Simon McBride guitars gear is the subject of one of rock’s most challenging career moments executed with complete authority — the story of a Belfast-born guitarist who spent twenty years building a formidable reputation in the British blues-rock and hard rock world, then stepped into the most scrutinised vacancy in classic rock when he replaced Steve Morse in Deep Purple in 2022. Deep Purple, the band that gave us Ritchie Blackmore — one of the most influential guitarists in rock history, who defined the template for heavy metal lead guitar in the early 1970s — is not a position for the faint-hearted or the technically unprepared. McBride met the moment with complete musical authority, and his contributions to Deep Purple’s live performances and the album =1 (2024) demonstrated a player operating at the highest level of his craft in the most demanding possible context.
His pre-Purple career — solo albums including In My Own Time (2005), Worlds Apart (2008), Proud (2010), and Unguarded (2019), plus extensive touring and session work with artists including Joe Bonamassa and Don Felder — gave him a foundation of genuine depth. McBride was not a young player in a high-profile situation beyond his experience; he was a fully formed, seasoned professional whose career had prepared him specifically for this kind of demanding, historically loaded role. Simon McBride guitars gear reflects both the depth of this preparation and the specific tonal requirements of the Deep Purple context. This is the complete breakdown.
Background
Simon McBride was born on November 20, 1978, in Belfast, Northern Ireland — a city whose troubled political history has consistently produced musicians of extraordinary intensity and commitment, as if the environment of the Troubles gave artists a specific urgency and seriousness of purpose that more comfortable circumstances might not generate. He began playing guitar as a child, developing with remarkable speed and eventually studying at the British and Irish Modern Music Institute in Dublin, giving his self-directed development a formal theoretical foundation that complemented the hands-on musical education of the Belfast blues and rock scene.
His professional career began in the early 2000s with an independent solo debut that attracted significant attention in the British blues-rock world — a world with high standards for guitar playing and a discerning audience that does not tolerate the superficial. His subsequent solo albums built a consistent reputation for technical accomplishment combined with the blues-informed expressiveness that the tradition valued: not merely technically impressive but musically communicative, not merely fast but melodically purposeful. His association with Joe Bonamassa — as a touring and recording collaborator — gave him exposure to one of the most demanding audiences in contemporary blues-rock and demonstrated his ability to hold his own in the most technically and musically scrutinised company available in the genre.
When Steve Morse announced his departure from Deep Purple in 2022 due to family health considerations, and McBride was announced as his replacement, the guitar community’s reaction combined surprise (he was not the most obvious candidate) with informed appreciation (those who knew his work understood why the choice was made). His subsequent live performances with the band and the studio contribution to =1 validated the decision completely.
Simon McBride Guitars Gear: The Complete Rig
Guitars
Simon McBride’s primary electric guitars are Paul Reed Smith instruments — specifically the Custom 24 (24-fret neck, PRS Pattern Thin or Pattern Regular neck profile, PRS 59/09 or 57/08 humbuckers with coil-split capability, PRS double-locking tremolo or non-locking two-point floating tremolo) and Custom 22 (22-fret neck, slightly different body resonance from the shorter neck length, same PRS humbucker configuration). His PRS instruments represent a thoughtful balance between the vintage-guitar-inspired warmth and resonance that the British blues-rock tradition values and the modern construction quality, consistency, and versatility that professional touring demands. The PRS Custom 24’s coil-split function — converting the humbuckers to single-coil-like character — gave him tonal range from full humbucker warmth and sustain for the heavier passages to the cleaner, more transparent single-coil character for clean and light-gain applications. PRS’s attention to neck profile consistency, fretwork quality, and pickup voicing gave him instruments that performed at the same level every night regardless of environmental conditions — a practical advantage that vintage instruments with their inherent variability cannot always provide.
PRS produced Simon McBride signature instruments reflecting his specific requirements. His signature model typically featured Custom-series construction with his preferred neck profile, specific pickup voicing calibrated to his amplification and playing style, and aesthetic features reflecting his personal taste. The signature model gave players access to his specific instrument specifications in a produced form with the PRS quality standards.
