Two guitarists who are often compared to one another. Who do you prefer?

Things you should consider:

-Petrucci recently cut all of his hair off, and he kinda looks like a communist russian soldier...

-Michael Romeo is really FAT! (but we forgive him because he plays guitar really fast )

For me its Petrucci all the way!

Petrucci

And about your "things to consider".....who gives a sh*t what they LOOK like????

TheProgtologist wrote: Petrucci And about your "things to consider".....who gives a sh*t what they LOOK like????

that was sortof.. a joke... :\ not a very good one, eh?

^^^^^^

Sorry,I thought you were being serious.

My bad.

Both, IMO!

i don't like both of them... they have amazing technique but very little emotion IMO

anyway. Romeo constantly repeat himself (almost in all of SymX albums)  and it's very boring in some point... Petrucci at least is more diverse so my vote goes to him 

W.Chuck wrote: Petrucci is often just about speed, listen to the solo of Panic Attack...where he tries to play a classical solo, although he has lots of good soli and he is a real good player. Michael Romeo is a far better composer. His soli perfectly fit into the song, everytime and Michael Romeo has a better feeling and just makes immortal soli, with a nice atmosphere and melody. And who thinks John Petrucci is faster, let me tell you that Michael Romeos soli are harder to play than any fast solo by petrucci...

I have a friend that would disagree with you on that from his personall experience of trying to play them.

W.Chuck wrote: sleeper wrote: I have a friend that would disagree with you on that from his personall experience of trying to play them. Well, what Michael Romeo soli did he play? The point that Michael Romeo's stuff is harder to play is my opinion and the opinion of other people I know.

I dont know, hes got all the albums so has probably spent some time the last year and a half trying to play all of them.

And anyway, he dosnt think theres a hell of a lot of difference between the abilaties of Romeo and Petrucci

W.Chuck wrote: Petrucci is often just about speed, listen to the solo of Panic Attack...where he tries to play a classical solo, although he has lots of good soli and he is a real good player. Michael Romeo is a far better composer. His soli perfectly fit into the song, everytime and Michael Romeo has a better feeling and just makes immortal soli, with a nice atmosphere and melody. And who thinks John Petrucci is faster, let me tell you that Michael Romeos soli are harder to play than any fast solo by petrucci...

I couldn't disagree more!  Petrucci is the most controlled speed guitarist there will ever be.  Just look at Scenes From a Memory.  Solos like Fatal Tragedy are lightning speed with excellent string skipping, and then there is a solo like The Spirit Carries On, a controlled well phrashed solo that shows a great sense of musical harmony.  The same goes for Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence, songs like the Glass Prison and The Test That Stumpted Them All are speed freak precision, and then a song like Goodnight Kiss or Solitary Shell shows musicality and control.  Mike Romeo is also the more neo-classical player.  Most of Romeo's solos are built around fugue motifs.

Note: Just because Mike Romeo does more string skipping does not mean Petrucci rarely string skips, nor does it justify that Romeo's solos are not as dirty as they sound.  You can't argue that solos are Smoke and Mirrors and Sea of Lies are filthy solos.

Petrucci- because He has more musical range than Romeo- (LTE for example)

I dunno, they're both great guitar players, you can't deny that.  But if I had to choose, it would have to be Petrucci.  In terms of guitar tone, I think that Petrucci has Romeo beat IMO.  Then again, this doesn't surprise me, doesn't Michael use solid state amplifiers (Line6 I believe)?  Petrucci has that smooth/fat/liquidy sound that I just love to hear in a lead guitar tone.  Romeo has a pretty good tone too.... considering he is using a solid state amp (or is he using valve amps now?  I can't remember).  It just isn't as smooth and fat as Petrucci's tone, IMO.

