New Mesa Boogie John Petrucci JP-2C amplifier!

I hope Mesa Boogie has Petrucci sit down with Doug West and do an in-depth, mic'ed demo, like the one they did with Andy Timmons for the Mark Five: 25:







Or if not, at least another of these "fly on the wall" style demos:









Whatever the case, can't wait to hear it. :)

Yes, i hope so we could tonematch it :)
 
Trying to sell one guitar before I order this amp. I was actually IIC+ hunting last year but couldn't find the one I wanted for a fair price. EBMM showed this amp off with the JP16 at namm but they seem to be keeping the video for themselves or something. Hopefully they post it soon.
 
Listening to the new Dream Theater right now. Just got the download note from HDTracks, Sweet!
Supposedly all recorded with the new Mesa signature amp. Sounds fantastic, but then again it is JP so... it's going to sound fantastic no matter what.
 
I'm working my way through The Astonishing too. I bought the HDTracks version last night and listened to a few tracks before bed and thought it sounded excellent. I've been listening to the Spotify version at work and I'm pretty pleased. There's a lot of music to digest though!

I was nervous after Breaking the Fourth Wall that this release might not sound very good, but that hasn't been the case.

Can't wait to see them in May!
 
I guess it could make sense for Cliff to model this amp, after all, I've read loads about how every IIC+ sounds different due to component variances, component drift over the years, etc. So if this is based on / sounds exactly like Petrucci's favorite IIC+, it will still likely sound different than the non-eq IIC+ Cliff has.

I mean, we have a bunch of different plexi's, why not a couple different IIC+'s?
 
Kind of disappointing with the tone in this demo. I sounds very "deep" and empty (a bit muddy too). Too much bass and not enough mids/highs imo. I'm assuming it's the way it was miked (I tend not to like his mic'ed tone in the Mesa produced demos, save for the Mark five: 25 one, which had some really good tones in it).


I much prefer the tone he has in the Ernie Ball produced demos he did for all his signature guitars. Here he's demoing just a couple of "budget" Sterling guitars, using an actual Mark IIc+:





 
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Yeah it's the mic technique. I believe that's three mics blended together and one is a Royer which has a lot of low end.
 
Yeah it's the mic technique. I believe that's three mics blended together and one is a Royer which has a lot of low end.


Right, someone on another forum I post on replied pretty much the same thing to me.

I Re-watched/listened to it on my TV/surround sound system via my Roku and it just sounds like there's too much low mids, which are overpowering the rest of the tone and make everything sound "cloudy", for lack of a better word. I wonder how much better it would have sounded if the 250Hz slider were lowered some and maybe the 2200Hz & 6600Hz raised a little and/or it was only miked with a SM57?.


Out of curiosity, what do you think of the tone, and in the Ernie Ball ones I posted?
 
Right, someone on another forum I post on replied pretty much the same thing to me.

I Re-watched/listened to it on my TV/surround sound system via my Roku and it just sounds like there's too much low mids, which are overpowering the rest of the tone and make everything sound "cloudy", for lack of a better word. I wonder how much better it would have sounded if the 250Hz slider were lowered some and maybe the 2200Hz & 6600Hz raised a little and/or it was only miked with a SM57?.


Out of curiosity, what do you think of the tone, and in the Ernie Ball ones I posted?
Well I'm a huge fan of Petrucci's tones. He always sounds good. I think his best guitar tones start from the Liquid Tension era (Acid Rain tone is amazing!) and forward. I love that he's always changing things up and coming up with new tones. It just so happens that lately I've felt like I miss his older tones a bit. I loved the Recto era although after A/Bing a Roadster and Mark IV side by side I ended up preferring the Mark series a lot more with it's flexibility. Systematic Chaos is one of the best guitar sounds ever. "Forsaken" and that second verse punch is just unmatchable. This is one of the reasons I even create "Alloy IR's" which is essentially me trying to create that similar nice roaring phase with playing with the microphone distances. On that album JP had so many different mic ups and they all sounded really good. Constant Motion is a lot brighter than f.ex. TDEN. The latest two albums were not my cup of tea musically nor tonally sadly. It might be a part of me growing out of that genre but I feel like many people feel the same, right?

I feel like it has everything to do with the mic technique. Many JP fans ask me to create IR's with the Shure KSM mic but I think most of us agree that JP had better sounds using the SM57 or SM57+MD421 combo right? Now he stopped using that mic and did something different once again which obviously I wanted to see happen but I feel like the low end is a bit uncontrollable. I love more balanced tones personally.

Do you guys agree?
 
I feel like it has everything to do with the mic technique. Many JP fans ask me to create IR's with the Shure KSM mic but I think most of us agree that JP had better sounds using the SM57 or SM57+MD421 combo right? Now he stopped using that mic and did something different once again which obviously I wanted to see happen but I feel like the low end is a bit uncontrollable. I love more balanced tones personally.

Do you guys agree?

