# Best Petrucci guitar tone - gear used



## smokinfudo (Mar 29, 2016)

Hi guys I'd like to know what do you think is the best guitar tone by Mr. John Petrucci. Please tell me also the rig used for the tone, details are welcome.

My favourite tone is from:

Supended Animation - JP6 - JP7 - Mesa Boogie Road King 1. 

I read he used also the guitar head with no overdrive or so on, so is pure Road King 1 tone.


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## slapnutz (Mar 29, 2016)

No really an album sound.. but I loved his recent 2014 Triaxis touring sound.


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## Genome (Mar 29, 2016)

smokinfudo said:


> Hi guys I'd like to know what do you think is the best guitar tone by Mr. John Petrucci. Please tell me also the rig used for the tone, details are welcome.
> 
> My favourite tone is from:
> 
> ...



There was a IIC+ on that record too.


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## Pablo (Mar 29, 2016)

To me, Petrucci's best _tones_ were on Falling into Infinity, Liquid Tension Experiment I and Age of Impact by Explorers Club... On FiI he used pretty much everything under the sun as far as Mesas go, wheras LTE I and Age of Impact were both recorded using the TriAxis/2:90 rig. His main guitars on these albums were Ibanez JPMs (i.e. an RG with the Steve's Special and Air Norton combo), but on FiI he also used both Strat, Les Paul and an Ibanez Talman with lipsticks.

Cheers

Eske


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## smokinfudo (Mar 29, 2016)

Genome said:


> There was a IIC+ on that record too.



Actually I read this post on grailtone forum where told about JP tone in suspended animation that is 100 % RK 1

I think lead is more crispy than MK IIC+ lead imo

here is the post 

"ok to clear up a lot of misinfo here that is said with so much conviction though a lot of it is false. JP has had a big physical cahnge as well, his hair and muscles, so you can tell what stage his gear was based on that. that video which was on the original thread was his basic dream theater world tour rig, not hte skydtrud or whatever one. it was on the one that octavarius posted. 



also he never used RK II. he always used RK I and it was only in one main touring rig. that rig is still in his home or wherever the storage is just the way it is. this came from him directly at a g3 meet and greet. he stopped using the RK because a) he wanted to change it up on their last album and one the G3 tour AND on the last legs of the octavarium tour and b) because he had problems with the channel switching and didnt want to bother with it because he was contemplating going back to the marks anyway. 


BUT.... the mark iic+ has always seemed thin for him thus hes always blended (with DR/ MKIV) or boosted (fulltone, ds1m, etc.) the amp for leads and stuff so he found a great balance on the last of their octavarium tour aka the score tone. which was the NUNYA, which is a iic+ preamp going into the 2:100. it gave him the magic of the iiC+ with more power to play songs from latter albums whidh had RK on it. 

while writing the new album he had all his amps there. mk iv, ii, rk, lone star, triaxis, and he ended up loving the mark iv the most during preproduction and everythign on the album except cleans (lone star) and repentance solo (lone star boosted) was a mark iv. some leads were a hybrid of the mark iv preamp and the iic+ power amp for ther huge tranny. every non clean tone had a mark iv in it. this has been said numerous times by him. 


so in that tone he was uising his RK and lonestar rigs. he never mixed the nunya in with the RK at all. the nunya was seperatye though it did make an appearance in his late 90's and early 2000's touring rigs. thats where it got its nickname NUNYA because when people asked mark snyder what the hell it was he repsonded with its NUNYA business (none of your business) so as a joke everyone calls it the nunya. 


and to clarify his latest rcords 


six degrees - dual rectifier, MOSTLY IIC+, other amps mixed in here and there. 


train of througt - 100% ROAD KING. even cleans. the lone star had not been released yet and he used the road king DRY no effects nothing. just a head and a cab and a back up stack in the studio. it was that simple. thats why it's is the dryest album of his. all effects were added during mixdown. and the solos only have a bit of delay and some reverb. it is a very stripped down bare bones heavy album. 



octavarium - road king again for everythign except cleans and lone star for cleans. and his guitars had the D sonic for the record btu the title track was recorded with his older guitars. 