Gibson Les Paul guitars — both vintage examples with PAF or Patent Number humbuckers and current production instruments — appeared in McBride’s documented setup for specific applications where the Les Paul’s mahogany warmth and PAF humbucker character gave a different and specifically appropriate tonal quality. In the Deep Purple context, where Blackmore’s Les Paul Custom and later Stratocaster defined the band’s guitar heritage, McBride’s occasional Les Paul use gave specific passages a tonal connection to the band’s historical identity.
Fender Stratocasters — particularly vintage pre-CBS examples and current American Vintage II or American Professional II instruments — appeared in McBride’s setup for applications where the single-coil transparency and dynamic responsiveness of the Stratocaster suited the material. Blackmore’s long-term Stratocaster period (from the mid-1970s through his Purple tenure) gave the Deep Purple catalogue significant Stratocaster-associated tonal character, and McBride’s Strat use gave certain passages a historical tonal reference appropriate to that period of the band’s music.
PRS SE instruments — the more affordable Korean-manufactured versions of the USA models — appeared in McBride’s setup for specific outreach, masterclass, and secondary touring applications. His use of SE-level instruments in public educational contexts reflected the same commitment to musical accessibility that McBride has expressed through masterclasses and educational appearances.
PRS humbuckers — the 59/09 (voiced for vintage PAF-like warmth with improved coil balance) and 57/08 (slightly different midrange character, Alnico 5 magnets) — appeared in McBride’s PRS instruments in their standard configurations and in custom-voiced variants developed for his specific tonal requirements. The 59/09’s coil-split function (switching between full humbucker and single-coil-like character) gave his PRS instruments the tonal range he needed to cover the full spectrum from clean Strat-like tones to full humbucker warmth.
McBride uses Ernie Ball Regular Slinky (.010–.046) on most of his electric instruments — the standard light gauge appropriate for the British blues-rock tradition’s bending-intensive playing style. His string choice reflected the same practical balance between bending ease and tonal authority that the British players he most admired had established — Clapton’s light Ernie Balls, Gary Moore’s similar gauge preferences — as the appropriate tool for the expressive, bending-centred technique he had developed.
Amps
In the Deep Purple context, where the classic Purple sound is inextricably associated with Marshall amplification — Blackmore’s use of Marshall heads alongside his Stratocaster defined the band’s live sound across its most celebrated period — McBride’s primary amplification uses Marshall Plexi-circuit amplifiers. The Marshall 1987X 50-watt Plexi reissue and the Marshall Silver Jubilee (the 25th-anniversary reissue that Marshall produced in 1987, based on the JCM800 but with a modified gain structure that gives a character intermediate between the Plexi’s dynamic sensitivity and the JCM800’s consistent high gain) both appeared in his Deep Purple live setup. The Plexi’s dynamic sensitivity — giving a clean tone when picked softly and a saturated tone when picked firmly, using the same amplifier settings — suited the expressive, touch-sensitive playing that Deep Purple’s classic material demands. Blackmore’s original approach to the Marshall Plexi — high input volume setting, using pick attack and guitar volume control to manage the amount of overdrive — gave the band’s classic recordings their specific character, and McBride’s adoption of a similar approach reflected both respect for the established tonal language and practical wisdom about what these amplifiers sound like at their best.
The Marshall JCM800 appeared in McBride’s secondary position for harder, more saturated passages where the Plexi’s dynamic, responsive character was less appropriate than the JCM800’s more consistent high-gain character. His JCM800 use was selective — reaching for it when the material’s specific tonal requirements called for more consistent, heavier saturation than the Plexi’s variable character efficiently provided.
Fender amplifiers — particularly the Fender Deluxe Reverb (22 watts, two 6V6 output tubes, tube-driven spring reverb) and the Fender Blues Deluxe (40 watts, single 12-inch speaker, based on the Bassman circuit) — appeared in McBride’s clean and light-overdrive setup for specific applications. The Fender clean tone — the American clean character of 6V6 output tubes through an efficient speaker — gave a completely different tonal palette from the Marshall alternatives for the cleanest, most transparent passages in his playing. His dual-amp approach (Marshall for overdrive, Fender for clean) reflected the standard professional approach to covering the full tonal range without relying on a single amplifier’s clean channel as a substitute for a genuinely clean American Fender tone.
