With the release of the new Dream Theater album "Falling Into Infinity,"
John Petrucci has impressively come into his own as the leading proponenet of 90's
progressive rock guitar. We sat down with John on the eve of the release of this
album to get his thoughts on the recording of this album for the Plugged In / Special
Recording Issue.
Plugged In: Can you tell us about the recording of the new Dream Theater album "Falling
Into Infinity?"
John: We recorded it in June and July of this year at Avatar studios in New York
City, which used to be the old Power Station. It had a cool vibe with all of the
history there, and being in such a great room. We used Kevin Shirley to produce the
record. His latest records are Aerosmith's "Nine Lives" and the latest
Journey album. He was really great.
Plugged In: What role does the producer play on a Dream Theater record?
John: For "Falling Into Infinity," we had all of the songs written already.
So the first thing we had to do was decide which songs we were going to use. Kevin
was involved in that process. On a couple of the songs, he gave us arrangement ideas
in order to make a song sound more cohesive. He also helped to orchestrate the album
with different instruments and sounds. Some of the songs changed pretty dramatically,
even though we might have kept the same melody, lyric, and chord structure.
Plugged In : Which guitars did you use on the record.
John: I used my Ibanez JPM100 guitar on almost everything. It's a really versatile
guitar so I was able to use it for most of the heavy rhythm stuff, the clean stuff
and certainly all of the leads. I used an Ibanez Talman on a couple of things including
some slide guitar. I used my custom Ibanez RG7 7-string guitar as the main guitar
on one song and then on bits and pieces on other songs.
Plugged In: There are a lot of different guitar tones on this record. Did you get
all of the different tones just from those guitars?
John: Yeah! I actually had a really extensive Mesa Boogie amp setup in the studio.
I was able to plug into any amp at any given time. I had 17 or so different amps
there, as well as a big wall of cabinets. Even with just the JPM100, I was able to
change the tones drastically.
Plugged In: What sort of recording techniques did you use?
John: I primarily used just one cabinet even though I had all of those different
cabinets. I narrowed it
down to one that I really liked. The mic'ing was always the same. There were always
two mics on the cabinet. They were both pointed at the same speaker, almost facing
each other at a ninety degree angle.
Plugged In: Were the effects that you use on the guitar recorded with the track or
were they added during the mixing process?
John: It depended on the part. Most of the rhythm and lead guitar parts were recorded
dry. A lot of the parts didn't need anything added and were left dry. We added some
delay and reverb on some of the lead parts during the mix. There were some occasions
where the effects were printed with the effects if the effects were integral to the
sound going to tape.
Plugged In: How do you feel about your playing on "Falling Into Infinity"
compared to your playing on the earlier five Dream Theater albums?
John: I think my playing is more diverse on this album. What I tried to do was to
match the vibe and mood of the song lyrically with my playing. There are a few solo
sections that are more lyrical in a David Gilmour type of way, which is a style that
I have always tried to emulate. I think that I got closer to that style this time.
This album also a required some really crazy playing because that is the way some
of the songs came out. I also played some slide on this album which was unusual.
Plugged In: Can you tell us which songs on the record are your favorites from a guitar
point of view?
John: I love "Lines In The Sand," "Just Let Me Breathe" and "Take
Away My Pain".
Plugged In: Is there anything that you would like to add?
John: Yeah. I want to say that I think that this is our best album yet. We had the
opportunity to play some of the new stuff live before we actually recorded it which
was a real exciting thing to do. Now, I can't wait to get out there do all of the
songs from the album live now that it's out.