suspended animation - same as train of thought. 100% road king dry dry dry all effects during mix 


budokan - RK + LS 

score - NUNYA + 2:100 (d sonic guitars + the BFR prototype with the gold plated virtual hot paf) 


systematic chaos - my least fav DT album btu it was 100% mark iv (some mark iic+ preamp for leads) and lone star for cleans and all of repentance. 



phew - so there it is. sorry for long post but there were so many statements in error i felt like it would help people who were confused. any one who is an avid JP fan can attest to almost anything i said as accurate as anyone except JP can tell you"


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## Genome (Mar 29, 2016)

From his opening notes in the JP2C manual:



> Fast forward to me and Dream Theater being fortunate enough to turn that youthful passion into a full-blown career in music and those moments of kindness, service, loyalty and tonal discovery worked their way into my life as a professional. So much so that you can hear a MESA/Boogie amp on every DT album ever recorded, live or studio, as well as on my 2005 solo album &#8216;Suspended Animation&#8217;.
> *
> In fact, nothing demonstrates the signature commanding presence of an iconic MARK IIC+ better than the opening riffs of &#8216;Jaws of Life&#8217; or &#8216;Damage Control&#8217; or defines the expressive and liquid lead tones I&#8217;ve come to love and rely on as in &#8216;Glasgow Kiss&#8217;.*


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## Esp Griffyn (Mar 29, 2016)

Images and Words was the best for me, that delicious Ibanez tone, the rhythm and lead tones were fantastic and those ultra-pure, soft cleans, just wow.


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## Given To Fly (Mar 29, 2016)

Genome said:


> From his opening notes in the JP2C manual:



If I recall correctly, Suspended Animation was recorded after the G3 tour. Otherwise, we would have had some idea of what he was going to play. Right? 

I'm pretty sure he was using RK's live because I could see them. Also, the stage was surrounded by the audience so there were no amps "hiding" anywhere. He opened with "Jaws of Life" and my life was forever changed! The album does not quite capture what I heard during that G3 concert.


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## Genome (Mar 29, 2016)

I'm not denying he was using them live on that tour, I was referring to the record.


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## lucasreis (Mar 29, 2016)

Awake.


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## HeHasTheJazzHands (Mar 29, 2016)

Falling Into Infinity. Mix of Mark IIC+/IV, Dual Recto, and Triaxis. 

Or Images and Words. I believe it was mostly Mesa TriAxis.

Both tones featured custom Ibanezes with a Steve's Special/Air Norton set.


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## Sermo Lupi (Mar 29, 2016)

slapnutz said:


> No really an album sound.. but I loved his recent 2014 Triaxis touring sound.




It's funny, I actually was watching that video back to back with the JP-2C video a few weeks back, and the Triaxis tone stood out to me as pretty lackluster by comparison. I'll post a different (and old) video below where the Triaxis tone is pretty stellar though...could just be that his settings that day were weird. Marco Sfogli also gets some awesome tone out of the Triaxis. 

Hard to isolate one era of Petrucci's sound that was the best, but here's a video from a workshop he did at MI back in the late 90s. The tone is really fantastic, from the cleans to the heavily overdriven stuff. The playing too of course! It's a long video, but click through it to find the various different tones he plays through. At some point he goes through his patches and explains some of the gear he uses. Cool stuff. (EDIT: Gear discussion starts around 30:30)

Also, while I haven't tried it, the JP-2C sounds pretty crazy in John's demo video. Posting below for reference.


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## Veldar (Mar 30, 2016)

Images and Words, the guitar tone had room for the bass to exist.


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## smokinfudo (Mar 30, 2016)

Genome said:


> From his opening notes in the JP2C manual:



Wow thank you for the link!! 

This is funny for me beacuse I made a lot of preset on AXE FX II using Dual Rectifier sim in order to get a Suspended Animation tone. I used tone matching on Jaws of life intro..

