“Really, It’s Just One Extra String...”

Dream Theater’s John Petrucci on his new eight-string guitar and the challenge of playing it

By Amit Sharma

The last few years have been incredibly prolific for John Petrucci. He’s built his own studio, recorded his second solo album and reunited with Liquid Tension Experiment to release their first new music in two decades. And now he’s back with Dream Theater, whose latest album A View From The Top Of The World features his brand-new eight-string signature...

Amit Sharma: How did you go about designing this eight-string Majesty?

John Petrucci: It’s been several years in the making. I guess the biggest challenge for both myself and Ernie Ball Music Man was that I’d never played an eight-string guitar and they’d never built one! The first thing that I did was ask any eight-string buddies, players like Tosin Abasi and the Periphery guys, about what they’d been looking for in their instruments. Some of the things that came up were multiple scale lengths, having a fixed bridge and fanned frets. I came to realise that these were the staple elements to do this right. Obviously DiMarzio had to develop eight-string pickups as well. Then we started wondering whether this would be a brand new guitar in design or would it be an eight-string version of one of my existing guitars. And we chose the latter, to create a new Majesty. We did experiment a little with a JP-15, a bolt-on version, but the Majesty looked slicker.

AS: What were the biggest challenges with making it?

JP: One problem we had – because we weren’t making the body larger even though the neck was wider – was making sure there was access to the higher frets. Because things can get in the way when the neck is that wide, like the bottom horn. We experimented with a very slight adjustment to the shape of the guitar, which no-one has actually noticed so far! It’s a tiny change to the bottom contour to allow for the larger neck. I’d actually wanted one for [2019 Dream Theater album] Distance Over Time but it wasn’t ready. So we really pushed it forward to make it happen this time. Fortunately, I was able to get a prototype back in January. We’d written all the songs except for ‘Awaken The Master’... It was just waiting for that eight-string!

AS: You’re well-versed in the art of the seven-string, which must have helped.

JP: The biggest thing is that it’s a Majesty, so it did feel familiar to me – that’s the main guitar I’ve played over my career. The shape is familiar while the neck is curved and thin, even though it had to be wider. And yeah, I’m very used to seven-strings, so really it’s just one extra string, which is tuned a 4th down meaning all my scale shapes transpose easily. It’s not like this bizarre tuning you have to figure out. Being able to instantly identify my scales and arpeggio shapes was very helpful. The hardest thing was chords – learning how to voice my ideas using those lower notes. While it feels super comfortable and easy to play, there is a certain amount of extra energy and pressure required from both hands because you have two really thick lower strings. You have to put a little more work into it. I noticed that I was using different muscles in my arm, just a little bit. After playing for an extended period of time, I’d feel this fatigue in my left hand after holding a wide neck like that. But it’s such a comfortable guitar to play – it’s a Majesty! Those things are like race cars that let you do what you need to do.

AS: Did you need to change your rig or settings much to accommodate for the extra low-end?

JP: We did, not too much, but we did dial a few things back. I recorded with the normal settings and one day our engineer told me he’d spent some time re-amping my performance through another one of my signature amps that he’d tweaked. He’d done something with the midrange and low end. Immediately I felt that it sounded better. Eight-strings have a lot of low-end information and my sound tends to be pretty thick, so carving some mids and lows using a powerful graphic EQ really helped the guitar sit better. I know [mixer] Andy Sneap also had a completely different approach for the guitar sound on that song. There were no drastic moves, it still sounds like me, but we EQ’d it to make sure it spoke properly and all that low-end information wasn’t getting lost or ending up muddy or flubby.