Two-Rock amplifiers — boutique California-built valve amplifiers whose construction philosophy draws from the blackface Fender tradition while adding boutique quality and additional voicing sophistication — appeared in McBride’s studio setup for specific recording applications requiring a refined, high-quality clean tone with more tonal sophistication than the production Fender alternatives. Two-Rock’s attention to component quality and circuit refinement gave recording-context clean tones of exceptional detail and warmth.
McBride runs his Marshall amplifiers into 4×12 cabinets — Celestion Greenback 25-watt speakers for the vintage Plexi applications (the Greenback’s mechanical compression and vintage character complementing the Plexi’s dynamic, touch-sensitive saturation) and Celestion Vintage 30 speakers for the JCM800 applications (the V30’s tighter, more extended character complementing the JCM800’s more consistent high-gain character). This deliberate speaker choice — matching the speaker’s tonal character to the amplifier’s specific approach — reflects the same systematic tonal intelligence that characterises all of his equipment choices.
Effects
The MXR Phase 90 in script-logo configuration is one of the most important effects in McBride’s signal chain for the Deep Purple context. Phase 90 was central to Blackmore’s guitar sound during crucial periods of the classic Deep Purple recordings — the slowly sweeping phase modulation gave sustained chord passages and specific lead lines a dimensional, moving quality that became part of the band’s sonic signature. McBride’s use of the Phase 90 in a historically informed position in his signal chain reflects both respect for the established tonal language and genuine appreciation for the Phase 90’s musical contribution to the material. His Phase 90 settings: slow to moderate speed (2–4Hz) for the dimensional sweep appropriate to the deep Purple context, moderate depth for the gentle rather than obvious phase character.
The Dallas Rangemaster Treble Booster — the device that Tony Iommi used to push his Marshall into additional saturation, and that Blackmore also used in various configurations during his classic Deep Purple period — appeared in McBride’s setup for specific applications where the Rangemaster’s frequency-selective boost gave the Marshall additional harmonic density and upper-midrange presence. His Rangemaster use was historically informed: the device’s role in the classic Deep Purple and British hard rock recording context was documented, and reproducing that tonal character authentically required using the same type of device rather than a modern alternative that might give technically superior but tonally different results.
The Tube Screamer at low drive settings provided midrange boost for lead passages — the standard approach for Strat and PRS players requiring additional presence when pushing a Plexi’s front end from a lower-output single-coil or PAF-spec humbucker. His TS808 application: Drive at 2–4, Level at 6–7, using the midrange boost to give lead tones the forward, present quality needed to cut through the dense Deep Purple ensemble.
The Boss CE-2 BBD-based analog chorus appeared selectively in McBride’s setup for specific clean and semi-clean passage textures. His chorus use was restrained — light, slow modulation adding dimensional width to specific passages rather than a constant tonal modifier — consistent with the British blues-rock tradition’s generally more sparing use of modulation effects than the American rock tradition.
The TC Electronic Flashback digital delay provided spatial enhancement for lead passages. His delay settings: 200–350ms, one to two repeats, 15–20% mix for depth without clutter — the standard melodic lead depth approach that suits the long, singing lead lines of Deep Purple’s classic and contemporary material.
Wah pedals appeared in McBride’s setup for specific expressive lead work. His wah use was musically committed and technically controlled — deploying the wah for specific passages where the bandpass filter’s expressiveness suited the musical context rather than using it as a constant tonal modifier.
The Fractal Audio Axe-Fx appeared in McBride’s more recent live setup for comprehensive rig management and tone consistency. His Axe-Fx configuration included profiles of his specific Marshall amplifiers alongside the effects processing, giving consistent, repeatable tone at every performance regardless of venue power supply quality or tube aging variability.
The Boss TU-3 chromatic pedal tuner — one of the most reliable and widely used professional pedal tuners in production — appeared in McBride’s signal chain for accurate, fast on-stage tuning with a buffered bypass that maintained signal integrity through the rest of the chain.
