Face the Rack: Dream Theater John Petrucci’s stage rig...

Oh you lucky people. Not only do we give you a massive transcription and a three page appreciation of this fantastic band, but here’s Gareth Smith facing the rack with John’s guitar tech, Mark Snyder...

Dream Theater first grabbed the public’s attention with the release of ‘ Images And Words’ in 1992, but the story behind this powerful Prog Rock band begins much earlier.

In 1985 guitarist John Petrucci and bassist John Myung met up with drummer Mike Portnoy while attending Berklee College of Music in Boston. Myung had already played with keyboardist Kevin Moore in their home town of Kings Park, Long Island. During their first term at Berklee, Portnoy, Petrucci and Myung rehearsed daily on original material.

During the Christmas of 1985 Kevin Moore joined the trio and they named the band Majesty. In March 1986, vocalist Chris Collins completed the lineup and the band members did not return to school in the fall of 1986.

Difficulties arose with Collins and he was asked to leave. Charlie Dominici then joined on vocals and was felt to be the perfect replacement. One final obstacle was the name; Majesty had already been copyrighted so Dream Theater was chosen (Dream Theater is an old celluloid palast movie theatre in California).

Since then the band have changed vocalist for a third time (it’s now James LaBrie) and John Petrucci has rapidly risen to be one of the most influential Rock guitarists around.

A quick glance at the American guitar press reveals pleas for any information concerning the talents, techniques and equipment that Mr. Petrucci employs.

So, not only have we the transcription of Under A Glass Moon and the interview with JP in this month’s issue, but I was lucky enough to get together with John’s guitar tech on your behalf to talk about the machinery involved in creating the Petrucci sound. The man in question is Mark Snyder.

“I’ve been building John’s racks for a while now,” states Mark, “and I came out last year on the European tour because he got into a bind when his original tech left. Since then I’ve been on and off; I don’t do much touring, but when I do I primarily work for John, Vernon Reid and John Sykes. I mostly build racks though, but I’ve been good friends with John for a long time so here I am.”

So what exactly has Mr Petrucci got in his rack?

‘Well, it’s pretty much all Boogie. He’s got two Triaxis preamps which he uses together. But he also runs two other MESA/Boogie amps; an old MkII and a Dual Rectifier which he uses dry; it’s only through his Triaxis that he runs his effects rig. That’s basically a Lexicon PCM-70 and a TC Electronics 2290 and they go into two MESA 290 power amps, one of which he uses for his main sound and the other for his monitors – and they’re MESA/Boogie wedges as well! There’s a lot of stuff in the rack but the signal chain is pretty simple; it’s really only those two effects processors.

“But there are a lot of different preamp choices that he can combine. On his pedalboard he just has the Abacus MIDI switch and a volume pedal. The volume pedal is a VCA (voltage controlled amplifier) so there’s no actual audio signal running to it, and there’s also a Dunlop remote wah. The only signal running through the board is for John’s tuner, which is on a different tap. It’s all done via a multipin, one connecter going from the rack.

“For the album ‘Awake’ I sent John one of my amps, which was an old Boogie MkIIC Plus; he freaked over it and used it on the whole album. Then when he went back out on tour he was kind of missing it, so I brought it out to him for the Japanese tour.

“John’s always looking to improve his rig, change stuff around and do all kind’s of freaky things. So we decided to add the second guitar amp dry, which was the Dual Rectifier. Originally we were just using the one head, but then we rack mounted the MkII and the Rectifier together and did some multipinning to connect the two racks. We started to use the wet rig – the TriAxis, the effects and power amp – and the dry head through two separate cabinets. But now we’ve added the second head, the MkII, so he’s got left and right stereo, two cabinets receiving the wet signal and two heads and cabs providing the dry signal; the MkII on the left and the Rectifier on the right.”

When I spoke to Mark, Dream Theater were doing a one-off gig in the confines of Ronnie Scott’s club in London. So certain alterations to John’s standard requirements had to be made.

“Today we have the cabinets split,” says Mark. “Each amp is running half a cabinet, so there are two speakers left, two speakers right, two speakers MkII and two speakers Rectifier. That’s just for this gig.”

Is John still using Ibanez guitars?

“Yeah, he’s got sixes and sevens and he also uses an acoustic now on the set. He has three sixes with him with the Picasso graphics and two seven strings – one primarily, as a backup – and an Ibanez acoustic.

“He hasn’t really got a main guitar; he switches between the three six strings and the white seven. And he hardly ever breaks a string; in fact I don’t remember him ever breaking a string. Of course we do change them every day, and when he gets a new guitar I’ll play it in and adjust it. His preferred action is about 16th of an inch (4/64”) at the 12th fret. He likes the neck fairly tight (the truss rod adjusted so the neck is straight, not underbowed), but not so tight that it buzzes on the low frets. And he likes it really slippery; he uses Fastfret and Finger Ease and puts talcum powder on the back of the neck. I also wet sand the backs of the necks every so often with 600 grade paper to get them super, super smooth. It’s almost like no finish, but it feels like there is a finish there; he just likes that real smooth feel. For string gauges on the sixes he uses nine to 46 and on the sevens it’s nine to 46 with a 56 on the low B.”

Is the seven string different to set up from the standard six string models?

“Definitely. The action has to be a hair higher than a 1/16. The neck reacts a little differently and the nut is a little different to set and it takes a while to get used to. You have to make a few adjustments with the neck; and you can’t have it adjusted too tight because the low B will be too flappy and hit against the frets.”