John Myung

John Myung is the bassist of Dream Theater and a signature artist with Ashdown, which builds the John Myung Double Drive pedal he developed with the company. On stage his rig splits into three parallel signal paths, with overdrive, chorus and reverb handled by a Fractal Audio Axe-FX II rather than a conventional pedalboard¹².

Basses

Myung plays custom Music Man Bongo 6-string basses, and also uses a fretless bass for an acoustic set in the show². His signature instrument is an Ernie Ball six-string Bongo, the bass his Ashdown pedal was voiced to sit alongside³.

The Ashdown John Myung Double Drive

Ashdown produced the Double Drive after consultation with Myung and his bass tech Maddi Schieferstein, with the aim of creating a pedal that would sit well tonally with his signature Ernie Ball six-string Bongo³. Ashdown describes Myung as a long-time user of the ABM-600 amp and says the pedal was built to capture his voice on stage and in the studio¹. Guitar World's Joel McIver calls it "the signature overdrive of Dream Theater's bassist extraordinaire and Ashdown bass amp user John Myung"³.

Stage rig

Premier Guitar's rig rundown of Dream Theater, with Myung's tech John Zocco walking Rebecca Dirks through the gear, details the signal chain from the 2011 A Dramatic Tour of Events tour³².

• Wireless: Shure UR4D wireless²
• Splitter: Radial JD-7, splitting into three signals²
• Path 1: straight to a Demeter Tube DI²
• Path 2: Demeter Optical Compressor, Demeter Preamp, then Demeter VTHF-300M into a Radial JDX speaker simulator²
• Path 3: Fractal Audio Axe-FX II, handling overdrive, chorus, reverb and other effects processing²
• Control: Fractal Audio MFC-101 switcher holding all the patches he needs to switch between effects²
• Volume: an Ernie Ball Volume Pedal used as a master volume, pulled back to tune²

He also started using Moog Taurus 3 bass pedal synths on that tour, for what his tech calls "seat-rattling low end"². Premier Guitar revisited the rig in 2019, covering Myung's bass, effects and amps⁴.