Playing Style & Tone Philosophy
Simon McBride is a guitarist whose playing embodies the best qualities of the British blues-rock tradition — the emotional directness, the blues-informed vocabulary, the commitment to musical expression over technical demonstration — in a form that reflects his specific Belfast background and his engagement with the broader British and Irish rock tradition. His lead playing has the singing quality and emotional weight of the tradition’s finest practitioners: the long, sustained notes with wide vibrato, the precise, target-pitch string bending, and the phrasing that builds and resolves over harmonic movement rather than merely travelling above it.
His vibrato technique — wide, wrist-rotated, emotionally committed — reflects the same British blues-rock tradition that gives John Norum, Gary Moore, and Peter Green their characteristic expressiveness. The specific character of his vibrato in the Deep Purple context: adapted to Blackmore’s harmonic language (modal, often Dorian and Mixolydian rather than purely blues-pentatonic) while retaining the physical expressiveness of the British blues tradition. This combination — the harmonic sophistication of Blackmore’s modal approach with the physical expressiveness of the blues vibrato — is one of the most distinctive elements of his playing in the band context.
His tone philosophy, shaped by the demands of the Deep Purple legacy, represents one of the most historically charged tonal responsibilities in rock guitar. Blackmore’s original tone — Les Paul Custom through a Rangemaster into a Marshall Plexi at the early Purple peak, Stratocaster through various Marshall configurations in the later period — is one of the most documented and most studied guitar tones in rock history. McBride’s approach was not to replicate Blackmore’s tone exactly (which would be both artistically dishonest and practically impossible — the specific instruments, the specific tubes, and the specific hands that made those recordings are unrepeatable) but to honour its essential character while developing his own voice within that framework. The PRS guitars’ modern construction quality and consistent performance gave him a reliable platform from which to explore this balance; the Marshall Plexi’s dynamic sensitivity gave the essential tonal character of the original recordings; and his own playing vocabulary gave the result a specific identity that was recognisably connected to but not merely imitative of the established Deep Purple sound.
His solo career demonstrates a musical breadth that the Deep Purple context, for all its rewards, cannot contain: the blues-rock material of his solo albums, the collaborative work with Bonamassa, and the diverse session work all reflect a musician whose interests extend well beyond the hard rock and classic metal that his band membership makes most public. This breadth — the ability to operate at the highest level across multiple stylistic contexts — is itself one of the qualities that made him a credible candidate for the Deep Purple position. A player who could only do one thing would have been less equipped to serve the full range of that band’s catalogue than one who could draw from blues, hard rock, progressive rock, and classical-influenced heavy metal with equal fluency.
Tonally, Simon McBride guitars gear philosophy is built on the British hard rock tradition’s foundational combination — quality humbucker or single-coil guitar into a Plexi-circuit Marshall — updated with the modern construction quality and consistency that professional touring demands. The PRS guitars’ reliability and versatility, the Marshall Plexi’s historical connection to the band’s sonic identity, and the Phase 90’s essential role in the tonal landscape of the material all reflect a player who understands both what the music requires and why it requires it.
The PRS 59/09 humbucker’s coil-split function — central to McBride’s tonal versatility in the Deep Purple context — deserves specific technical examination because the quality of the coil-split result varies dramatically between different humbucker designs, and PRS’s specific approach gives better results than most. When a standard humbucker is coil-split (one coil’s output grounded, leaving only the other coil active), the result is a single-coil-like tone but with several characteristics that distinguish it from a genuine single-coil: the active coil is wound to humbucker specs (typically around 7–8k ohms for each coil, combined to 14–16k in full humbucker mode), while a genuine single-coil is typically wound to 5.5–7k ohms; the coil-split humbucker presents an inductance and capacitance combination different from a genuine single-coil because only one of the two bobbins’ magnetic field is active; and the coil-split activates 50% hum cancellation loss (since humbucking requires both coils to cancel interference). PRS addressed these differences in the 59/09 design by specifically voicing each individual coil to give better single-coil character when split — a lower-than-standard resistance per coil, specific Alnico magnet structure per bobbin, and specific scatter-winding approach that gave the split coil a more authentically single-coil-like frequency response. The result is a coil-split position that sounds more genuinely like a single-coil than most humbucker splits do — giving McBride tonal access to Stratocaster-like characters from his PRS instrument that less carefully designed coil-split humbuckers cannot efficiently provide. This is particularly important for the Deep Purple context where Blackmore’s Stratocaster period is a major part of the catalogue’s tonal reference.