Their styles are different in a lot of ways; they both utilize different techniques to achieve their sounds.  Petrucci does a lot of alternate picking (he damn near picks everything when he plays as fast as he does) while Romeo does a lot of sweeping and tapping.  Tapping is a huge part of Romeo's lead guitar style, as is the alternate picking for Petrucci  (I'm not saying that this is all they do, of course Petrucci sweeps and taps and Romeo alternate picks a lot of lines).  In terms of speed, they are both extremely fast.  Faster than most guitar players actually (you could say that Michael Angelo Batio, Rusty Cooley, and Francesco Farari are faster, which they probably are, but they aren't as melodic as Petrucci and Romeo).

I'm gonna have to go with Petrucci on this one.

AtLossForWords wrote: Petrucci is better than Romeo by a product of 1000.  Petrucci has had better tone and more diverse tone throughout his career.  The compositions by Petrucci and Dream Theater are far more intricate, complex, and variant than those by Romeo and Symphony X.  Petrucci's playing is much cleaner than Romeo's.  Petrucci's guitar articulates every note cleary, Romeo has a certain slop to his playing that i don't particularly like or think of as musical.

Well said !

TheLamb wrote: -Petrucci recently cut all of his hair off

All of it? How will we be able to tell him and Rudess apart?

got to be Michael Romeo

Those who think that his stuff is the same on every album haven't listened enough.

Yngvai X wrote: Romeo is better than Petrucci at being in Symphony X and Petrucci is better than Romeo at being in Dream Theater. End of discussion.

I voted for Romeo.  Both guitarists are awesome, it just comes down to taste for me and I prefer

Romeo.

W.Chuck wrote: sleeper wrote: In what way does petrucci loose controle? Panic Attack for example...

Im not not a musician so explain it

W.Chuck wrote: It's just about the speed, he plays it too fast that I can really call it a good solo and so he loses control over the melody [Any1 of you heard THE DARK CHAPTER by Michael Romeo?...]

Now i understand, and yes there has been one or two solos that have been faster than i would have licked but overall my choice remains petrucci

sadly i havent had the chance to hear the dark chappter, is it any good? 

Erik wrote: Xymphony wrote: Well said, i agree most of what you said. But one thing to add, Romeo is obviously faster than Petrucci... You can see his real speed in live performances ;)  Don't get me wrong, speed is only one thing. Petrucci has also got several + 's I've seen DT live three times now and I can certainly say that Petrucci shows some amazing stuff on stage. I don't really think you have a very good point there, I mean I saw the Red Hot Chili Peppers perform live and they don't have an extremely good guitarist like Petrucci or Romeo but on stage Fruiscante shows a lot more skill then on the albums. I think most guitarists love to show off when they are on stage.

I meant "Romeo can play with a lot of speed in the studio albums, which can be compared to the speed of Petrucci. However, He can also play them live with much speed and almost same control and cleanness. And these are faster than Petrucci's live or studio... But he is not only a speed guitarist, in some demonstration videos, Romeo plays the parts with reducing the speed almost half, and still plays that smooth :)

BTW, i haven't seen any recent Dream Theater vids, so my comment does not include them.

W.Chuck wrote: It's just about the speed, he plays it too fast that I can really call it a good solo and so he loses control over the melody

I dont understand... Do you think that when you play 20 notes per second (probably exaggerated but nevermind) there's a "Melody"? There's no melody in those speeds, and if there was you wouldn't be able to hear it... I guarantee you that it's on purpose too, he ain't loosing control, and being a musician myself (not a guitarist but still...) I'll tell you that sometimes are just looking for speed to give some kind of feel to what your playing and it dosent really matter what you play as long as you're playing the notes accurately, and If you heard any of Petrucci's solos you will know that he plays incredibly accurate!

