone found in a glovebox.
- Keep the whole mix warm and soft. Roll off some top end, let a little compression breathe, and record the vocal close and quiet. The instruments should feel like they are in the same small room.
If you like this woozy, pitch-drift world, it is a short walk to the psychedelic side of it, so once you have the jangle down you might enjoy the Tame Impala guide for how the same wobble gets pushed further into full-on dream territory.