Equipment
Carpenter currently endorses ESP Guitars, Marshall Amplifiers, GuitarRig and EMG pickups. He has been a major endorser of ESP since the mid-1990s with a number of signature six (now discontinued), seven, eight string and baritone models in production.
Carpenter currently uses Dunlop .011-.069 gauge strings. He also uses Dunlop 1 mm Tortex picks which are black with a custom logo.
On tour, Carpenter carries 14 guitars using 7 main guitars, with the rest being used as back ups in different tunings. He used six string guitars in E standard for Adrenaline, drop Dâ™/C# for Around The Fur and drop C for White Pony. Carpenter then switched to using seven-string guitars, using G# standard for the self-titled album and drop F# for Saturday Night Wrist. On the album Diamond Eyes, he used an 8-string in F# standard tuning, while on Koi No Yokan Carpenter used Drop E tuning on some songs such as "Poltergeist" and "Gauze" in addition to F# standard.
Since transitioning from a 6-string to a seven-string guitar in late 2000, in live performances Carpenter plays the songs originally played on a six-string guitar on a 7-string with the two highest strings tuned to the same note (ex. EADGBEE for Adrenaline), after discovering that Limp Bizkit guitarist Wes Borland did this to some of his seven-string guitars. Carpenter does this because it was harder for him to play a regular 6-string after getting used to the wider neck and longer scale length of his signature 7-strings. The song "Rocket Skates" from Diamond Eyes is played on an 8-string, although Carpenter does not make use of the low F# string. In order to prevent confusion between rigs while touring, he has two identical rigs, one for U.S. tours and the other for foreign countries.
Carpenter is also a user of Native Instruments' Guitar Rig, a software program designed to emulate amplifier and effect set ups.
Read more about this topic: Stephen Carpenter
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