By the way, What's a "Soli", some kind of propper english?

polumbric wrote: Symphony X can be argued to be just that - Power Metal

You must make sth clear. Hammerfall is also power metal. There must be SOME difference ;)

They use power metal elements,(reducing in every album) but you can not say S.X. is a power metal band...

polumbric wrote: Symphony X can be argued to be just that - Power Metal

mm... I'd say the Symphony X might be more influenced by Power Metal than by Bach, Prog, or Neo-Classical, but they are still heavily influenced by these styles, and they are not "Plain Power Metal", Cause if they were I wouldn't like them (I'm not so fond of power metal), and I do like them, so their not!

W.Chuck wrote: First, speed doesn't reduce the melody, lol what a sh*t...

I didn't say that speed reduces melody, I meant that sometimes when you play fast the quality of your melody reduces, and that's not always a bad thing!

If you can maintain a beautiful melody while playing really fast thats great but its not very easy, and thats not always what you want. If you make a fast solo too melodic and/or emotional it might ruin what your trying to achive by playing it fast in the first place.

And of course, theres no "Right or Wrong" in music, its not like that if you play fast you have to play with reduced quality of melody, everything can be done in a good way or in a bad way, it dosen't matter what you do as long as you do it good...

I got much more to say in this subject but I'll save my arguments for the following posts... :P

I actually hate the whole album - Octavarium... the solo from panic attack is not a very good one just like the whole album, but I'll have to hear it a few times if I can decide if "too much speed" is the reason of this being a pretty bad solo..

W.Chuck wrote: TheLamb wrote: I dont understand... Do you think that when you play 20 notes per second (probably exaggerated but nevermind) there's a "Melody"? There's no melody in those speeds, and if there was you wouldn't be able to hear it... I guarantee you that it's on purpose too, he ain't loosing control, and being a musician myself (not a guitarist but still...) I'll tell you that sometimes are just looking for speed to give some kind of feel to what your playing and it dosent really matter what you play as long as you're playing the notes accurately, and If you heard any of Petrucci's solos you will know that he plays incredibly accurate!   By the way, What's a "Soli", some kind of propper english? TheLamb wrote: Besides, your only talking about solos! Thats wrong in my opinion. You should listen to the amazing things that Petrucci does besides solos, He's a great rythm guitarist aswel and he uses his outstanding technique during parts with vocals or keyboard solo, whatever, not only his own solos. I wish I could say the same about Romeo, he just does angry power coords, but maybe thats because Symphony X's style is more influenced by power metal.... First, speed doesn't reduce the melody, lol what a sh*t... and do you know how rarely MJR plays powerchords?... Mostly metal licks and his riffs are awesome as well as his arpeggios (not solo). And "soli", well I'm german and the plural of "solo" in German is "soli", and in German it is a superior form than "solos". I don't know if it is the same in the english language...

Speed does reduce the quality of melody.  That is why a composer like Mozart or Schupert is considered to be more melodic than a composer such as Vivaldi or Bach.  Mozart and Schupert composed pieces at slower tempos to leave more room in a phrase for melody.  Vivaldi and Bach were from the Baroque era which focused on speed and the virtuosity of a soloist.  Just because there is more speed dosen't mean that there is no melody, but faster speeds tend to fall more in the category of virtuosity rather than melody.

Mike Romeo uses quite a lot of power chords and has a "chug-a-chug" style to his rythmn playing.  By "chug-a-chug" i mean that Romeo plays repeatative breakdowns to add rythmn to the compostion.  Petrucci's rythmn playing blows Romeo's away.  Petrucci uses the entire range of his guitar in rythmn playing.  Petrucci is one of the best guitarists at using every fret and every string in every song.  On a side note, Petrucci uses much more complex chords than Romeo does.  Petrucci's A double flat to F chord changes are much more difficult to compose (especially when adding in other insturments) than Romeo's typical i-v-III progressions.

