Joel Stroetzel

"I have been huge fan and player of Caparison guitars for over a decade now. Throughout the years I have tried many of their various models, and have loved them all! I am pleased to say that the JSM has all of my favorite features from all of the models I have tried, yet it still manages to be very unique within the Caparison family of instruments...

"...I truly could not say enough about this guitar! Perfection in every detail. Many, many thanks to my friends at Caparison for making my dream guitar come to life! I hope that anyone who has a chance to play a JSM loves it just as much as I do!" Joel says, in this article.

In the early days of Killswitch, Joel can be seen playing an Ibanez Universe UV777BK.

this is the signature model of Joel stroetzel. it is based on the dillinger model in their range. it is loaded with the fishman killswitch engage set.

“I always wish I could play pedal steel guitar, but I’ve never had the patience for it. I have lap guitars, I have a B-Bender Telecaster, but pedal steel… I’m not sure it’s a road I want to try to go down!”

One in particular that we used for a lot of the clean parts was actually a G&L Legacy Special that has the noiseless single-coil pickups – they sound really cool. Plus it’s got different modes and a high-frequency push/pull and a five-way switch on it. It had a lot of cool clean tone options for doubling up chords and choruses and stuff like that just to make things shimmer a little bit, it’s always nice to get some single-coil sounds in there.

In this acoustic video, Joel can be seen using a guild acoustic

A Hughes & Kettner Triamp MKII amp is listed among Joel's gear, on his website.

Joel Stroetzel of Killswitch Engage talks about his Laney Ironheart IRT-120H and Lionheart L20T-112

Joel Stroetzel of Killswitch Engage talks about his Laney Ironheart IRT-120H and Lionheart L20T-112

Listed on Joel's official Laney page.

Listed on Joel's official Laney page.

I still have a Soldano SLO-100 that I’ve had for many years. I love that.

Lately we’ve just been using our Kemper [Profilers]. We can profile the sounds we get in the studio and they’re easy to recall live. Part of me would love to have a big tube stack behind me, kicking me in the chest when I turn around. But, at the same time, the Kemper’s so convenient. We’re all on in-ear monitors, so it’s really nice to be able to plug in and there’s no issues with mic placement. Our front-of-house guy has a direct clean line to the guitars that doesn’t bleed.

Lately we’ve just been using our Kemper [Profilers]. We can profile the sounds we get in the studio and they’re easy to recall live. Part of me would love to have a big tube stack behind me, kicking me in the chest when I turn around. But, at the same time, the Kemper’s so convenient. We’re all on in-ear monitors, so it’s really nice to be able to plug in and there’s no issues with mic placement. Our front-of-house guy has a direct clean line to the guitars that doesn’t bleed.

Yeah, there’s a lot of different stuff going on, and we used a lot of different guitar amps. Many of the rhythm parts were done with a Diezel VH4.

Yeah, there’s a lot of different stuff going on, and we used a lot of different guitar amps. Many of the rhythm parts were done with a Diezel VH4, and for a lot of the main overdubs we used a Splawn Nitro, which is basically a hotrodded Marshall with KT88 power tubes, which give it a bigger sound more like the JCM 800s.

Our favorite cabs are Mesa/Boogie Stiletto straight cabs with Celestion Vintage 30s. That’s what we tracked with, but sometimes if the tone wasn’t fitting in we’d send the recorded part out to another amp so we didn’t have to re-track it.

Our favorite cabs are Mesa/Boogie Stiletto straight cabs with Celestion Vintage 30s. That’s what we tracked with, but sometimes if the tone wasn’t fitting in we’d send the recorded part out to another amp so we didn’t have to re-track it.

On Joel Stroetzel's website, it lists a Maxon OD808 among his gear.

This pedal was also mentioned in Killswitch Engage's Premier Guitar interview.

The Maxon OD808 has been one of the biggest parts of our sound, pedal-wise. We have it on at all times for dirty tones. It compresses the output of your guitar a little bit: It tames any flubby low-end and gives you a nice thick attack, so everything seems to cut better in the mix.

On Joel Stroetzel's website, it lists a Boss NS-2 among his gear.

A Boss TU-3 is listed among Joel Stroetzel's gear, on his website.

Among the gear listed on Joel Stroetzel's website is a Maxon AD-9 Delay Pro.

Joel Stroetzel uses an ISP Technologies Decimator ProRack G, according to his website.

A detailed gear diagram of Joel Stroetzel's Killswitch Engage stage setup that traces the signal flow of the equipment in his 2005 guitar rig. As you can see he has a Korg DTR-1 Digital Tuner.

According to this diagram from Guitar Geek, Joel switches between using the Ibanez TS808 The Original Tube Screamer or the Maxon OD808 Overdrive.

We don’t really use any rack gear with our guitar stuff, although live we use an ISP Technologies Decimator to control noise.

Joel's official website states that he uses EMG 81 pickups.