How to recreate John Petrucci’s guitar sound in Constant Motion with software plugins (part 1)

To recreate this sound I first checked a few information found on Internet about the kind of gear that JP was using. This can be found in different websites like:

John Petrucci’s official site: http://www.johnpetrucci.com/gear.htm
John Petrucci Mark V Settings and Tone Tips (Part 1): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kOIx7HbhxQ
John Petrucci Mark V Settings and Tone Tips (Part 2): http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=&v=i24e8icZG1o&NR=1
John Petrucci Live Rig Tour 2011: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_c6fpbaHbI

Here are 2 audio clips that show the JP sound and the sound I have been able to achieve:

Original John Petrucci’s Constant Motion intro: 


Constant Motion intro played by me: 

So basically what we need is:
- Music Man signature JP model samples
- Mesa Boogie amp simulation
- Mesa Boogie cab simulation
- Stompboxes
- The right EQ settings

Music Man signature JP model samples
For this I use the Shreddage 2 sample library from Impact Soundworks as it has been recorded from a Musicman JP12 7-string guitar.

Mesa Boogie amp simulation
In the studio I am using IK Multimedia Amplitube 3. I also tried to use the plugins by LePou (http://lepouplugins.blogspot.fr/) which are great but the AU versions of these plugins are only 32-bit and for the kind of projects we are doing I have to use Logic Pro 9 in 64-bit.
Amplitube is only providing a simulation of a Mesa Boogie Mark III amp (and not a Mark IV or V as JP is using right now).
There are 2 Mesa Boogie simulation amps in Amplitube. One for the clean channel (American Clean MKIII) and another one for the lead channel (American Lead MKIII). I will use this one.

Mesa Boogie cab simulation
As the cab simulation in Amplitube is not really accurate I will be using Kazrog Recabinet 3.
This plugin is an impulse response cab simulation that uses IRs from the real models. An Impulse Response is an audio file that contains the acoustic characteristics of a room or, in our case, of a cab. It was initially used to reproduce rooms and halls in convolution reverberation units (Space Designer in Logic Pro 9 is using them) but it can also be used to capture the characteristics of a sound passed through a real guitar cabinet to be reproduced.
Recabinet 3 contains impulses for the Mesa Standard 4×12 cabinet and also multiple microphones and settings.
Of course when used in combination with Amplitube, the cab part in Amplitube must be bypassed.

Stompboxes
In the JP signal chain there are several stompboxes used. I am using the ones provided by Amplitube. Same for the rack effects (if needed)

Matched EQ
The last part of the recreation concerns EQ. a Huge part of the guitar sound is coming from the equalization and instead of manipulating the frequencies for hours we can use a plugin that will capture the EQ characteristics of a sound and apply it to another one.
So basically what I am doing is taking a piece of guitar played by John Petrucci (the beginning of Constant Motion in this case as we have there an isolated guitar sound), playing the same line and generating the EQ profile of the sound before applying to my sound.
Logic Pro 9 is providing a Matched EQ plugin that will be used