Couldn't agree more about his old tones vs new tones. I think my all time favorite tone of him is 97-2002 era (LTE albums upto 6DOIT). SM57 and MD421 were a great combo and worked for his style and playing. I really don't like the tone on the self titled record. The last one (The Astonishing) has great lead tones though.
 
Well I'm a huge fan of Petrucci's tones. He always sounds good. I think his best guitar tones start from the Liquid Tension era (Acid Rain tone is amazing!) and forward. I love that he's always changing things up and coming up with new tones. It just so happens that lately I've felt like I miss his older tones a bit. I loved the Recto era although after A/Bing a Roadster and Mark IV side by side I ended up preferring the Mark series a lot more with it's flexibility. Systematic Chaos is one of the best guitar sounds ever. "Forsaken" and that second verse punch is just unmatchable. This is one of the reasons I even create "Alloy IR's" which is essentially me trying to create that similar nice roaring phase with playing with the microphone distances. On that album JP had so many different mic ups and they all sounded really good. Constant Motion is a lot brighter than f.ex. TDEN. The latest two albums were not my cup of tea musically nor tonally sadly. It might be a part of me growing out of that genre but I feel like many people feel the same, right?

I feel like it has everything to do with the mic technique. Many JP fans ask me to create IR's with the Shure KSM mic but I think most of us agree that JP had better sounds using the SM57 or SM57+MD421 combo right? Now he stopped using that mic and did something different once again which obviously I wanted to see happen but I feel like the low end is a bit uncontrollable. I love more balanced tones personally.

Do you guys agree?

Systematic Chaos is by far my favorite DT guitar sounds, but I don't really like much of the album outside the first two tracks. The Forsaken tone in particular is up there as something I have been trying to recreate in the axe fx and line 6 Vetta before that. Is there a Recto in there? Or just Mark IV?

In the Presence of Enemies Part One may be my one of my favorite DT songs and I have been trying to play it ever since it came out.
 
Systematic Chaos is by far my favorite DT guitar sounds, but I don't really like much of the album outside the first two tracks. The Forsaken tone in particular is up there as something I have been trying to recreate in the axe fx and line 6 Vetta before that. Is there a Recto in there? Or just Mark IV?

In the Presence of Enemies Part One may be my one of my favorite DT songs and I have been trying to play it ever since it came out.
There was a rumor that they used a Dual Recto on Forsaken but I doubt it. There's a studio video where you can see a Recto on the background but I think people misunderstood that it was being used. It might just be a part of the gear that was tested in the studio. The phasy growl of it sounds very Mark IV esque to me at least and honestly I don't know why they'd use the Recto for that one song although it's a different tuning. Anyways the mic up is more important and until this day I haven't been able to find a good spot in that song to try and measure the spectrum of that guitar sound. The closest IR I have for that tone is one of the preset IR's in Cab Pack 7. It was named accordingly to make it obvious that it's close to the "Systematic Chaos" tone but it's closer to Constant Motion. ;)
 
Saw this on SevenString.org
Entire signal chain:
Ernie Ball Music Man Guitar(Majesty/ JP 15/ JP 16)—> TRS Cable to Framtone A/B Box
A/B box Piezo OUT—> ISO Transformer —> TC Electronic BodyRez pedal —> Acoustic signal DI to FOH —> PA and Monitors
A/B Box Magnetic OUT —>
RJM Tone Saver(Out 2 feeds TC Electronic Polytune2 Blacklite Tuner on pedalboard)
RJM Tone Saver Out 1—> Jim Dunlop Guitar Products JP95 Wah Pedal (Mounted in rack chasis)
JP95 Wah Pedal —> RJM Mini Effects Gizmo loop switcher IN
Loop 1: TC Electronic Hyper Gravity compressor
Loop 2: Keeley Red Dirt Overdrive pedal
Loop 3: TC Electronic Helix Phaser pedal
Loop 4: TC Electronic Viscous Vibe pedal
Loop 5: TC Electronic John Petrucci Dreamscape pedal(2 daisy chained together for different sounds. Manually switched between)
RJM MEG OUT —> Mesa Boogie JP2C Amp INPUT
Mesa Boogie JP2C Amp FX Loop SEND —> Fractal Audio Axefx XL+ INPUT
Fractal Axefx XL+ OUT 1 L/R —> Mesa Boogie JP2C FX Loop RETURN(Amp 1 and Amp 2. Amp 2 used as power amp for main cabinet sound)
Mesa Boogie JP2C Amp 1 and 2 Speaker Outs —> 2x Mesa Boogie Recto 1x12 cabs(mic’d for PA and Monitors)
Fractal Axefx XL+ OUT 2 L/R —> Mesa Boogie 20/20 DynaWatt power amp( Drives Mesa Boogie Mini Recto 1x12 Slant cabs for monitor wedges)
Pedalboard: RJM Mastermind GT22 Midi Controller
Ernie Ball Volume Pedal
Dunlop JP95 Wah Pedal(control for rack mounted JP95)
TC Electronic Polytune2 Blacklite tuner
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