The melody and chords are interpolated from the Shigeo Sekito song The Word II, reworked with vintage synths. Chamber of ReflectionĬhamber of Reflection stands out on Salad Days as the only song that replaces Mac’s signature chorused guitar with swirling layers of synthesizers. Some other great resources for finding out more about Mac’s gear and recording techniques are the Pepperoni Playboy documentary, his Tape Op ‘Varispeed and Beyond’ interview, and the Mac DeMarco Nerds Out About Music Gear video by. The main synth I’ll use is TAL U-NO-LX, and all the patches are available as a free download at the end of the article.

In this article, I’ll break down the synths on my five favourite Mac DeMarco songs, and show you how to recreate the sounds in software synthesizers. Mac’s main synth to use on recordings is his Roland Juno-60, with a Yamaha DX7 also showing up on several songs and the music video to Another One. After utilising synths for Salad Days’ Chamber of Reflection, synths took on a much bigger role for the 2017 album This Old Dog, with several synth-only tracks. Mac DeMarco is a Canadian musician known for his brand of old-school-influenced indie music, using a chorused guitar sound, simple arrangements and a varispeed tape sound.