DREAM THEATER guitarist John Petrucci recently spoke with Classic Rock Revisited's Jeb Wright. An excerpt from the interview is available below:

Jeb: The elephant in the room is that this album was made without founding drummer Mike Portnoy. I will say that this album may be one of the best, if not the best, of your career. Is the Grammy nomination sweeter because despite all the crap that Portnoy put you through you still succeeded to that level?

John: "It does. We started the band together back in Berklee when we were 18 years old. We have been a band for all of this time. Mike leaving was a real heartbreak and a shock. We have been through member changes before but Mike was always a huge part of this band. There is that sort of moment, from fans, family, friends, and band members and yourself where you go, 'What are we going to do? What is the next step and how are we going to do this? Can we make this successful?' Thankfully, from the very beginning we had so much support from our families, our friends and our fans and we took that support and translated that into the album. The album came out in the Top 10 all around the world. Our fans really seem to enjoy it. The Grammy nomination, on top of all that, is a great affirmation and a payback to all of those people who gave us that support. It is sweet. I can’t lie."

Jeb: Portnoy left the band but there was a point where he wanted to come back to Dream Theater. What would the harm have been to let bygones be bygones and let him come back?

John: "It was a little bit more complicated than that. The process by which Mike left the band was one where we tried everything to talk him out of it. We told him that it wasn’t a good idea and that we had been together for too long to have this happen. We came to the realization that he needed a change. At that point, when you’ve exhausted all efforts, then you have to face the reality of the situation, which was that we needed a new drummer. We had to roll up our sleeves and find those eight drummers that auditioned. We, then, brought Mike Mangini into the band. He retired from his tenured position as an instructor at Berklee and we began making the new album. We rearranged and restructured everything within our business as well, which meant that we made hundreds of phone calls to booking agents, record companies and management. It really was complicated to do all of this. At that point, to have Mike say, 'I want to come back' you can only imagine how we felt. It was too late and too far gone. Obviously, it wasn’t something that he wanted a couple of months before so we had to wonder why it would suddenly be different now. All of the reasons that he wanted to leave for were all still there; they didn’t go anywhere. It was just too late. We had to be genuine to ourselves, to our fans, to Mike Mangini and to our future."

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As previously reported, TC Electronic has issued the following press release:

Long-time TC guitar effects user John Petrucci (DREAM THEATER) has joined forces with TC, taking their collaboration to a whole new level.

John Petrucci was one of the first artists to join TC’s revolutionary TonePrint concept. In total, John created five personal TonePrints in early 2011 – two for Corona Chorus, two for Shaker Vibrato and one for the Vortex Flanger. John loved having access to all effect parameters so much that he instantly agreed to develop a signature pedal together with TC – one that was based on his own TonePrints. And so The Dreamscape was born.

John wanted to gather all of his TonePrints into a single pedal even though his original TonePrints are for three different pedals in the series. Therefore, his new signature pedal contains no less than three mind-blowing modulation effects that have been painstakingly tailored with an eye on even the tiniest detail by the master himself. To take this pedal over the top, John even created a brand new TonePrint for Vortex Flanger taking the total amount of custom-tweaked tones up to six – 2 x chorus, 2 x flanger and 2 x Vibrato.

Further, there is a TonePrint setting for uploading or beaming other TonePrints to the pedal. In short, for all John Petrucci and Dream Theater fans, this pedal is a must-have, and for anybody else, it is a clever way of getting three top-notch modulation effects in a compact pedal that will only take up a minimum of real estate on their pedal boards.

The Dreamscape has four knobs: Speed, Depth, FX Level and one that chooses between the six integrated signature tones and one additional TonePrint. Further, the pedal has a three-way switch for toggling between Bright, Normal and Dark, which is an overall tonal shaping feature chosen by Petrucci. Finally, The Dreamscape also contains all of the great features included in other TonePrint pedals such as true bypass, one-screw-battery-access and a sturdy design made for life on the road.

John Petrucci - The Dreamscape Tour:

John Petrucci will be visiting three Guitar Center stores in Manhattan (March 30th), Central Chicago (March 31st) and San Francisco (April 1st), introducing The Dreamscape. These in store appearances will give musicians the opportunity to hear Petrucci unlock the power of The Dreamscape, take a photo and also get The Dreamscape signed by Petrucci.

The Dreamscape is exclusively available at Guitar Center in the US, and can be pre-ordered at www.guitarcenter.com in early February. It will also be available in the three stores mentioned above on March 16th. For die-hard Petrucci fans, picking up The Dreamscape online or at one of these exclusive Guitar Center locations ahead of time or online, is a must as Petrucci will only be signing The Dreamscape at these in store appearances. In Canada, Long & McQuade will be the exclusive dealer for The Dreamscape. In the rest of the world, the pedal will be available February 2012.

As previously reported, Guitar World checked out the Music Man booth at last week's NAMM 2012 show in Anaheim, CA, to see what's new. Check out the overview of Petrucci's signature JP12 below.

For information on Music Man go to this location.