petrucci's mark iv and settings

[vhyken]

I've been researching his amp and noticed the Lead1 Lead2 sticker infront and at the back of his amp. The class a external footswitch has been labeled Lead1/2. By watching his mesaboogie rig video of his mark iv, he said that his lead has more gain than his crunch channel and the + on his pedal board lit.

While i was dialing in his settings, i tried pulling out the drive knob enabling the bright mode of the lead channel and noticed that it also added gain in the lead channel.

I think that his mark iv was modded by changing the class a external footswitch to allow having to toggle the bright pulled bright pushed by a footpedal. So may be his crunch is lead channel with bright switch pushed in and his lead isead channel with bright switch pulled.

 

[ryjan]

No.

 

[chipaudette]

@ryjan, Do you know how Petrucci's amps were modded to give two lead channels?

I always assumed that the whole amp was wired in lead mode and that the switching of the front end was modded to simply toggle between the tone stacks and gain knobs of the lead channel vs rhythm channel. That way, everything was "lead", but that he had two possible settings for gain and tone controls.

Do you know what really happens in his amps?

 

[Bullen]

Accordng to JP himself, his Mark IV´s were stock. No mods. I don´t know what that sticker means either. As for the Simul class/classA switch, Perhaps he wanted the option to be able to wwitch to Class A for quiter passages. I don´t know.
Don´t know what the lead+ on the pedal board means either.

Keep in mind that he did use two Mark IV´s in his rig. One for rhythm and one for lead, with different settings. He did crank the lead drive to 10 on one of the amps, that´s why his lead tones have more gain. He also used some different od pedals to give him even more gain if he needed it. Also he used both of the IV´s poweramps all the time for stereo effects.

Yes, both the "Pull Fat" and "Pull Bright" add gain to the lead channel. At higher volumes you need to push the bright in, or the amp will feedback like hell. I always keep the Fat pulled.

 

[chipaudette]

In all the pictures of his rig, it has always appeared to me like his Mark IV amps were modded to yield two lead channels. I also know that he always claimed that his amps were not modded. I've always had a hard time reconciling these two opinions. Here's how what I chose to believe...

I, John Petrucci, know that i have a massive number of guitar-playing fans who will slavishly try to recreate my tone.

I, John Petrucci, am a good guy and I don't want my fans wasting their time (and money) chasing inconsequential changes in my equipment.

I, however, did have my Mark IV's modded to give me two lead channels (but losing the clean channel). The modifications don't affect any tone elements, it just always keeps the lead circuit on regardless of whether I've hit the "rhythm" or "lead" button. The result is that I've now got two sets of gain knobs and two sets of tone controls. In either case, the whole signal path involves elements with all the right values and in all the right order.

Therefore, I, John Petrucci, decide to call my amps "unmodified" because the mods don't affect the sound, and I want to keep my fans from wasting their time and money.


That's my BS theory. I have no evidence...but it helps me reconcile the differences that I perceive between the pics/movies of his amps versus his words. YMMV.

Chip

 

[ryjan]

Or.......he simply has 2 amps that are set up differently.
Your logic is severely flawed. What could possibly be the benefit of modding a Mark IV to have a clone of it's lead channel in the rhythm channel? It would be easier, cheaper, and less time consuming to simply use another amp. Besides that, with all his effects, stomp boxes, and boosts switching via midi, how do you know that the little "+" doesn't just switch on a TS pedal or something?

 

[chipaudette]

In my opinion, there's a lot of demand out there for two "lead" channels on the Mark IV (or V)...one for metal/rock rhythm and one for metal/rock solos. Completely separate from the Petrucci discussion, I'm a little surprised that no one has suggested this modification before.

Back on the Petrucci issue, heads take up a lots of space in the rack...especially if you then double all your gear if you have a backup rig on tour, too (like, I believe, Petrucci often does). If Petrucci wants to double the number of Mark IV lead flavors available to him, my notional mod gives it to him without having to cram more heads in his rack.

The downside of my notional mod is that you loose R1 and R2. To my knownledge, though, Petrucci hasn't used the clean channel on his Mark amps in a long, long time (cleans were via lonestar?). If you give up R1 and R2, the mod that I envision is pretty darned easy.

But, like I said, I have no evidence...just pointless daydreams...

Chip

 

[SonicProvocateur]

I think just his "sparkly" cleans, and the portions where he switches to the piezo pickup are with the lonestar, though I may be wrong. For a guy who's said he even uses stock Mesa tubes and ran 3 IIC+s, I see it illogical to mod out a clean channel. Petrucci strikes me as a skillmeister to try and use every ounce of available amp to him, the clean channel included to just "get" extra tone.