The Marshall Silver Jubilee’s specific place in the lineage of Marshall amplifiers deserves expanded examination because it occupies an unusual position — it is neither a Plexi nor a JCM800 but something between them, and understanding its specific circuit characteristics helps explain why McBride uses it for specific applications within the Deep Purple context. The Silver Jubilee (model 2550 or 2553, 25-watt versions also produced) used a modified JCM800 preamp topology with additional gain staging modifications that gave a more saturated but more dynamically responsive overdrive than the standard JCM800. The specific modification — a series capacitor in the first gain stage affecting the gain’s frequency response — gave the Silver Jubilee a slightly different harmonic emphasis than the JCM800, with more upper-midrange complexity in the saturation. Players often describe the Silver Jubilee as having the “feel” of a Plexi with the “gain” of a JCM800 — dynamically responsive like the Plexi (responding to pick attack variation with tonal variation) but saturated at a lower volume threshold like the JCM800 (not requiring the extreme volume levels of a Plexi to achieve useful overdrive). For McBride’s Deep Purple application — where the material spans from clean through heavy overdrive — the Silver Jubilee’s intermediate character gave a single-amplifier solution that covered a wider range than either the Plexi or the JCM800 alone could efficiently provide. His use of the Silver Jubilee as a primary alongside the Plexi gave him two different parts of the Marshall tonal spectrum simultaneously, with the Silver Jubilee’s more consistent, saturated character for the harder passages and the Plexi’s more dynamic, variable character for the more expressive melodic passages.
Belfast’s specific musical context and its relationship to the British blues-rock tradition requires examination in the Simon McBride guitars gear framework because the city’s musical culture has consistently produced guitarists of extraordinary emotional intensity. Gary Moore — perhaps the greatest blues-rock guitarist Britain and Ireland ever produced — was born in Belfast. Rory Gallagher, whose career overlapped with Moore’s and whose emotional commitment to the blues was arguably even more intense, was born in Ballyshannon in County Donegal and developed in Cork, but his musical community was the same Irish blues-rock tradition. The Troubles — the thirty-year conflict that shaped Northern Ireland’s social and cultural environment from the late 1960s through the late 1990s, the period of McBride’s entire childhood and adolescence — gave Belfast artists a specific awareness of violence, loss, and human endurance that those who grew up in more comfortable circumstances cannot fully replicate. Whether this directly shapes the specific emotional character of McBride’s playing is impossible to quantify, but it would be naive to suggest that growing up in Belfast during the Troubles had no effect on the musician who emerged from that experience. The intensity and commitment of the British and Irish blues-rock tradition — the refusal to play it safe, the commitment to emotional honesty at the expense of technical display, the seriousness about the music that Gary Moore described as “blood on every note” — has specific cultural roots, and Belfast is one of those roots.
The Phase 90’s specific historical significance in the Deep Purple sonic context — and why McBride includes it as an essential rather than optional element — connects to specific passages in the band’s classic recordings where the phase modulation is audibly present and tonally central. Blackmore’s use of phase modulation on certain keyboard-guitar ensemble passages — where the Phase 90’s slow sweep gave the guitar a dimensional, floating quality that complemented the Hammond organ’s rotating speaker effect — created specific tonal textures that became part of the band’s sonic identity. In the live performance of this material, McBride’s Phase 90 is not merely an optional tonal enhancement but a necessary element for the passage to sound like itself — the Phase 90 is part of what the passage is, not merely a decoration on top of it. His specific Phase 90 settings (slow speed, moderate depth) give the dimensional sweep appropriate to these passages without the more obvious, faster phase character that would be tonally inappropriate for the material’s intended effect. The historically informed use of the Phase 90 — knowing which passages require it, at what settings, and why — reflects the deep engagement with the Deep Purple catalogue that McBride clearly brought to the role before he ever played a note with the band in public.
