{"id":30764,"date":"2025-09-19T03:20:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T03:20:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/30764\/"},"modified":"2025-09-19T03:20:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T03:20:13","slug":"when-i-went-to-the-all-digital-realm-i-took-on-a-world-of-pain-that-i-was-not-expecting-why-stephen-carpenter-has-returned-to-tube-amps-for-deftones-latest-tour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/30764\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cWhen I went to the all-digital realm, I took on a world of pain that I was not expecting\u201d: Why Stephen Carpenter has returned to tube amps for Deftones\u2019 latest tour"},"content":{"rendered":"

While Deftones’ Stephen Carpenter was an early adopter of Axe-Fx, Kempers, and the Line 6 Helix, these days he prefers a slightly more traditional setup \u2013 which means he’s moved away from amp modelers<\/a> and re-incorporated tube amps<\/a> into his rig.<\/p>\n

Speaking in a new interview with Premier Guitar<\/a>, Carpenter explains he made the massive overhaul because \u201cthe amps never fail.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cI’ve had too many fails with my digital world,\u201d he tells Premier Guitar<\/a> in his latest Rig Rundown. \u201cWhen I went to the all-digital realm, that’s when I took on a world of pain that I was not expecting. I was in a bad place with my equipment, [I] just hated how everything sounded.\u201d<\/p>\n

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After going through different setups, Carpenter previously settled on a compromise hybrid rig running his Helix into a Fryette power amp. However, one decision in particular revolutionized his love-hate relationship with amp modelers, and consequently, his tone.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne day, when we were gearing up for the last leg of this tour earlier this year, when we were rehearsing, I reset my amp blocks and all my presets,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was like, \u2018Just put it back to the factory state.\u2019 And it turned out that the factory programming of the amp block itself was perfect. I was like, \u2018Don’t even touch it.\u2019 And that’s been my mentality when it comes to all the equipment.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor instance, I have the Strymon BigSky, Timeline, and the Mobius. I only use the factory presets and I don’t touch any knobs no more.\u201d<\/p>\n

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His reasoning is simple: \u201cI’ll give you all this advice \u2013 if your gear ever craps out and you ain’t got it backed up, them sounds are gone for life. Factory presets, however, are right there. If anything happens, breaks, act of God, whatever… go get a new one, plug it right back in. Boom!\u201d<\/p>\n

Deftones’ Stephen Carpenter Rig Rundown – YouTube
\n\"Deftones'<\/p>\n

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Working on Deftones’ latest record, private music, also saw the guitarist actually using the \u201cwhole pile of amps\u201d he’s been collecting over the past decade.<\/p>\n

He continues, \u201cWhen we went to go do this one, I was like, \u2018You know what? I think I bring all those down.\u2019 Because I was like, \u2018How can you fail?\u2019 These are 100-watt tube amps. I got all the stuff I need.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cWith every take we did, we put on another amp. We just kept going through them. Greg’s [Dubinovskiy, his guitar tech] in there [the studio], I’m literally just sitting around playing. I never touched the amp once. Greg did everything on the amps in the studio, and I didn’t have no complaints.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe actual organic sound of these amps, the feel, the whole thing, the response when you’re playing,\u201d he gushes. \u201cI was like, \u2018Yeah, that’s it.\u2019 And that’s when we were like, \u2018All right, we’re rebuilding this shit.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, his live rig is headed up by Bogner Uber-Ultra heads, loaded with KT88s and paired with a wall of Bogner cabs.<\/p>\n

Deftones have just released their highly anticipated 10th album, private music, last month \u2013 a record which saw Carpenter and Chino Moreno, in particular, chasing sounds before crafting songs<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While Deftones’ Stephen Carpenter was an early adopter of Axe-Fx, Kempers, and the Line 6 Helix, these days…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30765,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[156,157,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-30764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30764\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}