The Captain Meets John Petrucci

[Music] [Music] hey guys it's the captain here welcome to another episode of Anderson's TV and it is my huge honour to welcome John Petrucci to our YouTube channel what brings you to the UK visit the captain okay I felt like I had to apologize after the interview bomb at the damn show so you flew all the way to the UK just for nothing to do with the fact that you may have been touring over here no no that was Justin Barry but that was after he was actually worked around well I said I should start by thanking you for taking part in that interview on the Annie ball stand at now and that was for me the highlight of my show I mean you and blue can was Paul and Steve Morse it was mental for absolutely brilliant but so as you know in these kind of into things I like to get to know the player a little bit about who could have inspired them to start playing guitar and you know just talk through their life and career sure so look you're a were you born in New York I was yeah New York born and bred yes on Long Island New York if you know the US at all yeah Long Island kind of sticks out on the East Coast into the Atlantic Ocean yeah and yeah so I'm an Islander so porn you know sort of late 60s exciting time for music so I guess you know what was growing up in your family like were there musical family not really not particularly yeah I was born 67 Summer of Love so you know what my childhood was was the 70s but you know besides like maybe some like Elvis and Paul McCartney and stuff being played in the house it wasn't a big musical household my my older sister played the organ we had this huge organ in our to tape yeah one of those things and and she got that I told this story many times but I I I was very jealous because I would her organ lessons were at night and so the instructor would come at night and it probably wasn't even that late but I was little and I was so jealous like I'd be in bed and adhere my sister taking these organ lessons and why does she get to stay up late you know so I had this ingenious plan of taking guitar lessons and then I'd be able to stay up late I was really young it's probably nine I don't even remember how old maybe younger but my lessons turned out to be on a Saturday afternoon so my plan completely fell apart yeah yet to count snow the good thing I had a gasps a lot of good things last day off today and ironically enough I hated it yeah I had this guitar it was had nylon strings and I couldn't play it and I couldn't fret the notes and I was so frustrated yeah you know the guy I'm sure he was nice but he was an older man with a pitch pipe and yep trying to teach me the Mel Bay stuff and I just was like I'm not into this and it wasn't until I was 12 where I just got bit by the bug and really wanted to play guitar so who was that then do you have that moment where you heard a guitar solo or a band and you just thought that's you know can you remember what that was you know what I actually I remember this might sound strange but I remember having a reoccurring dream okay that I was onstage playing guitar and it would have been like really often so it must have been some kind of message and then fortunately enough for me where I grew up in Long Island in New York there was a big music scene in Rock was played on the radio everybody in my town played an instrument so they were constantly bands that you can go see at parties that were playing it at the school the Battle of the Bands things like that you know you walk down the street on a summer day and you hear a garage band or somebody I remember still is clear as day somebody's sitting out there with an acoustic playing stairway to heaven you know so so it was just all around me and it was a great environment to grow up and because it was just so readily available and it was the thing to do can you can remember what that first guitar was that yet your parents bought you when you were 12 when I was 12 I actually went numb I don't know if they have them here but we used to have flea markets yeah yeah right yeah so it was this big kind of warehouse store with everything you could possibly buy we used to go there and this it's one then a music section and they were selling a Les Paul it was a copy it was a Suzuki guitar but it was like the most decked out thing I've ever seen so it had a vine going down the neck and mother-of-pearl binding I think I might have even had gold hardware it was black it was like unbelievable and for a 12 year old I was like a coolest Les Paul company it was the coolest thing yeah I ended up I think I traded it for an area pro - yeah did you did you did you stand who did you want to be when you were standing in front of the mirror let's pull around you oh man well I was a big big rush fan okay yeah there was a big I mean when I was that you know when I was 12 yeah I would probably say like yeah I pictured being Alex Lifeson no I I've got this kind of funny relationship I suppose this sort of progressive music you know I meet a lot of guitar players that play that sort of style of music but I've always found it not to be the most accessible kind of near true so I'm really surprised that at 12 or you know that you had already decided that that was the kind of music that you wanted to listen Rome you know certainly I know for me you know III you know I got into guitar through much much more sort of commercial kind of investable stuff so why do you think that was that you you know what was it about that the sort of that you know Russian yes and ro you know who else would have been around at the time doing that kind of stuff but you know what was it what was it about that that yeah as a 12 year I can't have been known at school to listen to that well that's the funny thing I mean that there was kind of a progression so you know early on like you know I liked ac/dc and stuff like that for sure you know again we're yeah I think a lot of the direction that I took has has a lot to do with where I grew up because describing Long Island during that time so 70s early 80s again big rock scene music like rush Ozzy when he came out with a blizzard of aahhhs Iron Maiden mm-hmm all that stuff was it was being played on the radio so I was hearing this stuff so I had access to it it wasn't just the pop music or or you know the more commercial music there were there was this other stuff yes included and all those bands managed somehow to break through with whether it was roundabout by yes or you know subdivisions or or Tom Sawyer or something like that by rush that they had a commercial side that was able to break through and that enabled me to kind of go deeper and it would always be nine times out of ten a friend or friends older brother who knew I played guitar and was like dude you got to listen to this you know always and that's how I got turned on to the dregs that's how I got deeper into Rush that's how I got turned on to yes aldimine al Daniel or Return to Forever all all those guys were like it's always an older guys and you think that's good forget about that you got to hear this so a lot of it was environmental where it [Music] [Music] yeah [Applause] [Music] as someone that was learning to play guitar did you did you find it frustrating that maybe your the music you were into was really quite complex it was or did that just drive you to practice more it did it again it was definitely a progression because I remember trying to learn like for example like the Heartbreakers solo you know and in some some solos by Boston and Tom Schultz yes solos and stuff like that and it really it was so hard for me and the most frustrating thing that young players of today don't have to deal with is that I couldn't see what the players were doing right you know what I mean I couldn't watch Jimmy Page and on YouTube yeah oh that's how you do it so I was sitting there with a with a record you know slowing it down this the speed down dropping the needle and listening to it over and over and there were so many things about a lot of the solos that I tried to learn that I didn't know what they were doing like I thought I had the note so I could develop my ear and I thought I got the notes right but I didn't realize that they were bending or there was a double stop or tunings maybe anything you know Tom shell said he was harmonizing and layering it I didn't know what that was you know eruption that he's doing the hammer ons and has phaser on and so it just sounded like a keyboard I had no I had no visualization to understand what they were doing do you think was a bad thing because nowadays you know magazines will know tight stuff YouTube will put a million things up you know to almost make it as easy as possible for you to just to see what the original how the original piece was played but do you think in a certain way the fact that it forced you to develop an ear and forced you to just practice more right was ultimately for the good I think so it'll be curious as to how this translates you know when you look back at all this because maybe players like myself and my generation and before developed our ears better because we didn't really know again we couldn't see what people were doing and we had to use our ears and then kind of develop our technique slowly and and develop through practicing hard you know when when young players are able to watch how something's done on YouTube see it broken down exactly they're getting there a lot faster so I don't think they're lacking in anything I mean obviously if you watch some of these kids that technical abilities are unbelievable yeah but it'll be interesting to see if maybe the ear training part isn't as advanced I don't know I'm interested to see you know I think there are players of your generation and maybe certainly before where their sound and their style is their own and it's so distinct yeah and I see that less nowadays maybe that's because there just are less styles to have you know yeah everybody ends up sounding like somebody else because you know I guess that's the there aren't enough different ways but again I wonder so much about you know the fact that you've been forced to learn in a way where you had to work out your own way of playing something rather than being able to go okay I see how he did it he'll do it really meant that you know you have your own style in your own yeah I don't know I don't know the answer to that I think that style is definitely something that comes with age though you know I think there's a certain point even when a player a young player is really good you know super develop technique wise and everything III think it's a lot of mimicking for the most part and then I think style kind of follows as you become older I think it's kind of like that with any anything really you know it's it's the part of the brain it maybe isn't ready for that yet so that so the guitar baby bad you know you had it yeah your teenage years were spent I guess pretty devoted to it to the guitar I just practiced all but all the time all the time so what was the point at which you thought right I want to do this you know I want to do at Berkeley no I had you had you kind of decided that your career was going to be as a guitar but he was just a means to an end yeah so the way I came to that conclusion was I'd like you said I really got bit when I was 12 I just started practicing all the time trying to learn as much as I could I was playing now on Long Island in New York soccer football was actually a really big popular sport in New York so I was really into that and once I got into music I kind of dropped that so I dropped everything and I just would play guitar all the