Majesty Petrucci Question

[DreamTheater88]

Hello!

Apologies for my english i'm from Belgium and speak Dutch.

I'm new to the forum and music man guitars. I had some questions about the Majesty John Petrucci model and I hope someone can help me out here.

I'm seriously thinking about buying a Majesty (enchanted forest) guitar next month. But the closest one to me right now is a 3,5 hour drive (Belgium To Holland)
What's got me worried is the floating bridge system. I've never owned a guitar with a floating bridge so I know close to nothing about it, apologies for the dumb questions but:

- Can I just tune the guitar by the headstock or are there fine tuners by the bridge?

- Can I just go to drop D (only the top E string) like a "normal" guitar or will this affect all of the other strings?

- If I play a open E string and then do a bend on the G string, will that make the E string go out of tune?

Again sorry for the dumb questions but I would like to know these things before I take a 3,5 hour drive and spend 4999 EURO on the guitar.

Thanks in advance and have a nice day

 

[fbecir]

Hello and welcome aboard

I do not own a Majesty, I cannot answer your questions.
But don't worry with your English : there are French guys on this forum, thus you can be sure that your English is not the worst !

 

[PeteDuBaldo]

- Can I just tune the guitar by the headstock or are there fine tuners by the bridge?

Yes, tuning is done at the headstock, there are no fine tuners on the bridge.

- Can I just go to drop D (only the top E string) like a "normal" guitar or will this affect all of the other strings?

No, this guitar has a floating tremolo, so any change in tuning/string tension of one string will require tuning or adjusting the rest of the strings.

- If I play a open E string and then do a bend on the G string, will that make the E string go out of tune?

Yes, with the floating bridge open strings will slightly de-tune when others are bent.


The Majesty is a great guitar, and stays in tune very well - I love mine - but a dive-only trem seems to be what you need.

 

[Mace13]

Some additional comments... for string bends:
1) If you are bending one string while playing two, the technique is to simply bend the "unbended" string very slightly to keep it in tune. This is a common technique to learn and isn't too big a deal to keep things sounding good.
2) If you are playing a double stop and bending both stings at once, this can sound a bit out of tune for sustained notes. But for quick, bluesy double stop bend and release it sounds just fine. There is a also a trick where you can adjust the angle of the spring "claw" in the body (two screws adjust the position of the claw where the internal springs attach) to help keep the strings somewhat in tune for double stop bends.

Anyway, yeah, it'd be a little risky to drop 4k € on a guitar with a floating tremelo if you aren't familiar with a floating tremelo and the little details. Of course, I did just that 12 years ago, and really had no idea what I was getting into and I've loved it and now have 3! Shortly after I got the guitar if my band wanted to run through some drop D songs, I'd just drop it and retune all strings. I got pretty familiar with how to do it quickly (drop the low string to like C, then the A string to a little less than a full step down etc.), but it is a pain because every string you adjust affects all the other strings. The beauty was that this difficulty with quickly re-tuning provided a great excuse to get a second guitar to keep in drop D tuning. And a third guitar to keep in standard Eb tuning etc. You get the idea!

Edit: Yes, if you bend one string and let an open string ring, the open string will de-tune a bit. There is no avoiding this. What I am referring to above (and I think this is more common) is learning technique to keep things in tune when your fingering two strings.

 

[Lax]

As long as you get a quality instrument, you'll learn to use a floating vibrato.