I don't know how much he used the Triaxis or the Roadkings in that era, but from everything i've ever seen, Petrucci seems to like trying stuff be inspired by sound, less the Van Halen method of hotodding amps. He's more "make a giant pile of amps and see how much awesome I can get out of it" school of thought, I believe. We've all seen his racks, and Petrucci doesn't travel light. On the subject of his settings: studio mastering does magic - Youtube is for the birds.

 

[Bullen]

The downside of my notional mod is that you loose R1 and R2. To my knownledge, though, Petrucci hasn't used the clean channel on his Mark amps in a long, long time (cleans were via lonestar?). If you give up R1 and R2, the mod that I envision is pretty darned easy.

Chip

Actually he did use the clean mode on the IV on the systematic chaos tour. Look at the live rig demo on youtube. It´s the spankier, tighter clean sound with the phaser that he uses when he plays the riff from Take the Time on that video. I think he mentions using it too. The Lone Star was the main clean, but he did use the IV´s clean mode.

On his pedal board you can see the instant access switches for amp control. It reads: Mark IV-clean-lead (x2 for controlling each amp). He also has had switches for the lonestars two channels.

I really don´t think the amps were modded. He had two of them for different sounds. One for lead and one for crunch. I´ve seen the DVD from that tour plenty of times and as far as I can tell, he doesn´t really use a lot of different core tones. Two different cleans, one tight and funky (Mark IV) and one a bit warmer (Lonestar). One heavy crunch (Mark IV lead channel with slightly less gain) and one lead tone (Mark IV with the drive cranked and perhaps a OD pedal to boost it some more. Lead+?). He had access to the Lonestar lead ch aswell so he might have used it for some things. The rest is just different effects and pickup combinations.

So it´s probably like this:
Clean 1: Lonestar
Clean 2: Mark IV
Main crunch: Mark IV (A)
Main lead: Mark IV (B)
Alt lead: Lonestar

 

[vhyken]

ok.. so i just watched the mesa boogie video again and reviewed his systematic chaos rig settings.. and here's what i have found..

- his 1st head has a setting of drive at 10.. I think this is his main head for his CRUNCH.
- the 2nd head has a setting of drive at 7.5.. I think he dialed in his drive that low to add his keeley ts9dx for extra gain.

And by reviewing his pedal board, i dont see any footswitch labeled TS9DX.. so that leads me to conclude that the footswitch labeled + is the Keeley TS9DX..

I hope tekwerk would clear this for us


Regarding the MOD..

I think if JP would mod his Mark IV.. He would use R2's GAIN to act as his LEAD 1 Gain & R2's TREBLE to act as his LEAD 1 Drive.. and the Mark iv's original LEAD Channel will be labeled LEAD 2.. while LEAD 1 also share its controls with the LEAD channels EQ Controls.. And finally by modding the CLASS A/SIMUL CLASS to act as his LEAD 1/2 switch..

 

[Mongo1]

ok.. so i just watched the mesa boogie video again and reviewed his systematic chaos rig settings..

vhyken,

Can you post the link to that video.

Thanks.

 

[vhyken]

ok.. so i just watched the mesa boogie video again and reviewed his systematic chaos rig settings..

vhyken,

Can you post the link to that video.

Thanks.

here it is..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ot-zal0DAu4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQEG1HqCrnE&feature=related

 

[Mongo1]

Cool videos, but I never saw any specifics on the amp channel settings. Maybe I missed that part.

 

[vhyken]

you can see them on the gear page of JP's site.. browse for the old gear pics..

 

[vhyken]

ok.. so now i bought a keeley ts9dx to boost my LD channel to achieve JP's tone.. i dialed in his TS9DX settings seen in the gear page.

so my setup is Guitar -> Keeley TS9DX -> Mark IV -> (Nova System loop)..
Guitar is an Ibanez Prestige 1527 loaded with CL7 + LF7 combo..

it came close to his tone in this link.. the intro part where he plays a solo.. it sounded dirty and scratchy but controlling your muting technique will help you clean your sound.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjQEAb6VT-E&feature=related

 

[Neptical]

it sounded dirty and scratchy but controlling your muting technique will help you clean your sound.

...you can be all new school trendy and use a hair tie just below the nut to help with muting. :lol:

 

[Anfoguy]

Kind of late on this thread, but I want to say this for the people that wil read through. I am pretty sure his second mark iv's preamp is bypassed and the signal is routed in through the effects return. This enables him to have his stereo rig. He only uses the first preamp of the top mark iv, and both amps amplify that signal but they are left/right channels. He does this with his mark v rigs so I can't imagine it is any different for his mark iv rigs.