BTW, i didn't expect Romeo to receive so many votes, for ex. Dream Theater is far more popular than Symphony X... I am happy about this result so far 

AtLossForWords wrote: W.Chuck wrote: TheLamb wrote: I dont understand... Do you think that when you play 20 notes per second (probably exaggerated but nevermind) there's a "Melody"? There's no melody in those speeds, and if there was you wouldn't be able to hear it... I guarantee you that it's on purpose too, he ain't loosing control, and being a musician myself (not a guitarist but still...) I'll tell you that sometimes are just looking for speed to give some kind of feel to what your playing and it dosent really matter what you play as long as you're playing the notes accurately, and If you heard any of Petrucci's solos you will know that he plays incredibly accurate!   By the way, What's a "Soli", some kind of propper english? TheLamb wrote: Besides, your only talking about solos! Thats wrong in my opinion. You should listen to the amazing things that Petrucci does besides solos, He's a great rythm guitarist aswel and he uses his outstanding technique during parts with vocals or keyboard solo, whatever, not only his own solos. I wish I could say the same about Romeo, he just does angry power coords, but maybe thats because Symphony X's style is more influenced by power metal.... First, speed doesn't reduce the melody, lol what a sh*t... and do you know how rarely MJR plays powerchords?... Mostly metal licks and his riffs are awesome as well as his arpeggios (not solo). And "soli", well I'm german and the plural of "solo" in German is "soli", and in German it is a superior form than "solos". I don't know if it is the same in the english language... Speed does reduce the quality of melody.  That is why a composer like Mozart or Schupert is considered to be more melodic than a composer such as Vivaldi or Bach.  Mozart and Schupert composed pieces at slower tempos to leave more room in a phrase for melody.  Vivaldi and Bach were from the Baroque era which focused on speed and the virtuosity of a soloist.  Just because there is more speed dosen't mean that there is no melody, but faster speeds tend to fall more in the category of virtuosity rather than melody. Mike Romeo uses quite a lot of power chords and has a "chug-a-chug" style to his rythmn playing.  By "chug-a-chug" i mean that Romeo plays repeatative breakdowns to add rythmn to the compostion.  Petrucci's rythmn playing blows Romeo's away.  Petrucci uses the entire range of his guitar in rythmn playing.  Petrucci is one of the best guitarists at using every fret and every string in every song.  On a side note, Petrucci uses much more complex chords than Romeo does.  Petrucci's A double flat to F chord changes are much more difficult to compose (especially when adding in other insturments) than Romeo's typical i-v-III progressions.

go listen to V

Go watch the guitar chapter.

AtLossForWords wrote: Speed does reduce the quality of melody.  That is why a composer like Mozart or Schupert is considered to be more melodic than a composer such as Vivaldi or Bach.  Mozart and Schupert composed pieces at slower tempos to leave more room in a phrase for melody.  Vivaldi and Bach were from the Baroque era which focused on speed and the virtuosity of a soloist.  Just because there is more speed dosen't mean that there is no melody, but faster speeds tend to fall more in the category of virtuosity rather than melody.

I agree with what you say but your examples of classical composers are misleading in my opinion. Vivaldi and Bach weren't focused on speed at all. Atleast that's not the hard part of their pieces. In bach you might have to play a piece with 4 different melodies in the same time, and after all you only have 2 hands - Being accurate while playing up to 3 melodies with 1 hand - That's the hard part of their pieces. A better example of Melodic vs. Technical composers would be, Chopin and Mozart, their pieces are based on beautiful melodies rather than speed. Even though Chopin has these mind-blowingly speedy pieces like Balad No.1 or No.12 Etude ("Revolutionary"), both of these pieces are not focused on speed, they are focused on beautiful melodies... on the other hand Czerny and Liszt are ussualy all about speed... Liszt isn't always about technique and speed but Czerny definitely is, there are very few pieces by Czerny who actually HAVE a melody.

http://www.symphonyx.com/transcriptions/g/guit_chapter_vs.txt - http://www.symphonyx.com/transcriptions/g/guit_chapter_vs.tx t

check exe 10 and 11

string skipping

jdtrbn wrote: In my opinion, Petrucci hasn't shown much taste after Scenes from a memory. This gets pretty extreme in some live performances. What made him think that playing a narrow part of the chromatic scale incredibly fast is a good idea? So, I'd say that Petrucci used to be better, but now it's Romeo, easily. Because of Petrucci's technicality and old records he's still my #3, though. And by the way, using (Petrucci-like) complex chords just doesn't fit the neoclassical style, it would be lack of skill to use them there.

