That would definitely explain the more guitar-oriented sound of the last few albums. I've really never paid much attention to the members of this band other than Russell Allen who I used to worship but now not so much.
Totally. It cannot be overstated how much a band's sound can change when the writing team changes like that. I mean, you have the obvious factor of just having another personality coming into the writing. But even if Romeo consciously tries to write things that he thinks will sound like they have Pinella's influence, the instrument itself can be a big factor. I remember in the early 2000s when Dave Meniketti (Y&T) took a break from the guitar-oriented '80s hard rock sound of Y&T and wrote a couple of solo albums, and he talked about how the writing was so much different. One of the key factors was incorporating more keyboard, and him writing a lot of that from sitting at a piano, which he hadn't done on any of the Y&T albums. It was still very much guitar-oriented rock. But it sounded different. And when he was talking about it, he pointed out that a lot of that came from him messing around on the piano, and how he would stumble upon things that sounded really good that he never in a million years would have come up with from just messing around on a guitar, just because the mechanics of playing keys is so different, so he would stumble upon note and chord combinations that he wouldn't have thought of with a guitar in hand. I think that's actually a pretty natural phenomenon. Even for a composer who might write a lot of music in his/her head, and then transcribe it to an instrument, when you are coming at music from the perspective of "guitarist," you will not necessarily come up with the same thing as you would if you were coming at the music from the perspective of "keyboardist," and vice versa. Even for a multiinstrumentalist, I think there is a natural tendency to subconsciously come to music that physically makes sense within the context of the instrument you are consciously thinking of composing for, and it is harder to think outside the box of what makes sense for that composer's playing style on that particular instrument.
I feel like I'm starting to ramble, but hopefully that makes as much sense typed out as it did in my head.
Yup, being me with my stuff I end up making on Guitar Pro. I have an idea, and then try and put what I hear, onto it. It's a bit hard without music theory knowledge, but I do know enough to get me through it. It's also why I got a Keyboard, because composing on bass is kind of difficult
. That alone changed how I compose music now, and It's opened up a lot with how write. And when I write guitar parts on Gpro, and when I play them, I do other things I wouldn't have done or thought of. Then I try and write that down on Gpro.
It's also how I understood the point of demos, and how much a song can change when one musician shares his demo with the band, and the band incorporates their ways of playing that idea to make it the bands song. I think that is one reason why I see both Geoff Tate and Queensryche or more Great White and Jack Russels Great White (whom I still have yet to see), because I want to hear the actual musicians (or the majority) of the musicians whom recorded the on the album, live. But it also, helped me understand the difference a new member can have in the band, and his interpretations of the new demos the same musician brings in. And their interpretations of the compostitions of the musician they're replacing. Which is why I like Mangini and really enjoy him in DT.
In this case of Symphony X, I really enjoy Pinellas compositions. And that could be why I enjoy Underworld too, as he has more of them on here.