I was 100% wrong and now I will try to make a patch using 2C+


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## smokinfudo (Mar 30, 2016)

Sermo Lupi said:


> Hard to isolate one era of Petrucci's sound that was the best




I agree JP tones are always at highest level, I think there are tones that I like more then others on studio album.

The John Petrucci Throwback Thursday From the MI Vault 8/30/1998 great footage!!


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## Genome (Mar 30, 2016)

I'm usually more of a fan of his brighter tones, which he has moved away from recently. This is probably my favourite rhythm tone of his (starts about 30 secs in) which is a Mark IV I think: 



Having said that I really enjoyed the guitar sound on the new record which is fairly dark, but is just so textured and fat and is a massive improvement on the previous two records. The verse in A Better Life, with those chugs, big chords and pinch harmonics = just awesome.


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## smokinfudo (Mar 30, 2016)

Genome said:


> I'm usually more of a fan of his brighter tones, which he has moved away from recently. This is probably my favourite rhythm tone of his (starts about 30 secs in) which is a Mark IV I think:
> 
> 
> 
> Having said that I really enjoyed the guitar sound on the new record which is fairly dark, but is just so textured and fat and is a massive improvement on the previous two records. The verse in A Better Life, with those chugs, big chords and pinch harmonics = just awesome.




Me too, I like more brighter tones. I love guitar tones in train of thought that I think, buy I may be wrong, that are pure Road King (rectifier series) 




Actually I don't know if darker tones are due to guitar woods and neck, beacuse old EBMM JP model wood used were basswood body + Maple neck + rosewood fretboard bolt on, I'm talking about standard JP, and now the majesty is quite different, necktru more mahogany ebony ecc.

I have to say that I had a standard JP7 with CL Liquifire set and the tone were much brighter than my JP12 7 with the same pick ups set.


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## HeHasTheJazzHands (Mar 30, 2016)

Genome said:


> I'm usually more of a fan of his brighter tones, which he has moved away from recently. This is probably my favourite rhythm tone of his (starts about 30 secs in) which is a Mark IV I think:



I think this entire album was done with a Mark 5. Knowing Mesa, they probably let Trucci play with either a prototype or one of the very first ones.


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## Genome (Mar 30, 2016)

> I have to say that I had a standard JP7 with CL Liquifire set and the tone were much brighter than my JP12 7 with the same pick ups set.



I find the same with my 6 and 7 string which both have a CL/LF. I think it's because DiMarzio use Alnico on the 6 string version and their 7 string pickups are ceramic, so they sound different.

I could be wrong.

Edit: Woops, misread your post and thought you were talking about a 6 and 7 string, not two different 7's.


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## redstone (Mar 30, 2016)

Difference in album tones is 90% room/cab/mic/mix being used at the moment : precisely what you can't reproduce with mere amp/pedal settings and guitar skills.


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## Sermo Lupi (Mar 30, 2016)

redstone said:


> Difference in album tones is 90% room/cab/mic/mix being used at the moment : precisely what you can't reproduce with mere amp/pedal settings and guitar skills.



There's some truth to that, but your 90% statistic is fabricated. I don't even think it's a realistic ballpark. 

JP's also been making tweaks to his rigs since the very beginning, and I'm more inclined to trust his ear than yours. You'd think if as much as 90% of his tone is affected by settings in the studio, he'd just leave his rig unchanged and let the engineer perform his studio magic...


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## wankerness (Mar 30, 2016)

lucasreis said:


> Awake.



Yeah, that's BY FAR their best-sounding album IMO in all respects. Images and Words may have had good guitar tone, but that drum sound is so dated! That demo of "Take the Time" on the Silent Man single sounds much better just cause of the snare sound.


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## Kwirk (Mar 30, 2016)

Lead tone on Awake. Guessing he used a IIC+ for those.


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## Drew (Mar 30, 2016)

Given To Fly said:


> If I recall correctly, Suspended Animation was recorded after the G3 tour. Otherwise, we would have had some idea of what he was going to play. Right?
> 
> I'm pretty sure he was using RK's live because I could see them. Also, the stage was surrounded by the audience so there were no amps "hiding" anywhere. He opened with "Jaws of Life" and my life was forever changed! The album does not quite capture what I heard during that G3 concert.



