DREAM THEATER Guitarist Talks Gear In New Video Interview

Video footage of guitarist John Petrucci of progressive metal giants DREAM THEATER talking about using the Mesa Boogie Mark V during the recording sessions for the band's new album, "A Dramatic Turn Of Events", and subsequent tour can be viewed below. Also available is footage of Petrucci's guitar tech Matt "Maddi" Shieferstein walking you through the signal path and gear in Petrucci's Mark V rig for DREAM THEATER's 2011 tour for "A Dramatic Turn Of Events".

In a recent interview with MusicPlayers.com, Petrucci was asked if he had using Mark V amps exclusively during the "Dramatic" sessions. "Yeah, everything was Mark V," he replied. "I brought in the Mark V and that was to be my amp of choice. I had a Mark IIc+ in there and a Dual Rec I think I brought in the Rectifier. I had them all set up, for comparisons' sake. But everything ended up being the V in the end. I just found that I was able to get, really, all the best tones I was looking for out of that one amp. The clean was just gorgeous. The rhythm sound was really, really tight and just rich and chunky. And then the lead sound was very expressive and juicy. And I used a different mode on the amp for all three of those sounds, which is a total testament to how versatile that amplifier is. I mean, it does everything for me. Pretty incredible. It was a really great experience working with that amp. It was effortless."

When asked if he made any significant changes to his effects rig for the new album recording, Petrucci said, "Well, just to go back for one second about the lead sound and the rhythm sound, just to show the versatility of that amp. The rhythm sound is the Mark IV of that amp. And the lead sound is the Mark IIc+ mode of that amp in triode setting with the tubes. And I had the gain kind of backed way down, so it sounds like there's a lot of gain, but there actually was a lot less gain on the solos, which I think creates that kind of liquid-y, juicy sound that youre talking about. As far as the effects, it was really minimal. When we were writing the [album], I wrote the whole thing with the [Fractal Audio] Axe-FX, so all the demos and everything was that unit. And then, when we went to record, every so often there was a sound or a little thing that I did from the demo. It was like, you know what? That sounds really good, there's no real reason to replay that. The little clean solo in 'This Is The Life', towards the beginning, that was a demo Axe-FX track. The clean part in the breakdown of 'Breaking All Illusions' before the guitar solo, that was a demo Axe-FX part. So, little parts like that I kept."