Adam Dutkiewicz (Killswitch Engage) guitar rig

Want to know the secret behind Adam Dutkiewicz’s (aka. Adam D) guitar tone? Then read on.

Adam Dutkiewicz is guitarist, and producer, for the mammoth metal band Killswitch Engage. Whilst his gear has changed somewhat over the years, his philosophy to playing guitar, and getting rock hard tone has remained the same. K*I*S*S. Keep It Simple Stupid. A good guitar into a good amplified equals good tone.

In the early days Dutkiewicz often played a Fender Stratocaster with a Twin Blade humbucker taking the place of the stock bridge single coil pickup. He has since moved onto Caparison guitars, favouring the Caparison PLM-3, which has now been discontinued, fitted with EMG pickups, an 85 in the bridge, and two SA single coils in the neck and middle positions. His guitar is usually tuned to Drop C tuning (CGCFAD) with .012-.052 gauge DR Tite-Fit strings.

Dutkiewicz uses effects sparingly, but has been quoted as using a Maxon AD9 Delay pedal and Maxon OD808 Overdrive in his signal chain. The delay is run through his amplifiers effects loop whilst the overdrive pedal sits in the loop of a Boss NS-2 Noise Suppressor. He also uses a Korg DTR-2000 Rack Tuner as well as a Sennheiser EW100 Wireless Unit.


You can see his previous signal flow diagram in the image below, a scan from Guitar World’s old ‘Vulgar Displays of Power’ column.

Whilst Dutkiewicz is still reported to use Caparison guitars and a very similar pedal setup to the one pictured above, he has used a variety of amps both live and in the studio. Live he has reportedly used Hughes and Kettner Triamps, Bogner, Peavey 5150’s, Framus Cobras, Mesa Boogie Triple-Rectifiers and Roadsters. For speaker cabinets he has used Mesa Boogie and Hughes & Kettner 4×12 Cabinets, loaded with Celestion Vintage 30s.

For the recording of “The End of Heartache” album, both he and fellow guitarist, Joel Stroezel used a Framus Dragon running into a Mesa 4×12 with Celestion Vintage 30’s, and a Peavey 5150 running into a VHT 4×12 cabinet with P50E speakers. However, the Framus Dragon was not used on the recording of the track “Rose of Sharyn”, with a Framus Cobra used in its place.

In the studio for the recording of “As Daylight Dies”, Dutkiewicz was quoted in an interview with PunkTv.ca, as producing the guitar tone for the album using a “guitar plugged into a Soldano plugged into a Mesa Boogie cab. We never really got to crazy with the guitar stuff at all. It’s just plug in a good guitar into a good amplifier, into a good cabinet.”

Visit DigitalBurn.org to read a fantastic interview with Adam Dutkeiwicz, in which he discusses his philosophies toward production.