His first G3 tour was my favorite tone of his, too, and I had an experience a lot like yours - I went mostly to see Satch, but thought it'd be cool to watch Vai play (who I wasn't as much of a fan of), and was just kind of interested to see what Petrucci would come up with outside of his band. Then, Petrucci's set FLOORED me, and had it not been for the fact that this was the first time I'd seen Satriani live and he totally surpassed my expectations live, JP would have been the highlight of that show for me. 

I have zero supporting evidence for this, but at least at the NYC show (drove down to the city to meed a friend there to watch), I was under the impression his rig was a IIC+ or some sort of Mark. The lead sound seemed a little _too_ smooth to be a Rectifier, and one of the thing that struck me about that show was how much more carefully sculpted his tone was than Satriani or Vai's - you could tell that they were used to playing solo and filling as much space as possible, whereas Petrucci was used to being in a band and sharing space with a keyboard player. I assumed that must have been related to his graphic EQ settings, since normally Mesas sound "bigger" to me than Marshall-y rigs. 

It's possible I was wrong, though, and it's possible his rig evolved over the course of the tour - I remember reading the album was mostly Road King, when it came time to record, so it could very well have become his live rig before the tour ended.

EDIT - 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSPC6du4F4g

2:45, as he turns away, that's clearly a Recto. So, maybe I'm wrong. And, after, god, probably 7 or 8 years with a Roadster, it's certaily possible to get smoother, more Mark-like tones out of Ch 3 on those things... Maybe that's why I've been so happy with the Roadster.


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## Genome (Mar 30, 2016)

HeHasTheJazzHands said:


> I think this entire album was done with a Mark 5. Knowing Mesa, they probably let Trucci play with either a prototype or one of the very first ones.



Did a bit of research because I am bored today - looks like it was a mix of IIC+, IV and a V

Hello all from JP!!


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## Zalbu (Mar 30, 2016)

His tone on Suspended Animation is nuts, it sounds like something they'd tried to replicate on the self titled Dream Theater album but fell short. The lead tone is textbook Petrucci and the rhythm tone is airy and not too gainy. I also like his more scooped tones like on Train of Thought, Octavarium and A Dramatic Turn Of Events. Too bad the mix on ADTOE is doo-doo


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## Sunyata (Mar 30, 2016)

IMO Awake is the quintessential Petrucci tone. For both Lead and Rhythm.


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## redstone (Mar 30, 2016)

Sermo Lupi said:


> There's some truth to that, but your 90% statistic is fabricated. I don't even think it's a realistic ballpark.
> 
> JP's also been making tweaks to his rigs since the very beginning, and I'm more inclined to trust his ear than yours. You'd think if as much as 90% of his tone is affected by settings in the studio, he'd just leave his rig unchanged and let the engineer perform his studio magic...



You're blowing his tweaks out of proportions. No rich guitar nerd leaves their rig unchanged and the changes are not as drastic as you might thing they are ; in terms of tone in the room, that is.


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## Sermo Lupi (Mar 30, 2016)

redstone said:


> You're blowing his tweaks out of proportions. No rich guitar nerd leaves their rig unchanged and the changes are not as drastic as you might thing they are ; in terms of tone in the room, that is.



I'm just not sure I understand what you're saying. Have you ever played a (for example) Mark IV and a Dual Rectifier side by side? They're totally different amps. Even a Mark IV in two different rooms with two different cabs is going to produce a sound that is more 'Mark IV-like' than a Rectifier in the same room as the Mark IV with the same cab. All the factors you mention hugely contribute to your sound, sure, but it doesn't make gear choice negligible, that's kind of an absurd thing to say. 

The change in sound of John Petrucci's tone over the years absolutely does reflect his his gear choices. Recording methods and all that jazz shouldn't be ignored, but I'm not sure Petrucci's personal changes only amount to 10% of his sound.


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## Black_Sheep (Mar 30, 2016)

The first LTE album, dunno what gear he exactly used on that one (?)