time start to listen to more and more challenging music progressive bands and players got myself up to where I was learning you know dregs pieces and big bay when he came out and all that stuff and really trying to shred and at the same time really into the band angle so super into rush super into made and you know Metallica yeah early on when they were really young yes and queens reich and bands like that so me and my buddies we'd go to whenever these bands would come through the new york new york and either Madison Square Garden or the Nassau Coliseum we'd go see them and I got that was the other bit of the bug yeah that got me was I want to be in a band yeah I want to like have an international career you know and I would see documentaries of Maidan like in all these different countries and meeting all their fans and being so cool the interaction you know they get I go to the show and they have this amazing stage production that was the life because you got the dream theater jumbo jet yeah oh is he working on it why couldn't it work on so so besides the guitar playing part the career part yeah but I really wanted to be in a band that was a big big focus focus and one of my best friends back then John my young who I met around that age in middle school is we're still enduring theater together so we had that dream together but as far as Berkley you know I went when it really was very decided I wanted to be really really serious I looked to my idols yeah and my idea was I'm gonna emulate what they did what was their path had a you know how to Steve I've become though he has headed out the mule and it started doing some research and I realized hey these guys went to Berkeley seems like the place to be and so really got my sights set on going to Berkeley and at the same time as Paul Gilbert cuz I'm just thinking either you're almost exactly the same a teacher yeah I don't think Paul went to Berkeley though he was like my guy oh yeah sorry yeah thank you right getting my music colleges mixed that's okay yeah he yeah he went out to the west coast you know Berkeley in Boston you know there were probably a bunch of guys there at the same time maybe the Living Colour guys oh oh oh I don't I don't really know I mean obviously John and I yeah and we met Mike for anyway there I'm rate I said yeah I can't remember if maybe Who am I thinking of maybe the bass player was there at the side with Doug with me she said maybe that yeah yes yeah don't quote me on that oh well I'm sure YouTube will either URI or correct it was like 85 85 86 and I mean I because I kind of I love the fact that um I always loved the fact I think it must be a such a wonderful thing to be best friends with someone from middle school and then join the band with them and make such a success of it as you have and they're pretty much the rest of the band you all met at Berkeley if they were that if ever there was an advert for going to music college exactly it wouldn't it well that you know John and I went there together we we drove up there and we roomed together and we started interacting with the other freshmen and pretty much right off the bat we met Mike Portnoy who was also a Long Islander but we didn't know him he lived on the south shore farther west in Long Beach and we saw this this kid playing you know he's amazing and so we started talking and he was into the same bands that we were into and we started playing together and that was the nucleus entering theater and our keyboard player at the time Kevin Moore was it was a friend of John and eyes who grew up with but he went to a different that's correct so after a year at Berkeley we all decided to okay leave so you went let that look we was ever a year and then we were like we were practicing all the time yeah you know we at Berkeley we used to have to we had a schedule or our rehearsal time you had to reserve the rehearsal rooms there were limited room so we'd have to get up and wait on line at like 6:00 a.m. to schedule the room and then after classes we'd set up all our gear and practice and break it down and do it again during the the first sort of winter break holiday break we all got together and you know started recording and stuff like that and by the time this the second semester rolled around we were like we gotta be ready that we're ready let's do it you know so then we had to go to our parents and say yeah we're not gonna go to school anymore yeah I think that's I love the fact that when it all boils down to it you know someone who's had the success of you still it's still you know there'll be there'll be guys out there now who are 18 19 years old whose biggest maybe obstacle for not taking the guitar more seriously will be what were what were my parents thinking right oh my gosh shouldn't I be going to do a more academic yeah you know path or whatever right and you know I certainly think it was probably hard I think now it's probably maybe more accepted to go into the creative arts as a as a you know as a degree or something sure back then I can imagine you know I can't you know I can imagine families that are you know pretty and if you've got a hard-working dad and yeah it's like it was like that it's just a hundred percent I mean as supportive as my parents were and I was a good student and in school so I could have gone you know academically to on a different path but I remember having to convince my dad like I want to do music as a career and he would say oh you need something to fall back on and you know he's really concerned about that and I was like I'm not gonna fall back you know understand and it was actually a music teacher and Heist cool whoo he was the band teacher and I wasn't in band but I would always take my guitar to school and I would practice in his band room during lunch breaks or study halls or whatever and so he knew me you hadn't banned his I think in the u.s. you're talking more like or Castro Castro man yeah yeah exactly different yeah yeah yeah and so he had one sort of parents night or something he sat my parents aside he's like you guys send him to Berkeley it's like you don't understand no that's cool and so I have to thank him a lot for doing that but it was hard you have to convince them this to just send me to good music teachers oh I think what good teachers just generally I think you make such a huge impact on us just like don't think [Music] [Applause] [Music] so did Dream Theater kind of did it reach the sort of heights that you were hoping it would relatively quickly or was it sort of slow burn I mean that where what was the deal with you know here's a Dream Theater I mean yes and no like there's a lot about the way that we came came to be professionally that didn't follow the standard rules so after Berkeley when we left there and we started kind of demoing our music and then you know practicing together as a band regularly the typical thing that a band would do from Long Island New York music scene is gig you know there's plenty of clubs and you'd go out and gig and you'd have your demo and all this stuff but we we never did that we just kind of recorded a demo and then we sent it out and we got interests and we got signed so that was we kind of bypassed the yep the gigging thing and in fact when we released our very first album we played very few shows we never toured for it we played some local things and it wasn't until images and words came out which was 92 and we're in the middle of it 25th anniversary celebration tour for that album but it wasn't until then that we we started actually an international career right on that Iron Maiden dream yeah and started touring and regularly and all that stuff because I guess back then it was all about the record deal wasn't it yeah you know different maybe now always different yeah it was definitely different that that was basically the only way that you can have some kind of professional career or exposures you had to get signed that was the big thing you know and it was as much as it was I don't wanna say easy but it was quick for us yeah it was hard because we weren't the norm like our music was completely wacky it wasn't you know picture that time period you're talking mid 80s guns I'm right right yeah it was the music that we played was influenced by those bands that I talked about earlier so we're playing metal music that kind of sounds like yes wrote it yeah you know with the singer from Rush you know so it was it didn't fit into the normal commercial eighties thing and that must have been tough then I get because like you say you're heavily reliant on radio airplay they're not new there's no there's no Apple music or right you born YouTube or anything like that yeah or even social media yeah so right so none of that so all of it is reliant on in in mostly in Europe print publications and actually in the States back then to print publications but radio was the thing or MTV back then there was headband got fall yeah just off of him yeah we got we got on headbangers ball with her oh cool like an album that was that tell me about the video for that because I could have met oh this is back in the days where you know in bands that never really had to make music videos before so totally did you have a blast doing that well you know what it was really quick I mean so now after the first album second album comes out images and words again the music on it is not what's happening at that time so 92 that was like the era of Nirvana Pearl Jam oh man groans ah yeah like no guitar solos all that stuff you know meanwhile we have songs like metropolis that are like always instrumental sections long songs pull me under that ended up being our first most successful single with over eight minutes song so we go out there radio friendly you know I don't it was like a fluke we go out there we start touring driving ourselves in a van and go driving from Club to club playing in front of yeah you know a couple hundred people and through college radio requests and stuff pomander just started to blow up and I guess maybe within the landscape of all those different bands this stuck out is what the hell is this what are these guys doing and so it became a rock radio hit it was played all the time and so the record label said well you need a video and we were just on a club tour so they came with a couple of cameras and shot us at a club show oh that's the video was it and do you remember the miming your guitar solo or something for the video yeah did you give it the full it's full on now I can't remember if the footage I can't remember how we did it if we did it actually like at during the show okay my part of me slightly remembers like doing the song twice in front of the audience maybe we told them what you should insert here find some three-second cleaner [Music] it was interesting and then you know then that van we were driving around and turned into a tour bus yeah and in that Club tour turned into an international tour and and that really sparked our career and you know it's fitting that we're in the UK right now the guy that signed us is from London his name is Derek Oliver he was a writer for Kerrang rock magazine reviewed the first album loved it got an A&R gig at Echo Atlantic and the president of Atlantic at that time was Derek Shulman from gentle giant Ronnie so I wasn't familiar with at the time but gentle giant is huge prog band from okay and Derrick Coleman was the singer and he was the president of Atlantic so Derrick came in took a huge chance on us you know pitched this crazy progressive band from Long Island and it ended up working out it's a it's funny isn't it that sort of I know when I so I learned to play