Karl Sanders

Karl sys in this video "I was using the marshall jcm2000 dsl 100's, still love them still great, but the Engl just freaking kills it. I was really drawn to the Engl heads becuase they have such a crushing metal tone, it's very similar to a classic Marshall EL34, but its got so much more control, and its got a lot of articulation, like on really fast passages where you're trying to hear every note, the Engl can catch it and it really brings it out."

Karl Sanders is seen with a Jackson Kelly Pro, featuring a fully scalloped fingerboard and Seymour Duncan pickups, in the referenced image.

"I'm using this Boss GT-001, which is not a very glamours guitar proccessor, but its got a nice bit of control that you can switch to bring stuff in and out, so i'm just using it for basically a classic Boss overdrive, Kinda SD-1 type thing that pushes the front of the Engls."

As stated by Karl himself about the models he uses:

"08. KXK Warrior V7: This unbelievable work of supreme guitar building is an ungodly 7-string shred machine that served as great inspiration for the guys in the Dean custom shop. It sounds incredible, like liquid high-speed flamethrowers, and it plays like melted butter. In fact, it plays WAY TOO easily so I don’t dare practice on it, as it would undoubtedly subconsciously discourage me to pick up any of my other guitars. I have the action on most of my guitars set fairly high because I love the tone that way. I use this guitar for many of the guest leads I play on other folks’ records."

"11. KXK Gold Warrior V “Spear”: Despite the weapon-like appearance of this axe, it actually has an incredibly brutal tone and punishing “note center.” It has 27½” scale length maple neck-thru design, which aids greatly for the drop A tuning Nile uses. Another go-to tracking guitar in the Nile arsenal, this one has been used on countless rhythm tracks since Annihilation of the Wicked."

"12. KXK Warrior V natural finish: Under the hood this is essentially the same axe as the Gold Spear except that it has a Cocobola neck instead of maple, a 25½” scale neck, no volume or tone knobs and no icky finish to cloud up the tone whatsoever. This guitar has merely the lightest of oil sparingly applied instead of the mountains of glossy polyurethane or laquer finishes usually applied to guitars. This lets the natural tone of the guitar resonate freely without the inhibition of layers of finish. The neck position Duncan single coil on this guitar has the most otherwise-unobtainable old school vintage Strat/Marshall plexi-type tone EVER when run through the Splawn head; you can hear this guitar/amp combo on “The Chaining of the Iniqutous” guitar solos."

From the Metalsucks article Rigged: Nile’s Karl Sanders: "Another secret Nile weapon!"

From the Metalsucks article Rigged: Nile’s Karl Sanders: "This beautiful axe has a Darkened Shrines album graphic. It’s a 27½” scale baritone maple neck thru with an ebony scalloped fingerboard. It hasn’t appeared on a Nile record since Annihilation of the Wicked; it plays like butter and sounds deep, rich and warm, but I don’t play it much because it’s too expensive to dare risk damaging it further by taking it on tour again. Even at artist courtesy pricing I couldn’t afford to replace it. Life is full of irony."

He mentions in this video he used to use marshall DSL series amps.

From the Metalsucks article Rigged: Nile’s Karl Sanders: "I love these pickups. I usually use the Invader or the Duncan Distortion in the bridge position but I use several different flavors for the neck; The Pearly Gates, Full Shred, and various single coil models."

From the Metalsucks article Rigged: Nile’s Karl Sanders: "I have had this guitar FOREVER. I got it from a friend who traded it to me in exchange for some guitar lessons. It had been butchered with a Kahler tremelo bridge which I immediately had replaced with a brass block and non-tremelo bridge. This later became the guitar I used all the time on tour with Nile in the early days. I toured it so much that I wore the original Fender neck out, so I replaced it with a Warmoth scalloped maple neck (with Jackson sticker). I use it on Nile records for classic single coil neck position Strat/Plexi Marshall tones like the break in “Enduring the Eternal Immolation of Flame.”"

Karl recently uploaded a photo of his collection of heads, cabs and guitars, and the DSL100HR was part of it (two, in fact).

In this photo we can see Karl using the Dean XL Guitar.

From the Metalsucks article Rigged: Nile’s Karl Sanders: "This guitar sports an incredible-for-the-price flame maple top, fully scalloped fretboard, brass nut, Seymour Duncan pickups and TonePros Bridge. Like all my guitars, the volume and tone knobs are bypassed yielding a much hotter and less cloudy tone. These 79 series V’s are war-horses; I take them on tour all over the planet. On the new record I used this guitar for many of the rhythm tracks."

He uses Invader as the only humbucker in his signature Dean model.

Karl mentions he used this amp on previous albums.