How to Sound Like Simon McBride
Guitar Approach
A PRS Custom 24 or Custom 22 (with 59/09 or 57/08 humbuckers and coil-split capability) or a quality Fender Stratocaster (American Professional II or American Vintage II with Alnico V single-coils) is the foundation of Simon McBride guitars gear tone. For the Deep Purple context specifically: the Stratocaster’s specific single-coil character in the middle-pickup and in-between-position (positions 2 and 4) gives the most authentic reference to Blackmore’s Strat period; the PRS with coil-split gives good approximation of both humbucker and single-coil character from a single versatile instrument. Use Ernie Ball Regular Slinky (.010–.046) strings.
The expressive vocabulary of British blues-rock guitar is the most important element to develop. Wide wrist-rotated vibrato, precise target-pitch string bending, and the dynamic pick attack variation that exploits the Plexi’s touch-sensitive character are more important to the complete Simon McBride sound than any specific scale or technical vocabulary. His playing communicates emotion through physical means — the physical engagement with the strings is primary, the harmonic content is secondary.
Amp Approach
A Marshall Plexi-circuit amplifier — the 1987X 50-watt reissue, a quality boutique clone (Ceriatone 1987, Metropoulos Metroplex), or a vintage original — into a 4×12 cabinet with Celestion Greenback 25-watt speakers is the correct foundation for the Deep Purple context. The Marshall Silver Jubilee (the 1987 25th-anniversary model) as an alternative with slightly more consistent high-gain character.
| Control | Setting (0–10) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Marshall Plexi Input Volume | 7–9 | High — the Plexi must work hard to produce overdrive. Pick attack controls saturation level. |
| Bass | 5–6 | Warm — PRS mahogany resonance needs support; Strat single-coils benefit from bass body |
| Middle | 7 | Forward — the spine of British hard rock guitar tone, central to Deep Purple’s sound |
| Treble | 6 | Present but not harsh — matches the Greenback’s softer high-frequency character |
| Presence | 5 | Moderate — adds definition without brittleness through Greenback’s vintage character |
| Guitar Volume (lead) | 10 | Full for maximum saturation and lead sustain |
| Guitar Volume (rhythm) | 6–7 | Rolled back for cleaner, more controlled rhythm tone — use the Plexi’s cleaning characteristic |
| Phase 90 Speed (Deep Purple passages) | 2–3 | Slow sweep — dimensional phase for the sustained chord passages characteristic of Deep Purple |
| Rangemaster (optional boost) | Full | Germanium OC44 boost — harmonic density ahead of Plexi for specific heavier passages |
| TS808 (selective lead boost) | Drive 3, Level 6–7 | Low drive mid-boost — additional presence when needed for extended lead passages |
The Dallas Rangemaster (or quality clone: Catalinbread CB30, Analogman Beano Boost) for harmonic density ahead of the Plexi — historically appropriate for the Deep Purple context. Phase 90 at slow speed as an essential tonal element, not an optional addition. TS808 at minimal drive for selective lead presence boost. Boss CE-2 for specific clean chord textures. TC Electronic Flashback delay for lead spatial depth. Keep the chain simple — the Plexi’s dynamic character is the tonal foundation, and effects serve specific musical functions rather than defining the overall character.
Influence & Legacy
Simon McBride’s legacy is still being written — he is, as of this writing, at the beginning of his Deep Purple tenure rather than looking back on a completed period. But the career he built before that tenure — twenty years of consistently excellent guitar playing across multiple stylistic contexts, a body of solo albums of genuine musical quality, and a reputation in the professional guitar community that preceded his most public assignment — constitutes an achievement that stands independently of the Deep Purple position.
His Belfast origins and the quality of guitar playing he emerged with represent the British and Irish blues-rock tradition at its finest — the tradition that gave the world Gary Moore, Rory Gallagher, and Phil Lynott’s various guitarists, and that continues to produce players of exceptional quality and emotional depth. McBride’s specific contribution to that tradition is his ability to combine the tradition’s characteristic expressiveness with the technical accomplishment and musical range that the most demanding professional contexts require.