guitar in the 80s where I guess you still there wasn't really anybody to look up to that wasn't pretty good yeah it's like yeah there was like any any given song that'd be a guitar solo it was like whoa and I certainly remember at the time thinking I'm sure they'd say you know it's tough to beat that you know it's tough to get to a level where you actually think you know I'm doing okay here and then I guess the positive thing of you know the whole Nirvana and over here you know we had the Britpop thing happened was that it did become very accessible again guitar but you know you could have a guitar hero that just played three chord yeah tricks you know but you're right you know back then you think about you know whether it was scorpions or rat or you know whatever you're hearing at that time there was always some like ridiculous guitar solo that you you know you couldn't play that you know but I think now it's what's really nice now is that you know what you tube and and you know music streaming has kind of bought up along is this ability to just pick and choose what you want to listen sure and you want to listen to it rather than you know radio stations going well this is the direction we're going in and in fact you had it one of the things I think in the in the u.s. we you always had multiple radio stations covering multiple genres over here we literally would have had you know two or three mainstream radio stations and so what they were playing was what you listened that was it exactly that was it and obviously they changed also with satellite radio tune because that now you know now you have stations that are more specialized to different genres and and bands like us could be played our songs can be played you know even now it's hard to get our songs played on traditional radio so we still don't fit in we're not like yeah what's being played so it's good to have those other outlets [Music] so let's talk about so I'm guessing how early on in your dream theater journey did you start to be recognized as you know kind of like a bit of a guitar hero and then you would have had you know maybe the opportunity to start working with different brands yeah how long into the Dream Theater thing were you before that started happening um I I don't think it was really it was really when we were recording images in words so that was 91 we started recording that where I I had started a relationship with a guitar company it was Ibanez at the time and it's when I first arted my first signature guitar but you know I always had this this interest in gear I think most guitar players do mine was kind of like on on overdrive you know it was really really into boogie yeah and it played boogies forever I was really into pedals and gear and delays and and even when I got the first opportunity to have a signature model I was so into like what could be done on the instrument leave kidding I Steve I kind of you know he he was the guy I remember as he had the racks full of all the Eventide harmony didn't sure had his own signature guitars and he was doing stuff to them and his own pickups and all that kind of thing yeah I him more than anybody I think at that time really oh yeah definitely and it's Steve look if there was another guy I was totally into that there's certain guys I just have this this head yeah you know like just where you're just really intrigued by a year and tweaking and you know when when I was given the opportunity to to actually have my own say go into an instrument you know it was like opening up this huge door door fast forward to my relationship with music man which is now in its 17th year it's you know unbelievable one of the best things I the show I ever did it was to join the music man family but um that take that has taken it to a whole different we're literally all of my concerns whims wishes desires as far as how an instrument should perform and be built have been not only listened to but realized in this whole line of guitars it's pretty incredible it's very humbling you can definitely tell you're not there's so many signature guitars and this is no disrespect to signature guitars out there are from a guy who's played a Fender Strat all his life then they go hey do you want a signature deal and he's like yeah if you could just make me that in my favorite color that would be awesome you know and then it is the signature guitar nothing wrong with that at all but you your guitars they it they definitely definitely weren't oh could could you just make me this silhouette favorite color you know you and I could see do you think you might have been a luthier had you not you know in another line a universe something with this I mean I was really into art when I was younger I used to be I used to draw and paint and I was into mathematics and stuff so there's something in my brain that like not a DaVinci hey you said it because that's that sort of that's that kind of mathematics and art yeah hell I'd isn't it right there is so there's always been a part of me that a creative side and a complex side I can't I guess that's kind of what led to me being into the to answer an early question earlier question being into this kind of progressive music challenge of Kosak you know it's like part of my brain wanted to be challenged so I had to you what if we go here that's most similar to the to the first JP that you would have done to the first ones on your side is it well these are mostly Majesties the very first JP well we don't really have one but it started with like oh wait it's right over here this would be the most similar this is a 16 so all these guitars started with this this kind of shape you know the double cutaway super strat shape the big signature from the first JP was this arm slot thing you know I'm really into how can not only the guitar but all the gear that I use and play even down to the pic how can that help me as a player yes when you're playing on stage everything's magnified you know you have lights in front of you people in front of you you're playing it's loud you want to be as comfortable as you can so I noticed all these tiny little details so one of the things we did is this arm scoop so when I was playing I didn't want my arm to be pushed out like if you were playing an acoustic or a Les Paul I wanted my arm to be flat and so we had this great R&D moment where Stirling put a sterling ball put some like hand cranium on my arm and then I played the guitar like this and the mark that it left was the angle for oh I see what you mean is it get wider that I yeah that was that was where to start this angle and yeah we started with the j p6 and and went on from there and developed into the b FR yeah and later on the the sort of anniversary series i guess you would call him like when I was with music man for 10 years we did the jpx yeah we changed the body shape a little bit and then it turned into a JP 11 and 12 was it was it the necks on because music man for me I've always that that their signature thing is you just pick the thing up and you go yeah this doesn't feel like anything else I've ever yeah some people yeah I love that some people maybe not sure but it certainly it's a thing isn't it so is that what were you I you picked it up and just went oh wow this is well I remember the first time being drawn to music minute I mean you're right this there's something about when you pick one up you get a couple of feelings one of them is this guitar feels me it doesn't feel like anything I've ever played before and you also notice the beauty of the instrument because their whole thing is like you know it's not only what the guitar sounds like and feels like but it's the aesthetics and they're just so beautifully made you're just kind of like in awe oh my god this is like a piece of art yeah and so yeah that that drew me and I remember picking up a long time ago like the van Halen model that they they did in the store I was like I don't think I've ever seen one of those yeah this is a so that was Wow look we won't talk about was a long time ago yeah but let's so the majesty then we which I guess was the first it's quite a departure isn't it from you if you were to if you were an on guitar player and you stood you know ten meters away from a from a JP okay yeah I can see it's a sort of a strat inspired kind of vibe to it the majesty really is this is the first one that they let you just go look you know go on then John you you you just you tell us what you want and right because this is a cool looking guitar it is thank you I'll tell you the story behind it you know over the course of 17 years we developed certain things about the guitar through R&D meaning me playing live yeah for being in the studio and saying oh I wish this was like this and and a lot of those decisions have been consistent on all the models so one of the first things we did just for a little history is I'm all about ergonomics so I wanted the controls to be like in the arc of my hand right that's why they're laid out this way and they heard that's why this toggle switch is on an angle and not straight up and down because when your hand moves does this alright it doesn't do that you gotta be offered and even the piezo magnetic control it's up here so everything is kind of in this sweep that was the first thing things like the neck carve the frets eyes the the fretboard radius these are things that kind of changed and got tweaked till eventually they were just just perfect everything was exactly even even the the whammy bar that we designed so once we got to that point and everything was perfect I said let's change it all now I really wanted to do a neck through yeah come on that's something that we didn't do so up to until the majesty everything was the bolt on so I had this idea for a net through model and I drew this thing out I called it the stallion right I figure I'm Italian I'm from New York let's call up a stallion called up sterling balls like I got this idea for a guitar and of course in true sterling fashion he's like yeah let's do it yeah you know and so it turned into the majesty now majesty little history that was the first name of Dream Theater we were close you see when we were at Berkeley and we started we came up with a name named majesty and the symbol that's on the guitar is an M for majesty that was the symbol that we use and it turned into our our Dream Theater logo for all these years that's what that is if you look at it hallee am like it yeah absolutely yeah it's there so anyway but I thought it would be fitting to call the guitar of majesty because it kind of tied in the history of the band and so we did this neck this neck through and I have to hand it to to Drew Montell over there the engineer who between him and Dudley you know drew up the shape for the guitar sent me drawings and and you know programs and 3d pictures so yeah you know hone in on the shape and eventually come up with this unbelievably easy to play instrument that's the whole thing about the majesty I wanted it to be the easiest guitar on the planet to play I don't anything getting in my way you know even something like this this was a discussion that Sterling had you we talked about upper fret mm-hmm access when you play large stretches like this and everybody kind of thinks about this bottom yeah access but sterling was like well what about the top you know as your thumbs going up it usually has to stop right there what if we took out this yeah triangle of doom yeah so you're you're up to 20 second frame you can go right up there and grab the guitar so it kind of made the guitar have this very unique look over here and it honestly excuse me honestly