"These are my old Marshall 4x12 cabinets I've had for 25-30 years, I love the Marshall 4x12's with celestions. These have the 65 watt creambacks in them and Oh man what a crushing tone. They look so new because the good folks at Spawn recoverd them for me and they stayed true to the vintage aesthetics...on the backs there's custom plates for everything."

In the Digital Tour Bus episode of "GEAR MASTERS," Karl Sanders discusses his use of the Karl Sanders V Floyd Gate of Sethu electric guitars, featuring both 6 and 7-string models.

From the Metalsucks article Rigged: Nile’s Karl Sanders: "This unique fretless instrument is designed to allow guitarists to achieve Middle Eastern oud-like sounds in a guitar-like format. This wonderful secret weapon can be heard on plenty of Nile tracks, most notably “Those Whom the Gods Detest” and “Ethnomusicological Cannibalisms."

This is one of Karl's signature guitars, it has a 25.5" scale length with a scalloped fingerboard. It has a Seymour Duncan invader with no volume knob because if you aren't on 11 than you aren't metal. I am not sure if he uses this one on tour since he has several with nice graphics but he owns at least 1, it is his signature guitar after all.

At 5:22 Karl says, "Um, another tuner, routed, here..." pointing to his Korg Pitchblack rackmount tuner.

From the Metalsucks article Rigged: Nile’s Karl Sanders: "I love these pickups. I usually use the Invader or the Duncan Distortion in the bridge position but I use several different flavors for the neck; The Pearly Gates, Full Shred, and various single coil models."

Baglama Saz: This long-necked Turkish lute is a mainstay of traditional Turkish music and has seen plenty of action on both Nile albums and my solo albums. On Sethu you can hear it in “When my Wrath is Done” and “The Fiends Who Come To Steal the Magick of the Deceased.”

The Right Pick For The Job Starting at 2:09- Dallas: "We're using the Tortex Sharps, and they are the 1.35 I believe." Karl: "Yep. I was using the Dunlop stubby jazz iii purple thingies. Yeah. And when we were tracking the record, there was a rhythm guitar part, a really fast, blistering part, that I was having trouble getting the clarity out of, I was, like, really digging down and, you know, attacking the thing, and I just wasn't getting the clarity, and I picked up one of Dallas' Dunlop Tortex 1.35 sharps and all of a sudden I was like, 'Hey, wow, I can not only hear it, but it's like half as, like, difficult, it takes half the force, and I think it's because not only is the pick stiffer, but the point, is uh, much, much more pointy."

At 1:41 Karl begins listing off the "standard stuff" in his rack, starting with his power conditioner. When the camera moves in to get a better look at the rack we can see "M-8X2" on the right side of the Furman unit at the top of the rack.

At 2:16 Karl says, "This baby. Oh man, Sound Sculpture. Wow, what a great company. This is uh, it's like a, you know, it's a routing, looping, kind of system that's midi controlled."

"Switchblade 8" is visible on the right side of the unit, the "B" presumably being hidden by the random pole that runs in front of the rack. The only other version of the Switchblade 8 from Sound Sculpture is the Switchblade 8F, a floor unit, so it's safe to say that Karl is definitely using the rackmount 8B.

At 2:10: "Then the Axe-FX II XL. That does just effects, like the way I route it, I've got the ENGL on the rhythms, it's pushing that cabinet (pointing to his bottom left cab), and this one jumps in for leads and pushes that cabinet (pointing to his bottom right cab), and then the Fractal is just doing wet effects through the two top cabinets through this Crown power amp."

At 2:10: "Then the Axe-FX II XL. That does just effects, like the way I route it, I've got the ENGL on the rhythms, it's pushing that cabinet (pointing to his bottom left cab), and this one jumps in for leads and pushes that cabinet (pointing to his bottom right cab), and then the Fractal is just doing wet effects through the two top cabinets through this Crown power amp."

In the shot of the Crown XLS 202 poweramp, the Ebtech Hum Eliminator can be seen directly above the poweramp.

Karl at 0:47-

The next cab is the 'Eye of Horus.' It's a Splawn cab with 65-watt Creambacks in it. Man, this cab sounds great on everything, it- wow.

Karl at 1:51-

This next cab is the Ra cabinet. And yeah, it's raw. It's a Marshall Vintage Reissue with V30s in it. I use it for leads, um, I record lots of leads with this one, but I also play through it every single day. This is my daily practice amp that logs insane amount of hours on this thing, cause I love the way it sounds, it's just- really, y'know, captures what you want from a lead. It just screams right out. I love it.

Karl can be seen here with a Mooer GE300 Lite.

Karl Sanders, on his Instagram profile, confirmed that he uses Deskew Technologies Gig Performer during "The Underworld Awaits Us All U.S. Tour." In a video, he explains, "I’m running Gig Performer on my laptop, which lets me switch VST effects live." This setup is showcased in his current guitar rig.