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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—Joseph O’Donnell, and Clifford Sanforth. Arthur Perry (Bela Lugosi)
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“Biological possibility and desire are not the same as biological need. Women have childbearing equipment. For them to choose not to use the equipment is no more blocking what is instinctive than it is for a man who, muscles or no, chooses not to be a weightlifter.”
—Betty Rollin (b. 1936)