when it first came out the photos were leaked behind the guitar in line and he'll have people were like that's the ugliest thing ever like all this criticism we're kind of because we were so excited about it now that's gonna complete 180 and I get more compliments about this instrument I think it's groundbreaking I think it is a true testament to like the dedication of Ernie Ball Music Man how those guys are so they're so focused on the art yeah and the the passion of guitar building you know and the fact that all these little things that I have about myself and my plane that I want to see in an instrument the fact that that translates to something that other people say you know what I'm so glad you did that because I love that guitar it's made my playing so much better and if you all I mean some of the older why not something else but some of the Dream Theater stuff where there's obviously clearly a fairly heavy acoustic influence your anyway you've sort of double-tracking acoustic and yeah big acoustic parts mm-hmm how did you used to get round that before you had but yeah just I mean I can obviously in the studio I guess you just doubled tracking everything right life or how would you get round that you don't do those not babies yeah well live I would do you know I remember again going to see Rush and Alex Lifeson would have an ovation on a stand that he'd go lean over it play closer to the heart and then move off of it and and jump into the electric so there was a little bit of that or I would just not do it I played on the clean sound but yeah one of the great things about these guitars from the beginning and the majesty has it as well as it has the piezo system in it so you know you could either have complete the acoustic sound you can have magnetic or you can have both yeah and it's it's actually something I use a lot I can demonstrate it especially when I'm using playing on a clean tone because what I'll do in the studio is I'll layer clean guitars yeah so left right maybe you know two or four though and then I'll layer the same thing on an acoustic yeah and we blend it all together and that's how you know probably a really good version that would be pull me under when you hear that opening of that track yeah that's you know six different guitarists are playing together and that's how you have the weight of the acoustic in the chai meanness of these because that must be a huge challenge to interpret your album yeah alive exactly you know yeah and clearly that the guitar parts were all the parts in fairness but you know guitar parts particularly are so multi-layered and yes well that's something you know I've learned some tricks you know what because in the studio what we try to do is just record the guitar as pure as we can so a guitar cable yeah mic it up right any of the effects or post usually delays even even compression on on the clean guitar and you're using this studio outboard gear and stuff like that so to emulate that live even to try to get that double track type of sound yeah I had to come up with a way of doing that yeah compression you can do a really good compression pedal the stereo tracking thing you can do with a delay yeah you know split I'll split the sound with a seven millisecond delay with no feedback so it just sounds like you could target here yeah winds up that's a good trick using delay in the effects loop and things like Horace will kind of give that big wide sound that that emulates that sort of tract let's have a listen to one of those kind of examples of a you know a big clean sound yeah and maybe that you'll help us it's absolutely so let me let me describe what what how I would do it yeah exactly so so this is the majesty first thing I would do and when I turn on the amp I'll show you but it the pick up selection is important so these are DiMarzio pickups this is one of my oldest relationships it's with Larry DiMarzio and Steve bleacher these were in the very first guitar as I played so these are sonic ecstacy pickups this is the latest we did for the 2017 majesty so I what I would do is usually go to the middle position and it's gonna have both pickups on at the same time it and I'll demonstrate this as well but if you want you can actually tap them right with the on the tone control I'll show you the difference there this kind of gives like a thinner yeah more twenty kind of sound and then I'll put the magnetic piezo control in the center yeah so basically it's blending the magnetic pickups yeah with the piezo yeah that goes in this particular situation I'm going through one cabinet so the guitar is set to Mono and both signals are gonna come through the amp yeah this is a very advanced guitar it has a game changer in there you can set it to stereo yes and then you can split the signal which is what I do live yeah so the piezo goes through DIY cable to you yeah a box we have a box that does that and then and the Magnetic goes to my rig yeah alright so speaking of the rig so this is we take it an aside for a second until evening yeah so this is like a dream come true remember I said I was since I was a kid playing boogies and I yeah I played boogies my entire life and collecting them yeah and never thought I'd see the day where I saw my name on a but you know that still when I look at that I get the chills and one of my favorite boogies of all time is a mark 2 c-plus yeah so that was that's the anyways popular isn't it it is it's kinda like the holy grail of boogies that was on Master of Puppets yes right that's like the amplitude so that was built in the 80s all different incarnations of it this is the first reissue of a mark 2 seamless yeah so so that was a the whole thing when I went to Randall Smith and and and all the guys there Jim you know it was like I want to do a real reissue of that ant like no shortcuts yeah so we did the same circuit you know same if you look in that big-ass transformer but what we did is we modernized it yeah as per my requirement basically most of this stuff was none wasn't on that no so so really quickly I know we want to get to the clean sound but really quickly on this so the original mark to c+ was it just had one row of controls and some of them didn't even have a graphic EQ but I mean yeah but but mostly they would have one graphic EQ so it had two channels clean and a lead yeah and and the controls were shared so let's say you had this lead sound where you had the gain up high and you really loved it you'd go to switch to the clean and your clean sound would be 2 over driven yeah so there was no you know flexibility there if you wanted multiple sounds you had to get multiple amps which I did at one point right if you look back at my old rigs and if you use an amp switcher and go between three different C pluses yeah right so mine was 3 C pluses yeah yeah right right right yeah so my thing is I want like 3 C plus this is what I think this is where the working out obsession is come from it exactly sharing all that I say yeah so so to update it's like well I want a separate separation clean channel yeah a channel a high gain channel I can use for like the heavy stuff yeah and then a high gain channel I can use for leads and I want to have 2 eq s because let's say I set this EQ from my crunch sound yeah and I scoop the mids and I have this metallic scent yeah that's not gonna translate to my lead sound there right so let's have a second EQ that I can shape as well and boogie made good on all those requests so now you have a C+ that has a separate lead I'm sorry separate clean and it's two separate high gain channels and two eq's it's matter how small it is well yeah you kind of think it should be you know there's amps with half the number of features of this that mm-hmm 50% longer we yeah we wanted to keep it rack mountable oh and hey Ben that original like kind of boogie yeah and you know the the layout is all the artistry of Randall Smith he's totally into the way it lays out and looks yeah you know obviously has an effects loop this is the first boogie with built-in mid this is a mother-of-pearl this is no this particular ready yeah this particular one here is a limited edition yeah so we did about 300 or so limited edition that are signed by myself and Randall where it has special things like the ox blood stain you know front the inlaid mother-of-pearl Boogie logo and even the bezel here is a different kind of color it's like a gunmetal color but the standard one is blood everything yes or you can boogies great you can customize anything yeah you can put the crocodile skin whatever you whatever you want yeah so anyway so we talked we talked about the clean sound so what I would do I guess the biggest way I could describe this is um I like to visualize visualize the sound so for a clean sound I almost think of a piano right and I think okay well I want this kind of weighted sound that has sustained but that has some nice crystal you know high-end and doesn't really have a lot of middle nice you know so when I visualize that will set the amp that big grand piano sound I guess yeah and really super super clean so one of the things about my request for channel one was I didn't want the amp to break up at all I want it to be as clean as clean could be right right so it set the preamp the game you know relatively low depending on your volume the presence is going to give all of your crystal nough so you can have that relatively high that's a nice top end kind of finishing touch treble treble anything above you know five a little bit is fine pull the middle mm-hm to get that scoop sound and then the weight on the bass control you know five or herbal or something like that so that would just be like eyeballing it and that's no graphic EQ you can put one on but I have it off so that would be the clean sound so I think again middle position [Music] [Music] all right so that's on the middle yeah position as that's typically you've used that middle position just for clean yeah exactly i generally use it for clean set I'm rarely use it for playing lead stuff although you can just that's just my taste if you wanted to do the coil tap it again it'll give that more sparkly sounds [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] little I guess it becomes a little less full yeah takes out some of the bass and kind of gives it a really sparkly scoop that sound that was something that we did early on when I started working with DiMarzio so it was a sound where I almost wanted that single coil e sound but I didn't want to break from two humbuckers yeah just really quickly all my guitars have always two humbuckers no mounting rings so you can for me and take my pinky and I kind of lock it under there oh wow yeah the pickup so that that's it because I I know that there's the old Eddie Van Halen story isn't there that if you don't have the mounting rings you get more resonance through the pickup well yeah I mean more about just how to hold that think it tell you yeah it was the hold and going by that Eddie Van Halen theory right it's you know also subscribe to that so they're they're mounted direct into the yeah into the wood the cool thing about the majesty is this whole piece so the neck the the headstock and then the shield here is all one piece of mahogany and then the in this case African mahogany is built around that and then there's a maple top yeah so that combination oh I see severe this section here that's still part of the neck is it yeah Morgan exclude on either side exactly this shield is kind of laid in on the top exactly this is stunning looking guitar I like I mean they obviously do something similar but with a like a carbon graphite kind of