Yep, but however. Is Romeo even the best Neo-Classical player out there?  You know, John Petrucci also plays in the Neo-Classical style

Michael Romeo, the Poor Man's Yngwie? I beg to differ

W.Chuck wrote: lol it's nothing about being honest, you chose the one you prefer, technically their are the same, MJR can tap better JP is faster, so they have both advatages and disadvantages but they are technically on the same level so it's just about which style you prefer...

Their technicality is not on the same level at all!  Has Romeo ever shown the ability to solo over a song in the duration that Petrucci does.  Has Romeo ever shown he can play solo clearly rather than in a shread style.  Has Romeo every shown any control with harmonics.  Petrucci exceeds Romeo in most all aspects of guitar.

Petrucci is a bit of a shredder, but he adapts well into other areas and can play well in those different regions of music. I believe his talent is way above many other guitarists out there.

W.Chuck wrote: lol it's nothing about being honest, you chose the one you prefer, technically their are the same, MJR can tap better JP is faster, so they have both advatages and disadvantages but they are technically on the same level so it's just about which style you prefer...

Technically, Romeo might in the field of guitarists like Vai, Malmsteen, Satriani, Johnson AND Petrucci.

But let's compare both guitarists:

Technicality- Around the same, but Romeo does the same thing a lot of times. (Ie NeoClassical solos) TIE

Emotional Playing- Even though Romeo is far more emotional than guitarists per say like Mr. Yngwie, but still can not obtain the level that guitarists like Johnson and Vai do. Petrucci does have his times of mindless shredding (actually a lot), but his solos are slightly more emotional than Romeo's often mindless shredding. PETRUCCI

Variation- Without explaining: PETRUCCI

These three factors for me, makes a good guitarist and Petrucci has exceeded Romeo in almost every department, except for maybe Technicality.

FragileDT wrote: Has anyone heard An evening with John Petrucci and Jordan Rudess? That's a great thing to bring up in a discussion like this. Do you think Romeo would come out with something such as that? It is brilliantly composed and sounds nothing like the Dream Theater style. Petrucci is a much better player.

Romeo would solo all the way through and then shred like a beast.

W.Chuck wrote: ... How often does JP shred? more often than MJR, and MJR never went too fast because he knows when to stop, maybe king of terrors but never get so furious like JP, and MJR has no emotion? have you ever heard the solo in candlelight fantasia or lady of the snow and to the technical aspect: MJR's tapping is better, his string skipping is better, he's a much better improviser, not like JP who rarely improvises and MJR plays as clean as JP, I've never heard any slop in his solos, the only one I know, where it is a bit sloppy is the live solo of the first solo in TDWOT, but when you imagine that he changes from the 6. to the 1. string in that tempo, it's no shame at all... And pls listen to a solo by MJR a few more times or listen to them! because like the music I understood the solos far better after I listened to them more often.

That post looks like a bunch of rhetoric to me.  John Petrucci keeps mindless shreadding to a minimum in Dream Theater and in JP and JR.  There is a difference between mindless shreadding and musical technique.  Petrucci is often on the side of musical technique.  Nicolo Paganini was a musician who played extremely fast for his solos, did anyone accuse that violinist of mindless shreadding?  Mike Romeo does mindless shread.  Look at Smoke and Mirrors, look at Sea of Lies, look at almost any heavy song Symphony X has ever done, and the solo is sloppy mindless shreadding.  Mike Romeo is not my idea of an emotional guitarist considering that so many of his solos are pretty much neo-classical solos which are not based off of emotion.  Romeo's solos lack structure.  It sounds like he just put a bunch of notes in a song and there's a solo.  Petrucci uses an awful lot of vocal motifs in his solos to make them fit the song better.  Scenes From a Memory and some parts of Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence feature quite a bit of this.  John Petrucci is the much superior impoviser here.  Let's not forget John Petrucci attended Berklee, quite possibly the most famous jazz school in the US.  I don't think Berklee would allow Petrucci to enter if he couldn't improvise.  Petrucci also improvises quite a bit live.  Do I need to remind you of the Hollow Years solo or the additional solo at the end of In the Name of God.  I know of Petrucci's impovisation.  I don't know if Romeo ever improvises live.