The comparison with John Norum — another player who stepped into a historically loaded guitar position (Europe’s lead guitarist) with complete authority, whose blues-rock roots and commitment to expressive playing over technical display paralleled McBride’s, and whose PRS-and-Marshall approach to classic rock guitar shared important elements with McBride’s own — illuminates the specific tradition of European blues-rooted hard rock guitarists who navigate the tension between historical context and personal expression with genuine intelligence. The parallel with Bernie Marsden — the Whitesnake guitarist whose deep commitment to the Les Paul/Marshall/British blues tradition and whose ability to serve both a major classic rock band and his own solo vision paralleled McBride’s dual-career approach — shows the British rock tradition’s consistent production of players who combine band service with genuine solo identity. And the connection to Gary Moore — the Belfast guitarist whose emotional directness, technical accomplishment, and commitment to blues expressiveness in a hard rock context are the most direct parallel to McBride’s own musical identity — places Simon McBride guitars gear and musical philosophy in the deepest roots of the tradition he represents.
Frequently Asked Questions: Simon McBride Guitars & Gear
What guitar does Simon McBride play?
Simon McBride’s primary electric guitars are PRS instruments — specifically the Custom 24 and Custom 22 models with PRS 59/09 or 57/08 humbuckers featuring coil-split capability, giving tonal range from full humbucker warmth to single-coil-like transparency. PRS has produced Simon McBride signature models capturing his specific preferences. He also uses Fender Stratocasters (for the Blackmore-period Strat tonal reference) and Gibson Les Pauls (for specific humbucker warmth applications). His PRS instruments reflect the balance between modern construction quality and the vintage-inspired tonal character that the British blues-rock tradition values.
What amplifier does Simon McBride use with Deep Purple?
McBride uses Marshall Plexi-circuit amplifiers as his primary Deep Purple amplification — specifically the Marshall 1987X 50-watt Plexi reissue and the Marshall Silver Jubilee — into 4×12 cabinets loaded with Celestion Greenback 25-watt speakers. This setup reflects the historical tonal language of Deep Purple’s classic period, when Blackmore’s Marshall Plexi-based sound defined the band’s guitar character. The Marshall JCM800 serves as secondary amplification for harder passages, and Fender Deluxe Reverb or Blues Deluxe amplifiers provide the clean American tone for the cleanest passages.
Why was Simon McBride chosen for Deep Purple?
McBride was chosen for Deep Purple following Steve Morse’s departure in 2022 due to his combination of genuine musical accomplishment across multiple stylistic contexts, his deep familiarity with the British hard rock and blues tradition that Deep Purple’s music inhabits, and his professional credibility established through twenty years of solo recording and touring. His work with Joe Bonamassa — demonstrating ability at the most demanding level of contemporary blues-rock guitar — and his solo discography showing harmonic sophistication and emotional depth gave the band confidence in his ability to serve the Deep Purple catalogue with complete musical authority. His Northern Irish background, shared with the broader Celtic blues-rock tradition, gave him cultural roots in the same tradition from which Deep Purple’s British hard rock emerged.
What is the Marshall Silver Jubilee and why does McBride use it?
The Marshall Silver Jubilee was produced in 1987 as a 25th anniversary limited edition amplifier — a modified JCM800-based design with a specific preamp modification that gave it a character intermediate between the Plexi’s dynamic sensitivity and the JCM800’s consistent high gain. The Silver Jubilee’s modified gain staging gave more predictable, more consistent overdrive than the Plexi while retaining more dynamic sensitivity than the JCM800 at its most saturated settings. For McBride’s Deep Purple application — where the material ranges from clean to heavily overdriven — the Silver Jubilee’s intermediate character gave useful versatility within a single amplifier, covering more of the tonal range without requiring constant channel or amp switching.
What is the Dallas Rangemaster and why is it important for the Deep Purple sound?