fire is that is this actually carbon graphite or is it's like a paint finish to make it look I'll tell you what that is so so originally the inspiration for the aesthetic for the look of the guitar came from a BMW m6 yeah and the one in particular when I looked at was a was a white one so it was those white frozen paint little easy it's yeah so a white frozen paint with a carbon fiber top and black chrome rims and I wanted my guitar to look like that so we did all this frozen paint so the the blue and frozen white and black that's what what that look is the way we did the carbon fiber this was like music man challenge like how could we do a carbon-fibre top and we talked about several things that we can use actual carbon fiber we could use some kind of decal not a detail but like they do the wraps and things like that so drew and then the engineers came up with this brilliant way to still use maple so to rewrite the tone wood of maple yep laser etch it into a carbon fiber pattern and and now this is the ArcLight dream which changes colors and then sand it and stain it black to look like carbon fiber and if you go right up say it's etched that's etched maple wow that insane but you know what you can see it if you get really close on this particular one just behind the tremolo system you can actually see the little bit of the flame maple here you go crazy right i I assumed it was a decal no that's insane that that is what I'm talking about that's that attention to detail and art and workmanship you know you know when you know what you're looking for now is you can actually see the grain of the wood on on all of these is that crazy or what yeah insane it's it's ridiculous and and the shape of that shield comes from the original when we first came out with the model they did a JP logo that that is in like a bullet shape that bullet shape is the it's still running the Majesties on the inlays prep markers but originally that was at the first fret so it kind of carries that bullet shape with the shield so with the monarchy what we did is instead of doing the frozen paint or the stained wood like the artisans have a stained wood violin finish I wanted to do a gloss high-gloss finish because I love the look of the BFRs yeah where you could really see the figured wood through the finish and so in this case we have African mahogany and then the maple top and you can see the beautiful figure yeah yeah on there so we went away with the did away with the carbon fiber weave but on the back of the here's another cool thing it's actually let me do this it's actually a satin finish okay right so that's how that changes literally at the edge of the table isn't it yeah yeah so the the feel of the back of the neck and in the wood here against your clothing again this is all performance stuff it feels really smooth and silky and yeah nothing sticks to you so that's another really cool feature okay let's try that tongue absolutely where you blend in the because I love that I love that sound that you get you know in the albums where it is a layered I love them and an electric saying yeah so so here's the the piezo by itself would be even just through an amp it sounds cool even though there's yeah just regular 12-inch speaker you know it still sounds great has that punchy scent that's gonna give that piano low-end yeah it's talking about so when you combine the two right [Music] that's gorgeous that is that piano esata [Music] now to get that that album sound I would put a compressor pedal yeah chorus which is always nice in this case let's see we have this chorus set up through the front mm-hmm normally I would use well I would do it this way for a certain effect had the chorus in the front or use the axe effects in the effects loop and use that kind of modulation in this case it's a TC pedal through the front [Music] probably also put some delay on it this delay yeah so this delay will give kind of kind of give it that finishing on air early on so I think exactly so that same kind of progression [Music] that songs like since we are celebrating their anniversary of images so another day [Music] or even Pomi under a [Music] are you a big user of Reba I notice you've left the reverb off say nothing really I hate the only the only application I find that we're like reverb is on acoustic right I don't like it on electric I don't know why I'm like the opposite I go actually naked if I try and play guitar well no funny in fact bye and I'll demonstrate it in a bit but I like my crunch sound that which is the sound I play during a dream theater show it's probably like 90% of the show you're playing crunch rhythm yeah dry totally drawing me yeah and nothing on it wow I wonder that sister I guess when the you know if you're in an auditorium or whatever theater or whatever I guess you've got a certain natural you do but I don't I don't want to hear that really you know again I'm coming from the as far as that that heavy rhythm playing I'm coming from the Metallica School where you want it like it's tight you know you want to stop on a dime I mean that that's the boogie thing that's what boogie does really amazingly well maybe we should move on so that now that actually they're crunchy kind of vibe and what sort of would you would you again approach that with do you ever use the Piazza layered up with that or is that no it's just a magnet I would I would shut it off at that point also just a really cool trick if I use an Ernie Ball volume pedal and since this the signals are split as far as the piezo and the magnetic what I like to do is I'll set this in the middle and then the I'll shut the volume pedal off so no AM sound is coming through right so I can have I can emulate it now by turning this volume off so let's say I'm strumming along [Music] right on the dime and the arrangement of the song kicks in yeah you know all I have to do is turn the volume pedal up yeah and since this is set in the middle that electric on the right oh yeah yeah and then really quickly just flip that on so I love how the only economic side because you know I guess you know at the the the sort of style that you play every microsecond at all with you know if it's all important is absolutely it's funny it sterling said it once it's like flying a fighter jet like any like quick there he's gonna change something so so as far as like that the heavy rhythm thing you know in in building the guitar from the from the very beginning due to this style of Dream Theater so you know I had mentioned you know Metallica and made and stuff like that you know just just I always wanted to have like a big crunchy heavy sound now that's only gotten heavier as music has developed right you know this guitar comes in a seven string as well we've always done a seven string so songs starting from our album awake I started using a seven string and and you need you need the definition to in in the amp and in the guitar on two pickups to be able to handle all that low-end I need the clarity and the cut and and I guess the tightness is the most important thing the last thing you want is like a flubby loose bottom end and that's not only in a sound but as a person I think I think that's that one of the toughest you know as I as I've talked to the guitar players that play either with heavy drop tunings or seven strings whatever and high gains yeah it almost is I think if you're a sixth string player in concert pitch we're playing not in a regular pitch it's okay to have the mid-1840s trying to help that as well that you say the thing just goes flabby it goes yeah and it's like for me it's about it's about creating it's the amp is almost thing trying to just create the most percussive kind of sound right less gain tighter bass end and then it's all from the strain totally you're absolutely right that percussive quality you know I tend to lock into the kick and snare and we do all these sort of complex rhythms and part of the beauty of the sound when you get that really together is that you sound like sort of one machine yeah that's doing so there are tricks on how to achieve that so first of all as far as the guitar is concerned I would always use the bridge pickup cuz that's gonna be that's gonna be the sound it's gonna be the most forward brighter sound in designing the pickups with DiMarzio we've always had this that sound in mind yeah whenever I talk to see blue Cho or Larry about what I want this pickup to do the number one purpose is to do that tight big rhythm sound even probably more so than lead you know that's the number one thing as far as the the amp is concerned this is the signature thing that boogies do mmm you know practically all of them but especially A to C plus is to do that tight on a dime thing so here's the trick here's how you do it so I would go to channel two that's my first of two high gain sounds you mentioned it before you you don't have to have the gain that high yeah you know if you and I can demonstrate if you start cranking that it's gonna get looser yeah which you might want for certain things yeah so so you might not want to go above you know they're like one or two o'clock yeah the also the thing that's going to contribute to that fluffiness is the bass so this will work exactly like a c-plus if you own one on those amps if you set it high the gain high you got to crank the bass down yeah a lot of times I'll have it off yeah right so off to one I've seen that whenever the first time I started seeing these settings yeah I was like really but you have to you have to this is all feeding the preamp anything stick in there it's gonna like overload right again that scoot sound you know a lot of guitar players a lot of rock guitar players like a real mid heavy sound for more traditional rock and roll from metal you want to get that scoop sound and kind of like you know take that out of the way so I'll tend not to pull it all the way out but but go below 5 so maybe in that zone and then to trouble this is one of the most powerful controls on the amp because as you increase the treble it's going to also increase the gain right yeah so if you want it mellow you can start there if you want to gain here you can go up so in this kind of zone it's probably gonna be fine and then something worth mentioning also on on my version of the C+ the presence control is also really powerful control that this is a control that was on the back on the rear of the original c pluses it has a certain sparkly high-end sound that's associated with it in developing this amp we discovered a second present sound okay which is voiced lower almost like in the 1k range right that has a whole different thing I'll show you the difference so if you want the traditional C plus you pull the presence and you probably have to set it low cuz that control you wouldn't go too much above 3 mm-hmm also on on the gain control you can pull for more games if it's not it's just a game but it's not volume right if you want even more so I've been kind of falling in love with the new presence and that one you can go fairly high so I think it's fair to say there's anybody that's not owned a booty before you might be used to having a Marshall or something like that where the three tone controls really just a very subtle yeah and they just give you different flavours of it of the same sort of thing I know on I remember when the mark 4 came out and very similar and you think that came yeah sound here like that and then you just go get and you go that's it's like where's the sound gone yeah what I've done is moved one controller like a millimeter yeah very powerful aren't they can they are like we knows when we have these conversations