“They don’t use digital whatsoever – it’s a bad word in that band”: Simon McBride says Deep Purple rely exclusively on analogue setups

Deep Purple guitarist Simon McBride has revealed that the British rockers are notably averse to using digital guitar rigs.

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In an interview with That Pedal Show on YouTube, the guitarist – who has played with a variety of bands including Deep Purple and Snakecharmer, and has supported Jeff Beck, Joe Bonamassa and Joe Satriani among others – reveals that Deep Purple do not use digital setups.

“With [Deep Purple] they’re so old school, they don’t use Kempers or digital whatsoever – it’s a bad word in that band, so the only way we can do it is have two rigs running. I think they actually have three rigs but I drew the line at two. I said I’m not getting another C rig,” he jokes. “Don’t need it!”.

You can watch the full interview below:

The debate of digital versus analogue is a longstanding one, with many artists such as Nita Strauss, Eric Johnson and Guthrie Govan weighing in in just the last few months.

It’s understandable that a band that has been gigging for over five decades would want to stick to what they know, but according to metal guitarist Devin Townsend, people often hold onto gear because of memories, rather than practicality.

The guitarist even recently claimed that bands like The Beatles would have embraced the technology if it was available to them.

“If they’d had this technology with the extremely forward-thinking nature of what they were doing at the time, how can you imagine for a second that they wouldn’t have utilised it?

“It’s absurd. People often doggedly hold onto the aesthetics of gear that they love because it’s got much more to do with their memories of it than it does with any sort of practical, contemporary application.”