THERE IS NO WAY ROMEO'S PLAYING CAN EVER BE CONSIDERED AS CLEAN AS PETRUCCI'S MY ENTIRE POST AND POSTS THROUGHOUT THIS THREAD ARE CONTESTING THAT ALL THE TIME!!!!!

Lossy.. leave it...

There's no way You're gonna convince him... Know the word fanaticism? Allah Akbar and stuff...

All of Chucks replies are totally the same... just leave it...

Plato was quite a wise man... His theories make quite a lot of sense right now...

Ed_The_Dead wrote: Lossy.. leave it... There's no way You're gonna convince him... Know the word fanaticism? Allah Akbar and stuff... All of Chucks replies are totally the same... just leave it... Plato was quite a wise man... His theories make quite a lot of sense right now...

You don't know just how much i love Plato do you?  (total Platonic dialouge fanboy over here)

AtLossForWords wrote: Ed_The_Dead wrote: Lossy.. leave it... There's no way You're gonna convince him... Know the word fanaticism? Allah Akbar and stuff... All of Chucks replies are totally the same... just leave it... Plato was quite a wise man... His theories make quite a lot of sense right now... You don't know just how much i love Plato do you?  (total Platonic dialouge fanboy over here)

Ye know, I mean that whole theory with the man being shackled in a dark cave facing a black wall, not knowing what the hell is happening behind, outside in the beautiful wilderness... (Hope You get my reference)

Ed_The_Dead wrote: AtLossForWords wrote: Ed_The_Dead wrote: Lossy.. leave it... There's no way You're gonna convince him... Know the word fanaticism? Allah Akbar and stuff... All of Chucks replies are totally the same... just leave it... Plato was quite a wise man... His theories make quite a lot of sense right now... You don't know just how much i love Plato do you?  (total Platonic dialouge fanboy over here) Ye know, I mean that whole theory with the man being shackled in a dark cave facing a black wall, not knowing what the hell is happening behind, outside in the beautiful wilderness... (Hope You get my reference)

Book VII of the Republic, the allegory of the cave!

Well, my vote goes to Michael Romeo, I really like his neoclassical stuff and his overall style.

And W.Chuck, I think you are right, all the people here seems to be freaky dream theater fans that

adore john petrucci in every way. I would really like too hear you playing such a solo of Michael Romeo, shredding seems to be so easy for you, please record one and send it to me, I thínk this will be a great laugh  .

Furthermore, whats the sense of the poll "The Lamb"? It's useless and I think we aren't in position to discuss who is better, I think even they wouldn't know it, a question like "Michael Romeo-John Petrucci...WHO IS BETTER?" can't be answered, because you just know what you hear! You don't know what they both can play (they may don't use anything or you just haven't heard it yet) and please tell me "Mr.AtLossForWords", how do you define mindless shredding, I would really like to know it because you don't think john petruccis shred are senseless, so why are Michael Romes shreds mindless? They are more controlled than petrucci's and are well considered!

Round 2...

FIGHT!!!!

chuck, you cant convert the dream theater zombies.

They will never understand :)

Just let the fanboys have their way. 40% is pretty decent concidering how many dt fan boys dominate this forum.

its like when people say octavarium owns everything symx has done.

what a joke :P