John Petrucci is known for a few things: absurd guitar chops, Dream Theater, being built like he could bench press most guitarists, and an almost obsessive approach to his gear. His signature instruments have always reflected that last point in particular, and the Music Man Majesty Premium Select might be the most complete version of his vision yet.

For the unfamiliar, the Majesty is very much a purpose-built performance machine. This particular Premium Select uses Petrucci’s preferred combination of a mahogany neck-through construction, alder wings and a thick maple cap, with the neck running straight through the body rather than being bolted or glued into place. That allows Music Man to carve away a frankly silly amount of material around the upper horn, and the access to all 24 frets is about as unrestricted as you’re ever likely to need.

The neck is wide, slim and vaguely Wizard-like, although there’s a little more meat here than on some of the classic Japanese Petrucci models. It’s topped with a gorgeous dark ebony fingerboard, shield inlays and 24 large stainless-steel frets, and unsurprisingly, the whole thing absolutely flies.

If you’re used to a guitar putting up a bit of a fight, there’s basically none here. Fast runs feel effortless, big bends are easy, and the guitar responds to the lightest touch. The downside — if you can call it that — is that it’ll expose any unnecessary tension or little flaws in your technique pretty quickly. Your chops need to be awake, because the Majesty isn’t going to hide much for you.

There is one area where the neck might not suit everyone. If you’re a big thumb-over-the-top player who likes grabbing John Mayer-style chord shapes, the width can feel a little fiddly. For more conventional fretting and technical lead work, though, it’s supremely comfortable.

Up top, Music Man’s compact 4+2 headstock is fitted with Sperzel locking tuners and a non-locking nut. That means no messing around with Allen keys every time you need to change strings or retune, and the tuners themselves feel suitably premium. Even the buttons have rounded edges — a tiny detail, perhaps, but exactly the sort of thing you notice on a guitar built to this level.

Then we get to the electronics, and this is where things become properly Petrucci.

The magnetic tones come courtesy of DiMarzio Dreamcatcher and Rainmaker humbuckers, while the two-point floating tremolo also houses Fishman Powerbridge piezo saddles. A three-way toggle handles bridge, both pickups and neck, while a push-push switch on the tone control splits both pickups in the middle position only. The bridge and neck remain full humbuckers at all times, effectively giving you four magnetic configurations to play with.

There’s also an active boost hiding in the volume control. Push it and you get up to 20dB of clean gain, which is perfect for taking a crunchy amp over the edge into high-gain territory or adding some extra power and sustain when it’s time for a solo. The exact amount of boost can be adjusted from the back of the guitar.

Of course, this being a Majesty, that’s still only half the story.

A second three-way switch lets you choose magnetic pickups only, magnetic and piezo together, or piezo by itself. The piezo has its own volume control on the front, while the rear panel gives you access to its three-band EQ and output adjustment. These are very much set-and-forget controls rather than something you’ll be frantically tweaking between riffs, and they’re intended to be adjusted with a screwdriver.

The output can also be switched between mono and stereo operation. Run everything down one cable and you can get that classic Petrucci blend of magnetic pickups and piezo, or split the signals and send them wherever you like — magnetic pickups to your main amp rig and the piezo to a DI for a pseudo-acoustic sound, for example.

On paper, that sounds like an awful lot of switching. In the hands, it makes considerably more sense. The controls are laid out so the important stuff is easy to reach from the playing position, which makes the Majesty particularly useful if your set involves bouncing between drastically different sounds without wanting to tap dance across a pedalboard.

As a shred machine, the Majesty Premium Select is almost comically good. It’s fast, responsive and incredibly easy to play, but reducing it to “Petrucci’s guitar for playing lots of notes” really misses the point. Between the four magnetic configurations, active boost, piezo system and flexible routing, there’s a huge amount of tonal ground here as well.

You’ll want your technique in decent shape, because this guitar will happily show you where it isn’t, but if you can keep up, the Majesty Premium Select feels like it’ll do just about anything you ask of it. For a player as relentlessly particular about his gear as John Petrucci, that seems entirely appropriate.

Find out more about the Music Man Majesty Premium Select at Music-Man.com