about tone you know talk with dougie and he said you can't just breathe on it or Matty will be like during muscies so that's how I basically set the preamp now one of the big things about this amp to get that big sound that you need to do yeah is engage the graphic EQ so this is this is a these frequencies have been with boogie forever yeah right so a typical thing to do is to kind of do this curve where you might pull out even some more mids yeah boost a little bit of highs maybe a little bit of lows and you get this sort of V look and there's a million variations yeah on that so this is just eyeballing it let's see where we got I don't know what the volumes like right now I don't want to blow anybody that's way off the planet over here so I'm [Music] [Music] and you can mess with these it's got that even at relatively low volume is because that roti remember that night thing we're talking about that's how you do it it's not it's not that there's no base is it it's just tight in fact they should just rename the control exactly you haven't doesn't seem like you've made the sound thinner you've just made it tighter yeah right now what I'm doing too is I'm compensating it right the low end over here right yeah so so this is gonna let's see if I just let us but just yeah that as you want now do me a favor I'm gonna I'm gonna kind of chug on a cord and I want you to turn up the bass as I do it when she over with that does back [Music] right neighbor that kind of unpleasant wall right now if you were if you weren't playing a metal style and you wanted that [Music] it might be fine for lead stuff I think it is right yeah exactly is your rhythm stuff right and I'll sneak in more base for lead stuff to kind of get the bigger note but if you're doing you need that right that sounds brilliant yeah it sounds great so yeah this is the other present setting we pull this and set it lower this is gonna be kind of more here we'll go like super Metallica here that would be something like this [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] you now it's great sense glorious at Laureus and and it's the cool thing you know but I have two goals with that sound one of them we've been talking a lot yeah which is that tight sound yeah the other goal is to get this big sound that kind of like what it like it blossoms yeah I like to use courts I oh oh my chord playing to Alex Lifeson and yeah Randy Rhoads for doing this big you know well that's that that first code that is that a bit spirit of the radio yeah there was any rush song yeah yeah that's part of it that you know hemispheres it's my favorite or Xanadu so the idea is when I play these big chords where let's say it's a power chord but the basis sorry the fifth is in the base below so if it's a see there's a G below and then I used this sus 2 so there's no third so it's not a major chord is a minor chord it's actually yeah isn't it drunk and you find that the bottom string there is well bottom string is yes sir so I'm basically borrowing the whole third fret just yeah playing the fifth in the octave so you have this big [Music] now when I do those kind of big chords that's have the open strings I will use a chorus on and that will give that that'll help out right [Music] [Music] you can go right back to [Music] it does both in your live setup are you heavily gating that as well good now sound like it needs it doesn't need it and yet so many bands will apply it yeah for that but I don't yeah it just doesn't sound you don't need it well a lot of guys do the technique where where they'll set and this might be easier with the digital modeling stuff where you just set the gain really high and then gate mm you know gaiter really strong the trick is with with the Boogie it's a couple of things you got to understand I know you do know but it's all the components yeah so it's the way the guitar is built it's the wood we chose yeah it's the way the pickups are voiced yeah these are all per my requests what I wanted to do and it's the way the amp is voiced we're not there's no magic you know right well you know we're just going straight in we have a couple of pedals so you don't need a gate you know if you if you know how to set the a.m. another cool thing that gets that blossoming is the wah you know does that be even your wallach school you know it's like it's like I love the sort of I love the fact that you're you know I this is a bit of an aside and everything that I think that there we're not when I was growing up and buy my first guitars I remember guys in guitar shops used to go I shouldn't shouldn't worry about what it looks like it should all be about the tone a little bit and I'm just like yeah but I do worry about what it looks like me too absolutely and I think it actually as times gone by it's become more acceptable than that actually that how it looks should be at least as important as yeah sounds and feels and a lot of kind of stuff I mean here something I mean it it definitely has to look badass but it has to have it has to be able to like back that up yeah it's gonna do it right yeah it was so with the wah this is the signature why did with with Dunlop and I've been and again all these relationships and it I tell this to people these are people I've known for years and years and years I'm not the type of person who I'll try this it's right there it's like I find something I like and then um yeah you know I think that's important because there's a lot of I think a lot of people who watch YouTube will see artists like you and there are many others and they'll kind of think that the way to go after an endorsement is to just become famous and then just almost like just yeah anything I'll put my name on anything if it gets me but I think much if you actually dig a little deeper if I'm most of those endorsements our relationships that were there before you know you loved the Dunlop pedals and you loved the music man guitars and you love being amplifiers and as a result of that they've kind of work together on something exactly that's where rather than kind of like hey I just need a wah-wah who's gonna pay me that most to put my name it's not about like that you shouldn't be that yeah I always truly believe the art should come first you know and I've paid for all my gear forever you know when you find something you love it and you buy it and then you fall in love with it if you're fortunate enough to become a professional you might start relationships with these people and then eventually could turn into something that you can help design but the original inspiration comes from you know we're all like gear nuts we're like you find something you see in the store or look online you buy it you get it and you love that so it's not like what can I get for free it's again what do I like so I mean eat from Dunlop between the js3 that I've used forever and and Dunlop was I mean you know when when the opportunity came to do it a signature while I was all over just your plectrum yes just as a little just kind of as an aside whatever I think it's only been in the last two or three years of playing guitar that I've suddenly realized that the little $0.50 piece of gear is one of the most important on my go you know yeah you can have thousands of pounds worth of guitars and amps and pedals everything but if the little 50p collect from it's not right it's funny what drives us guitar players batty and yeah I mean countless hours on what pic to use now again this this is a good example of what we just talked about because I used jazz three picks you know since I discovered him ages ago and it was only until you know very fairly recently where we decided to do a signature yeah well how you do a signature pick you know but based on a jazz three certain alt-text material has a certain bevel to it and grip again based on like my thought wouldn't it be great if it did this was it Eric Johnson that was like the original jazz three Newark Johnson yeah he used the red ones I actually got turned on to it when I watched a Michelangelo video oh really yeah and then he was like you got to use this pick and it was a jazz three and I got that Coleman well I think you know you you're you're soloing is legendary stuff of legends and is that typically what you would go to channel 3 to use yeah so channel 3 is yeah so so now again it's a combination of things right so it's the guitar and how it's voice and what I wanted to do you know I wanted to have a lot of clarity definition I spent a lot of time trying to develop a technique where I wanted to hear all the notes I was playing so the guitar enables me to get those sounds I do a lot of soloing in the neck on the neck pickup so it's very important pickup for me generally my rule of thumb is if I'm up here I usually use the neck pickup if I'm down here right you get the extra bite down yeah the extra bite and clarity if I'm doing like more of a hammer or anything the bridge probably works better but for the most part to get that kind of thick glassy liquidy sound I'll use the the neck pickup so again making the improvement on the original teeth to see plus we have a second lead channel a high gain channel you can go to its voiced almost this the same it just has slightly more gain for us so low yeah Peter blurs and you get a dive in a little bit more mid-range for us yeah exactly and then you have a second EQ that you can customize so what I would do is I well the game is pulled there we can try that so it's gonna be more gain you can crank this if you really want to but it has more than enough in that sort of zone you might mellow out the top-end that's something I do a lot where if you're playing up high you want the notes to scream but you don't want them to like rip people's heads off in a bad way something might mellow out the treble sneaking a little bit more bass for for thickness yeah and then the this middle there's there's a sweet spot there that's kind of below and away see you don't go for that kind of call a centenary kind of tiny mid range it's a great sound I don't generally go for that the reason is the reason is not because I don't like it but the the juxtaposition of that when when using that kind of heavy guitar crunch sound and then going to that right sounds like I went wrong with it and then if you go back yeah from that it's like oh my god what happened to your aunt arson so you got to be really so I almost have to set them fairly the same yeah so you don't get that shock I can demonstrate this yeah if you want no no I get it I totally get what you're saying now of course I think this that there is that school of thought that if you take too much of the mid-range out your guitar gets lost within sure the mix absolutely I totally get you've got a balance your rhythm and your lead tone otherwise yeah you have to now if I was just playing like I mean Carlos is playing in his style you know like they're obviously this rhythm parts but there's a lot of lead playing that's kind of in the composition so if that's like mainly the tone he probably doesn't have to worry about going back to like a meta Lisa I guess in it's all about him in his band yeah Aaron theta thing is a much more collective exactly a musician you have to play your role yeah when it happens so I might set them you know fairly similar the presence is another area where it's gonna bring out the body but it's act but it's also you got to be careful because it's gonna bring out that sizzle so you might want to set that a little lower when you go into your lead so without any EQ so it almost has that you know that has that Carla see yeah I brought ya gain wise go all the way up so but