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## Genome (Mar 30, 2016)

Is it just me who's not a fan of the Awake tone? Am I committing sacrilege?


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## HeHasTheJazzHands (Mar 30, 2016)

Genome said:


> Is it just me who's not a fan of the Awake tone? Am I committing sacrilege?




You're honestly not alone. I felt Awake sounded too fuzzy and muddy, especially with the 7-string songs. Falling Into Infinity is a huge improvement. More mids, tighter sound, more oomph... I feel Awake's tone is very overrated.


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## Genome (Mar 30, 2016)

Yeah. Those chugs at the start of The Mirror sound so much better with a tighter Mark tone.


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## Arkeion (Mar 30, 2016)

Man, I'm the only one to say the DT self-titled. I love the .... out of that album. The guitar tone is probably one of my favorites ever. I'm not really sure what gear he used on that album.


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## smokinfudo (Mar 31, 2016)

Sermo Lupi said:


> I'm just not sure I understand what you're saying. Have you ever played a (for example) Mark IV and a Dual Rectifier side by side? They're totally different amps. Even a Mark IV in two different rooms with two different cabs is going to produce a sound that is more 'Mark IV-like' than a Rectifier in the same room as the Mark IV with the same cab. All the factors you mention hugely contribute to your sound, sure, but it doesn't make gear choice negligible, that's kind of an absurd thing to say.
> 
> The change in sound of John Petrucci's tone over the years absolutely does reflect his his gear choices. Recording methods and all that jazz shouldn't be ignored, but I'm not sure Petrucci's personal changes only amount to 10% of his sound.



I totally agree, I mean recording mixing mastering are important, but IMO Guitar - pick ups - amp - cab give the "raw material" that are shaped by the mixing engineer that is more than 10 % of the entire process in order to get guitar tracks for a song. 

If room and mic will be 90 % of the sound I could buy an used Marshall transitor head and get a Mark IIC+ tone in studio that I think it will be very hard to get.


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## thedonal (Mar 31, 2016)

For me, the tones on Images and Words are probably my favourite.

Though the rhythm crunch on The Glass Prison (my inspiration for getting a seven string) is great- earthy and nice. I'm guessing this is the dual rec. 

I've always focussed more on the playing and music than the tones on DT albums- I guess a great tone should do this as it suits the music so well.


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## Drew (Mar 31, 2016)

smokinfudo said:


> If room and mic will be 90 % of the sound I could buy an used Marshall transitor head and get a Mark IIC+ tone in studio that I think it will be very hard to get.



Yeah, I was going to let that one go, too, but you could take a Recto, throw it in any room, and close mic it almost anywhere... And it's still going to sound pretty much like a Recto. You can do a lot to shape the recorded tone of an amp with mic positioning and the like, but you're not going to change the fundamental character of what you're picking up. 

Besides, if Petrucci can be believed, he's settled on a SM57 and a MD421 on the grill of his amp facing down a large room as his go-to mic combo/position, and hasn't really been varying that over the last few albums. His gear, however, HAS been evolving...


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## Given To Fly (Apr 4, 2016)

smokinfudo said:


> Wow thank you for the link!!
> 
> This is funny for me beacuse I made a lot of preset on AXE FX II using Dual Rectifier sim in order to get a Suspended Animation tone. I used tone matching on Jaws of life intro..
> 
> I was 100% wrong and now I will try to make a patch using 2C+



It entirely possible "Jaws of Life" sounds better on a Road King than it does on a Mark IIC+. It's also possible that when you use a lot of gain and a wah pedal the amp makes less of a difference than we think. The only reason I'm taking this revelation personally is because I really like that song.


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## Drew (Apr 4, 2016)

Given To Fly said:


> It entirely possible "Jaws of Life" sounds better on a Road King than it does on a Mark IIC+. It's also possible that when you use a lot of gain and a wah pedal the amp makes less of a difference than we think. The only reason I'm taking this revelation personally is because I really like that song.



Listen, both are KILLER sounding amps - I don't think you could go wrong with either.


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## scrub (Apr 4, 2016)

perhaps I should be embarrassed to say this, but I really liked the "a dramatic turn of events" tone.


