NGD :D

Warren

A little unexpectedly, I came across this Ernie Ball Music Man John Petrucci Sig. 2007 Limited Edition (geez that's a mouthful).

It's a great instrument, lots of features including two outputs (one magnetic, one piezo), in my favourite colour for these guitars (Blue Dawn).

The guitar is in great condition overall, although there is a very thin scratch on the body which you can only see at certain angles (and therefore it annoys me ?).

The neck is excellent: very thin, and I'm not usually a massive fan of thin necks but this one is amazingly easy to play. Somehow, the whole guitar, neck included, just feels...little. ? Which suits me, since I'm not the largest bloke around.

DiMarzio Liquifire in the neck, and a Crunch Lab in the bridge. That bridge pup absolutely stomps, while the neck is nice and smooth. I've only heard it into Guitar Rig so far, since I haven't had an opportunity to fire up my new amp, but I should be able to do that this evening and I'm quite excited. ?

Balancing the tones on the amp between my Strat and this thing will be tricky, but I'm sure I'll be able to find a happy place for both (and it gives me an excuse to use my Radial Big Shot again).

Wizard

I like that guitar a lot.
So much so that my pickup replacements for my M200 were an attempt to replicate the sound.

Sean

Congrats Warren. Very nice ?

Warren

There was a little discolouration / tarnish on the frets, so I set to work last night with some steel wool and masking tape: all nice and shiny again. ? Restrung, the neck needed a slight adjustment, as well as two of the saddles and the intonation on two strings. It now plays quite marvelously. ?

@Wizard, I've always liked these, and they show up on gumtree from time to time (usually in that Mystic Dream colour). In fact, I've always been a Music Man fan in general: I like the aesthetics of their guitars, and the ones I've seen are always nicely made.

aubs1

Hey, congratulations W, it looks great! So you decided to drop the other Strat! GAS-junkie ..... ?

Warren

I got some details from the EB forum (you can post your serial number and they tell you about your guitar, great little service).

"DOB: 09/05/07, Blue Dawn JP6 w/ Piezo, basswood body, maple neck/ rosewood fretboard, DiMarzio D-Sonic & Custom Wound pickups. Shipped to Paul Bothner Music, South Africa. "

So, I was wrong about the pickups: it's the Dimarzio D-Sonic in the bridge and some other jobbie in the neck. I'm wondering if it's worth ordering the Crunch Lab and Liquifire, but these pups do sound pretty good and I imagine they're all in the same sonic ballpark.

I played it through my new Mesa last night: as expected from such high-output pups, they do gained out tones wonderfully. Cleans are pretty ordinary (my Strat is vastly nicer in that regard). The guitar is very responsive to gain pedals through this amp: I can get a great set of rock tones through the clean channel of the amp just by using my various ODs. I'm thinking of using the second channel for a saturated high-gain lead tone, but will do some testing tonight.

Going to be tricky balancing such a high-output guitar with a low-output Strat, but the Radial Big Shot switcher should help a bit with that.

RobbieZ

Congrats. I wish you many happy hours with her?

andrewjbryson

SICKKKK!!! Beautiful BEAST!

Malkav

Congrats on the NGD - Those Petrucci models are stellar guitars 8)

For what it's worth I have the D-sonic and the Crunchlab in two of my guitars and at the moment my preference still sits with the D-sonic, admittedly this is in a seven string so it's with the bar facing the bridge and it's a ceramic magnet ?

Essentially the neck pickup in these is a slightly darker voiced Air Norton if memory serves me correctly, and the liquifire even more so really, anyway they're all fantastic pickups but right now I think I'm leaning towards the D-Sonic & Liquifire combo.

As for the cleans, try putting a 5-way on these things, the in-between positions are glorious ?

Warren

Chad Adam Browne wrote: Congrats on the NGD - Those Petrucci models are stellar guitars 8)

For what it's worth I have the D-sonic and the Crunchlab in two of my guitars and at the moment my preference still sits with the D-sonic, admittedly this is in a seven string so it's with the bar facing the bridge and it's a ceramic magnet ?

Essentially the neck pickup in these is a slightly darker voiced Air Norton if memory serves me correctly, and the liquifire even more so really, anyway they're all fantastic pickups but right now I think I'm leaning towards the D-Sonic & Liquifire combo.

As for the cleans, try putting a 5-way on these things, the in-between positions are glorious ?

Thanks for this info. ?

At the moment I'm just going to focus on getting the right sort of tones from this thing combined with the Stiletto Ace combo. It's going to take some tweaking, as the differences between my Strat and this Music Man are pretty pronounced, but using the Radial Big Shot I can tone down the input from the Petrucci and even out the levels hitting the front of the amp (although I'm not sure what that does to the tone.

arjunmenon

Congratulations Papa Smurf...first the Mesa and now this! You're on a roll ?
I'd looked to the 2007 LE as well back in 2009 from a place called Bass Central.
+1 to Chad regarding the p/ups. From what i know, the neck p/up is indeed a darker Air Norton that Steve Blucher tweaked for JP.
What are your thoughts on the piezo? Are you going into an acoustic amp or something like the Aura DI?

Big-G

Thatsa lovely piece of wood you got there bud! I do like a good Musicman!

Enjoy it, and keep the pics coming... Especially with that amp of yours!

Cheers
G!

DDR4LYF

SLIIIIIIIIICK!!!!!!!! 8)

Warren

Arjun Menon wrote: Congratulations Papa Smurf...first the Mesa and now this! You're on a roll ?
I'd looked to the 2007 LE as well back in 2009 from a place called Bass Central.
+1 to Chad regarding the p/ups. From what i know, the neck p/up is indeed a darker Air Norton that Steve Blucher tweaked for JP.
What are your thoughts on the piezo? Are you going into an acoustic amp or something like the Aura DI?

The piezo sounds great, IMO. The other night during practise I had it going straight into the desk and I was getting some great acoustic sounds (better than my Takamine I reckon) and some really nifty blended sounds with the amp set clean. Really handy as I won't have to cart the acoustic around separately. ?