I would still want some shaping yeah right so I love what you did when you switched you probably did it even subconsciously from the neck to the bridge yeah it's half way through the rift but it just brought a different dynamic to what you were playing right well that's the general rule like I said if I was playing down here I'd have it on yeah probably the bridge that I'd go up to the neck it has a more liquidy so here here's the shocking juxtaposition I was talking I'll just demonstrate hey boy so if I'm playing a Metallica like it's kind of shock yeah it's wrong they don't blend well they don't blend well I mean that might jump out and then ya live situation but that would freak me out and then when I let's say I was I was on the sound for a while yeah and I went there but what I'm doing myself so so I'll kind of get them closer right so we'll pull some middle maybe not as much dial in a little low end and high end and we'll get a little closer this way it fits in oops just nice that's it Brooklyn yeah [Music] I think it's like closer now right yeah it nice but it's still it's it's gonna it's gonna jump out what I'll generally do to on a solo and I can't demonstrate it now because we're only in mono but I'll have like the axe-fx my effects loop and that will give me the ability to have two different delay engines have a left and right yeah you know two different delay times what are you hearing when your own state are you hearing your your for my twelves are you hearing folk pounding complete glory mountaintops yeah you just want to hear the am Stephen well no but this is what it what we do life so on stage we have no sound coming off the stage so all of my mic cabinets are backstage facing the other way miked up because we don't want our sound engineer to have to battle yeah with sound coming off the stage so I use any air monitors okay my rig is in stereo so there's two right boogies and two cabinets that are miked and it's hard pan left and right with a seven millisecond split yeah it sounds like the biggest hugest stereo you get that sensation still in the enof the stereo and Matt total actually more than ever because you're totally in this class yes you're kneeling Stormin and the delays that are in stereo that just there are these floaty things that are just helping you out your little friends yeah repeating what you did saying good job good job good job right and then to kind of to supplement that what we did is we have another set of mini boogie cabinets for just one by twelves that are facing me on either side of my pedal board right and I use those for two purposes one as I put my foot on them for a little nice classical footrest and secondly to to give me some sounds coming back at me so I have the thump of a cabinet and I'm able to go up to the speaker and get feedback right out a horse yeah so I get the biscuit where it is yeah so because of the ways I mean this is a model delay for now [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you know has this kind of it's doing a couple things you know you can get the aggression none of the low notes on the bridge pick up that's the Seymour Strickland up here on the higher strings you're gonna have using the bridge panel and huh I'm impressed with just how red I mean obviously what's not simplistic about the rig is the amount of thought that's gone into every element or but what it but but ultimately what it's ended up with is a fairly simplistic ring isn't it you know it it's not it's it's it to get that sound hasn't required anything other than a chorus pedal a relatively affordable chorus pedal as well and an affordable delay pedal you know and it sounds great man thank you yeah I think it's all at its all that time like you said it's the thought that goes into it and you know I'm a firm believer that anything you add into the soup it's gonna it's gonna flavor it for good or bad right so yeah you have to have all the components need to be like top-notch I know that's the way to go and is if this wasn't enough I have a couple tricks up my sleeve I'll reveal to you I've been saving them - okay oh good okay what one of the tricks is on the guitar yeah okay so you give her like you're playing a solo and you felt just like let's say you were away from your pedals and you just wanted more mm-hmm but you couldn't get well this guitar gives more okay yes so what we did is on the volume control which is very appropriate yeah we added a 20 up to 20 DB boost if you if you press the volume control yeah it's gonna give you a boost now what that will do you can hear it probably most obviously on a clean sound so this is to give you an idea of the amount of volume that's gonna happen so funny Phoebe's yeah you and you can set it lower right if that's too much so on a clean sound if you want to jump out and you have it but the way I use it is on the lead set so I'm playing along I got my nice sustaining sound here we'll crank it as much as it can be and I have a delay alright everything's going along well and we just want more yes more is more I can be in the middle of the stage and just just goose that up [Applause] [Music] some of those bends man where you're hitting that the second string is well underneath of it they just sound it's like a guitar screaming then screams but you know the cool thing is and we're right next to it yeah it's not bothersome it's not like you know knives in the ears and that's that's all the tonus the wood it's the pickups and Sam but the great thing about the thing is and you know you know it's like if it is semi this is best this is a flush it's it's everything you know and you know that I still think the players the you know the player is the most important ingredient but then as you rightly say I love that I've always used I use these spaghetti bolognaise analogy uses soup analogy is you know which is you know it's everything down to you know cables yeah everything has even if a cable is just one grain of salt but if you can taste that grain of salt then it's there isn't absolutely like okay and also the setting you know what table you're sitting at flatware you know the people you're with changes how you think about music you know the key to just as an aside like I've always found this as an important part to my playing style we talked about style earlier and can we he's probably on your clean sound well with yes just Mike sorry I have the game like soup I'm but um you know I've always spent a lot of times a lot of guitar players do with the metronome trying to get my technique together and everything one of the things that's really super important to me when soloing is to take all that and just like throw it out the window and when you're playing to play with a lot of like aggression and attitude and vinegar and balls and when you play notes like that that you you like the way the sound of that note is what I'm actually doing is I'm not being too careful about how I'm going about hitting in other words I'm hitting like all the strings before you know doing that yeah maybe grabbing another string at the same time yeah I'm enjoying what's going on interacting and not so worried about like that I'm yeah you know gonna play the exact notes so when you put that together in a solo you get this real kind of aggression yeah and it's like really important to me especially if you get the wah going to it's like do it do it [Music] that's such an important housing in a 15 year old boy come out of you guys like to me players that don't have that I have difficulty but yeah you know it's like having technique and facility in developing the craft it's something I'm totally into yeah but being able to play the guitar like a guitar player like just yeah attitude you know you got to take advantage of the instrument it has you know its strings on a piece of wood and so you can make it sound like anything yeah you know put your put everything into it you know don't be timid about it one thing I don't like it's timid players I want people to scream when they want and play they still what I love the most about the electric guitar and I think White's become just the modern instrument of choice in the world is that as much as I'm you know I'll enjoy this thing for music with almost any kind of instrument on it but there's really nothing quite like the electric guitar to just to just express any kind of emotion absolutely you know most instruments have a have a sound and they make that noise and if you're an accomplished musician on there you can probably get it to sort of you know you can get elements of light and shade but nothing goes from like over here to over here like guitar does with obviously you got to have all the stuff to make that happen but although a great instrument it is I've seen it done guys would play an acoustic do that tune it's such an expressive instrument and the funny thing is that a lot of the other instruments try to they're trying to emulate that you know different keyboards with synth elements can yeah you know where they trying to do get feedback I'm gonna synth you know get get aggression get distortion said you break your low strings when you're playing I do not okay I did not break a lot of strings I've been using Ernie Ball slinky strings for ever and ever just a 9 gauge Oh a 10 inch yeah 10 10 through 46 the seventh string is below 56 yeah my tack and good friend Maddie changes my strings regular so we don't overplay on any of the guitars I mean but but even then we don't need to change them every day they last and and they generally do not break yeah but it has happened on occasion I mean I think every guitar player has experienced that playing a high note and then what have you I'm in this the the Ernie Ball and I like brands like a suburban Ernie Ball have have sort of pioneered that kind of higher density string yeah cobalt a few years back paradigm more recently yeah I'm steel and all that yeah absolutely so I mean is that a string that you you know that will appeal to you in terms of that the extra you know performance maybe or life it will give that the yeah the guitar absolutely you know I I have to say I'm really is as much as the advancement and technology and developing the guitars has been and the different engineers that I've been mentioning and their dedication to you know that their dedication to exploring new formulas and technologies and materials as far as strengths or concern and what Brian ball has done in that area it's just so impressive to me because in some ways you know guitar players don't think too much about it it's like a string we talked about that didn't we plate from string right you know these are the these are the I guess some of the most affordable elements - right what brings your rig and yet you know really scientifically I guess strings and picks are kind of contribute there's more to the tone than maybe them what would the guitars made from absolutely not that not that any of that doesn't contribute but you just think it is important that you it is important that you've got a a pick that sounds and feels great in strings that you know are the best that you can yeah get them to be and and the whole way that when you play guitar that a string resonates and and the way that it feels under your fingers and the tension that you get very used to you know as we talked about before guitar is a really expressive instrument so it involves a lot of bending and manipulating of the notes and you know of course it's really easy to make a guitar sound bad because you have the ability to change the tuning at whim but it's also really really not easy but it's really rewarding to try to make it sound