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## JSanta (Apr 4, 2016)

Always loved is I&W tone as well as both LTE albums. For me, when I think of "the" Petrucci tone, Images and Words always seems to be the best.


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## Furtive Glance (Apr 4, 2016)

I am partial to his LTE 1 lead tone and this one in particular:
https://youtu.be/VsKZMPF8Xz8?t=3m27s
(Goodnight Kiss from Score. Dat first note!)

Rhythm - I basically love all of them. Just such a great collection of everything in his catalogue from Awake, Train of Thought etc. 



I just watched a million different versions of Lie on Youtube because of this thread...


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## onefingersweep (Apr 5, 2016)

My favourite is definitely with the MKIIC+, especially on Scenes from a Memory.

The worst sound he's ever had was the lead sounds on "Dream Theater". I don't know what the hell he did there but it sounds really terrible, I like the music on that album though. A part from his horrible lead sound on that album my least favourite sounds by him is always when he use the RoadKing, I really don't like those amps and especially not the sounds JP is getting out of them, too much muddy gain, farty and ugly sound that I don't like. The clean sounds he gets out of them is good, although I'm not entirely sure he ever used the RK's for cleans?



Sunyata said:


> IMO Awake is the quintessential Petrucci tone. For both Lead and Rhythm.



I think the rhythm is great on that album, lead not so great but definitely good.


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## MENACE329 (May 3, 2016)

Images and words is my favorite, but I think it is partially nostalgia for me. 
I personally think he just cannot seem to find "the one" tone.... it seems he has been searching for a long time. Maybe he never will, but we can all enjoy the stuff he records and plays live until that fateful day...


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## TheShreddinHand (May 14, 2016)

Does anyone know what Dimarzio pickups JP was using in his 7 string Ibanez guitars prior to the EBMM days? I'm sure the Awake Universe was Blazes but what about his JPM7 that he had and used in the late 90s (Acid Rain, Dance of Eternity for the album)? Also blazes? There weren't many other Dimarzio offerings in the 7 department at that time I think.


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## HeHasTheJazzHands (May 14, 2016)

Pretty sure they were Blazes. He used custom-made DiMarzios when he endorsed EBMM for the first few years.


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## TheShreddinHand (May 16, 2016)

HeHasTheJazzHands said:


> Pretty sure they were Blazes. He used custom-made DiMarzios when he endorsed EBMM for the first few years.



Yup, what I figured. Thanks!


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## Science_Penguin (May 16, 2016)

Images and Words hands-down is my favourite. 

There's a very particular tone that sprung up in the late 80's and through the 90's which a lot of non-grunge guitarists seemed to use at the time- very smooth and warm, kind of hot, but not searing, and a good deal of compression. That's the tone he had on this album, and I've always really enjoyed it.

Growing up in the 90's I played a lot of the early CD-based Sega games, around the time companies suddenly realised "Hey, now we can use REAL instruments for the soundtrack instead of chip tunes!" and most of the time, if you heard a guitar on those, it had that kind of tone. Sonic CD's North American soundtrack is a fine example, as well as Sega Rally Championship (which, reportedly, the guitar work on that was done by Joe Satriani) and a little later on, Sonic Adventure.

So, nearly fifteen years later, hearing Images and Words for the first time was almost like a nostalgia trip, and I think that's why I like it over all the others.

That said, it is probably his least unique sound exactly for that reason that so many guitarists had it at the time. In fact, as I later discovered, its very easily achieved with a set of EMG's.


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## NorCal_Val (May 16, 2016)

lucasreis said:


> Awake.



This.(and real drums too!!)


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## MatthewK (May 17, 2016)

My favorite would definitely be Images and Words. I believe he used a Roland Jazz Chorus for cleans on that one.


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## Exodus5 (May 18, 2016)

Esp Griffyn said:


> Images and Words was the best for me, that delicious Ibanez tone, the rhythm and lead tones were fantastic and those ultra-pure, soft cleans, just wow.


I agree. Sometime after he changed over to EBMM his sound changed in a way I didn't like.


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