Nick Jennison reviews the Music Man Majesty Arctic Aurora — a guitar designed in collaboration with the legendary John Petrucci. This stunning instrument features a sleek, contoured body with an eye-catching Arctic Aurora finish that shifts from icy blue to deep purple. Its neck-through design combines mahogany and basswood for superior resonance and sustain. Equipped with DiMarzio Dreamcatcher and Rainmaker pickups, it delivers a versatile range of tones, from warm cleans to searing leads. The custom floating tremolo bridge and locking tuners ensure precise tuning and stability, making it the ultimate tool for serious musicians.
I've long thought of guitars as being like cars, to the point of making comparisons that are probably a bit too specific. LPs, for example, are like American muscle cars: they're heavy, loud, look amazing, and break all the time. They aren't much use in the corners, but they make an absolutely righteous noise. Japanese superstrats are like modded Subarus: well-built, a little gauche, but they'll roast almost anything over a quarter mile. Then there's the Music Man Majesty, which is a Formula 1 car.
It's not just me who thinks this, by the way: according to the High King of Shred himself, John Petrucci, the Majesty was designed with this kind of ultra-high-performance track monster in mind. It's viciously elegant, faultlessly ergonomic, and you'll never find a guitar that's faster. If you have the chops to handle this much guitar, you'll be rewarded with an instrument that can go wherever your imagination can take you.
The BFR version of the Majesty takes this highly refined formula and adds a level of luxury and craftsmanship that's on another level entirely. Available in three new finishes for 2024 - Red Nebula, Blue Ink, and Arctic Aurora (the model we're looking at in this review) - each is strictly limited to 100 six-string and 50 seven-string models worldwide. Each finish comes with its own combination of premium woods, with Arctic Aurora sporting Black Limba body wings, a Honduran Mahogany and Flame Maple neck-through, all capped with a thick and intensely figured Burl Maple top. I'm lucky enough to lay my hands on a lot of very premium guitars in my line of work, but even I couldn't help but let out a little "ooof" when I laid eyes on this guitar. Visually, it's something else.
In terms of performance, it's "business as usual" - and by that, I mean it's flawless. The fit, finish, and setup are so perfect, it feels like an iPhone in a world of payphones. The ebony fretboard and 24 stainless steel frets feel like playing on glass, and the controls are perfectly laid out so that you can access any of the plethora of sounds this guitar has to offer without missing a note. The trem flutters, dives, and gargles with perfect return to pitch, and the feel under the palm is smooth and tactile with no sharp edges or protruding screws in sight. The level of refinement here is beyond even Music Man's usual incredible standards.
Apart from his revolving door of overdrive pedals, Petrucci seems to have changed his pickups more over the years than any other part of his rig. The fact that the Dreamcatcher/Rainmaker combo has been standard in his Majesty guitars for as long as they have likely means that John has finally settled on something he's completely happy with, and it's easy to see why. The three "cardinal Petrucci tones" of "tight bridge pickup crunch," "liquid neck pickup lead," and "piano-like split middle position clean" are perfectly encapsulated in this set, with the addition of an "un-split" middle position voice that's great for fatter cleans and character fusion leads.
That's not all though - there's also the piezo and the switchable boost. Quite apart from delivering a pretty convincing acoustic sound, the piezo adds an unreal sparkle to 80s-style cleans. The piezo tone can be tweaked with the mini pots on the rear control cover, but I didn't feel the need to - it sounds "right" straight from the factory. There's also the onboard boost, which at the tap of a push-push switch adds up to 20 dB of clean output to the guitar's signal. It's easily enough to take an articulate crunch sound into a hyper-saturated lead tone, or to blow up an edge-of-breakup amp into roaring distortion.
The Music Man Majesty is already at the bleeding edge of guitar construction, and it's hard to imagine how it could be possible to elevate this guitar beyond the incredible heights of the production model… but Music Man has done it. If you need the ultimate in high-performance guitars, get a Majesty, but if only the best of the best will do - and you can afford it - you need a BFR.
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