The Dallas Rangemaster Treble Booster is a frequency-selective boost device — using a single germanium OC44 transistor — that emphasises upper-midrange and treble frequencies while adding a degree of harmonic saturation. It was used by Tony Iommi, Brian May, and Ritchie Blackmore among others in the early 1970s British hard rock context to push Marshall amplifiers into additional harmonic richness and upper-midrange presence. Blackmore’s use of a treble booster ahead of his Marshall during crucial periods of the classic Deep Purple recordings gave those recordings a specific upper-midrange density and harmonic complexity. McBride’s use of the Rangemaster (or quality OC44-based clone) in his Deep Purple setup gives historically appropriate harmonic density and presence that modern alternatives — designed without reference to the specific Plexi/Rangemaster interaction — do not efficiently replicate.
How does McBride approach the Deep Purple back catalogue?
McBride has described his approach to the Deep Purple back catalogue as one of respect and service — performing the established material with fidelity to its essential character while bringing his own musical voice to the live performance. He does not attempt to exactly replicate Blackmore’s or Morse’s specific tonal and playing choices in every detail; instead, he honours the musical intentions of the original recordings through his own technique and vocabulary while using equipment that gives him tonal access to the historical character the music requires. His Deep Purple live performances have received positive critical reception from both the general audience and the musically knowledgeable guitar community, suggesting that this approach — faithful without being reverential to the point of eliminating his own voice — was the right balance for the situation.
What was Simon McBride’s career before Deep Purple?
Before joining Deep Purple, McBride built a twenty-year career as a solo artist and session/touring guitarist. His solo albums — including In My Own Time (2005), Worlds Apart (2008), Proud (2010), and Unguarded (2019) — established him as one of the finest blues-rock guitarists in Britain. His touring and recording work with Joe Bonamassa gave him high-profile exposure at the most demanding level of contemporary blues-rock guitar. His session work with Don Felder (Eagles) and various other artists demonstrated professional versatility across multiple stylistic contexts. This extensive pre-Purple career gave him the depth of musical experience and professional credibility that made him a credible candidate for the Deep Purple position.
Two-Rock amplifiers — the boutique California builders whose instruments appeared in McBride’s studio setup — represent a specific endpoint of the blackface Fender circuit’s refinement that deserves brief examination in this context. Two-Rock builds amplifiers using the blackface Fender Bassman and Twin Reverb circuits as starting points, refining component quality (proprietary output transformers, boutique capacitors and resistors, precision tube selection) and adding voicing modifications that give each model a specific character within the broader Fender-clean tradition. For recording applications where the clean tone must be both exceptionally transparent (preserving the guitar’s full frequency response without the coloration that even excellent production amps introduce) and tonally musical (not the sterile, clinical quality of solid-state alternatives), Two-Rock’s combination of Fender heritage and boutique refinement gave McBride a clean recording platform of exceptional quality. His use of Two-Rock for studio recording alongside the Marshall-based live and semi-live setup reflected the principle established throughout this series: the best available tool for each specific application, not a single compromise solution that merely manages all requirements adequately. Simon McBride guitars gear, at every level of its construction, reflects a musician who has thought carefully about what each specific context requires and has chosen specifically for those requirements rather than generally for broad competence.
A final note on Simon McBride guitars gear and its relationship to the continuing evolution of Deep Purple as a band: McBride joined Deep Purple at a moment when the band — in their sixth decade of existence — is still recording and releasing new studio material (=1, 2024) rather than operating as a nostalgia-only touring act performing exclusively classic material. This matters for understanding his guitar setup because it means he is not merely curating a historical sound but actively contributing to the ongoing development of that sound — participating in the writing and recording of new compositions that will extend the Deep Purple catalogue beyond what was established before his arrival. His Simon McBride guitars gear serves both the historical preservation function (performing the classic catalogue with appropriate tonal fidelity) and the creative contribution function (developing new musical material with the tools and vocabulary of a complete guitarist operating at the highest level). The dual function of his role in the band — historical custodian and active creative participant simultaneously — is one of the more interesting positions in rock guitar, and his ability to navigate both aspects with equal authority is, in itself, one of the more impressive achievements in his career to date.
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