beautiful so all that stuff that you're very used to is you don't want to sacrifice when you hear that a string company changed something so what's impressive to me about the paradigm string so those are the new strings there are the unbreakable strings that are super super super strong is that they maintained the sound of a slinky string they feel you know blind taste test yeah same string but they but they dramatically increase the strength of the string yeah which is great for any guitar player who wants to break the string yeah or corrode I mean I guess you're a fortunate that you know you get to have a tech ring yeah every day's right but yeah I mean I'll typically change my strings probably maybe every six or eight weeks or something yeah that's so so and I absolutely know that probably for the last four weeks of that I'll be playing with a string that doesn't have that nice yeah new feel to it so I'm kind of cool with that you know I'm hoping the paradigm thing you know works out for me so yeah absolutely should be cool yeah it's great technology and they really made some great strides in that comment at science yeah I said I had a couple of tricks I'll show you one more yes yes so so my amp has one secret weapon okay okay so we talked about before this is the last thing on I'll bother you with we talked about before we did this only man it's not a but uh I said so the whole the whole thing with playing heavy rhythms and players using 7-string guitars 8-string guitars things like that and you're playing through a high gain amp right maybe if you're using something digital you can do that trickery where you're gating it and you're yeah cranking up the game so my amp what I wanted to do is have a feature that you can step on you got more but I have more yeah that's going to that that will bring that quality out like it's almost like like it's a mastering quality so if I was listening to a mix and I want the guitar to have some hair on it and just kind of like do this thing we might add like 3k to it or something like that we built that into the end it's it's actually not on the footswitch that comes with it but it's it's MIDI accessible and the feature is called shred Apple II called shred so what shred will do is it kind of shifts the voicing up to like the higher mid and it's gonna accentuate like some gain in that area alright so I'm gonna have you engage the shred so engage the shred gauge right so you can have shred on either channel 2 or 3 in this case all you have to do is you just go up okay we'll go to channel 2 so you can do this by MIDI MIDI yeah as well yeah what's actually happening in shred mode then is this look more gain more no so what's so it's kind of taking like the the upper middle and emphasizing that's it's like it it's adding game and that upper oh yeah so kind of kind of thing where that guitar goes into hot feedback kind of thing yeah it kind of brings that out it was really creatively done you know the way that Randy boys did just it especially and I'll show you an advantage 7th string would be even better but do we have oh that's brutal I'm available okay so you want to go into it all right yeah so the Shred so the s right the other yeah you gotta love the name of it the other trick up my sleeve so I play a lot of seven string stuff I know a lot of players that do as well and that or that play drop tunings there's a song and our current set called as I am that's on our train of thought album words the guitar is tuned to see it's a two whole steps am a lot of players use 8-string guitar this shred feature is going to bring out clarity and aggression when you're playing those lower kind of riffs so what I'll do is all kind of chunk on a couple of low chords yeah and and I want you to engage shred all right so it's gonna be a straight two and three so while you're on so money to its kind now if you if this is all MIDI switchable so you wouldn't have to do that but anyway so here's a note shred [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] alright sounds like hey so just went this way you know the amp wasn't like yeah you know as aggressive enough and forward enough that shred will just put it over the top when did you first do the seven string thing I don't mean as him with any boy I just known as in as a player when did you first oh that was what when we went into the writing sessions for our awake album which is her third album we were in New York City I got delivered to me a Steve Vai hmm seven string that was the only one that was really the only one isn't it and it was black with green pickups and I picked it up and we wrote the mirror witness on that album which is I played the rough just now it's a very simple riff what is heavy and that just started you know the way that I kind of look at seven string guitar eventually eight which we're working on oh really yeah the way that I approach it is it's just like an extended range of the instrument so anything that I would play on a sixth string if I was doing a line and you know let's say that that line was in c-sharp and you know I wanted to do something like that right but it sounded like maybe too wimpy down here [Music] it just gives me more more range you know I mean John my own plays six string bass yeah he's able to go down there so why can't I but you you think with a night you'd go cuz I yeah I I don't know whether it's the width of the fretboard when you get to eight but I start to find that I just can't hold the thing like yeah guitar right right and the players that I think get them seen that I enjoy listening to that seem to get the most out of eight strings are almost like the sort of I don't know like the Stanley Jordan type player or whether where they all of a sudden it's not really traditional guitar anymore Messiah playing the piano on the guitar gotcha I often think with an eight-string it's like well why are you tuned the seven strings right right but but yeah you're quite comfortable with that wider border well I don't know because I now here's the reveal I haven't played one okay and in the same way this is my plan let's see no no it's gonna happen but this is my plan so in the same way that back in 1994 whatever that album came out 94 I'm not sure when we started writing it but when I got that seven string for the first time literally in the studio in front of the guys hey check this out and we started writing and that music came out of me playing that guitar I want to approach the eighth string in the same way so it's something we're developing now there's no schedule for when it does happen one day and I get it I want to be in the studio pick it up and start right here what happens and see what happens and not really think too much about it and think of it just kind of as an extension of range of the instrument yeah so this has been absolutely one of the favorite interviews I've ever done I you know apart from that five minutes I met you in LA not met you before didn't really know what you're going to be like but you know you set it down to earth humble kind of guy with some insane chops I got to ask you you know is what's next for you and Dream Theater and just you know you're gonna get other projects going on or you know yeah what's the future well future thank you for saying all those kind of words it's been great hanging out with you too this has been great thanks man I think it's a really cool series I watched a couple of the other ones you did with Paul and yeah yeah it's really cool well drink theater right now we're currently on tour as I said before celebrating images and words would you came out when I was half my age 25 years ago and we're taking that throughout Europe we just finished a bunch of UK dates up we'll be in Asia will be in the US and that'll take us through the year in August of this year August 7th to be exact I have my first ever guitar camp oh wow running yeah so it's called John Petrucci guitar universe yeah and it has a collection of some of the most insanely talented guitar players so it's me I'm not including myself in them but so me Tony MacAlpine yeah tosin Abasi Devin Townsend rusty Cooley Andy James from the UK here Andy McKee Jason Richardson a ridiculous amount of talent like these things when you just maybe you get a very limited number of spaces and you gotta spend a week with you yeah that's what it is so i think i think the max capacity is 200 it's in august august 7th to 11th in Glen Cove Long Island New York which is not too far from where I grew up yeah it's on the North Shore a bit further west and in part over Long Island we call the Gold Coast because it's filled with mansions and things like that and it'll be yeah four days of madness of instruction of hanging out barbecue spaces left on that there are so we put a link in there yeah there's not too many so you know I would get there quick this is the first one I've ever done I dropped in on Joe Satriani camp yeah in the same location I was just as I got free did a couple of the Joe Satriani Guthrie Govan did a couple of the Joe Satriani ones and I know he always enjoys that and I see a little bit of YouTube footage and it does it so cool it's it's insane to think that you can I know it's probably the equivalent of you know when you and I were teenagers of someone like I don't know Jimmy Page or Stevie Ray Vaughan yeah I just never did know it said it's so cool thanks very very cool yeah when I think about the the musicianship and the talent and the camaraderie that's gonna take place that's gonna be well I'm really looking forward to that and that'll be in August and then drink there we'll continue on in the fall you know with this tour and it will probably be in the studio next year so to eight-string concept album comes out yeah right it all depends on the timing if it links up you know I think we got our fill of concept album with the last the astonishing was our last album which was a huge huge project that took many years in the making not only in making the out but in in the tour and in developing the production for that tour and it was it was something that was like really rewarding but yeah it's so much work and time went into that so the next one will be non-conceptual probably heavy and use a lot of shrine it pop songs really we're gonna get back really playing some metal it'll be it's great well it man I I said it's such an honor to have you on the show thank you so much good luck with everything and everybody please round of applause John Petrucci thanks ma'am you got it I was having the same time cycle this is going to be the last night because I gotta pee like a race all right one of us broke [Music] you

Channel: Andertons Music Co

Views: 1,253,738

Keywords: Andertons, Andertons Music, Lee Anderton, The Captain, Andertons TV, john petrucci from dream theater, john petrucci interview, rig rundown, music man jp guitars, signature john petrucci guitar, how does john petrucci get his guitar tone?, john petrucci dunlop wah pedal, music man john petrucci majesty, jp16 guitar, shred, how does john petrucci approach guitar, guitar techniques, berklee music college, dream theatre, The Captain meets, Top 10 guitar players in the world

Id: 9FazMQa6JLI

Length: 115min 39sec (6939 seconds)

Published: Tue May 09 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/ScurrilousLlama]

Watched this last night. Really interesting. The one he did with Guthrie is pretty damn good too

[u/[deleted]]

I love how much of a gear nerd Petrucci is. He definitely did not just take a paycheck and slap his name on a random guitar, he seems really into the technology of it, the craftsmanship and everything, very cool!