Crazy to think that a synth is what gives the song its signature sound when in fact it’s the only song on the album that does not use a synth.
First of all - as for the source, I know it's written on Wikipedia, with a link to a Guitar World article, but are we really sure about that?
Second of all, usually I don't think it's important whether it's a true guitar synth or if there's some shenanigans going in in post - as someone wrote on another forum almost a quarter of century ago, "
The synth was used a lot on Somewhere In Time and Seventh Son, but it's difficult to pick out specific instances as the general guitar sounds are pretty processed anyway (lots of delay and chorus)."
Third of all, there is definitely a shift in sound, but I'm not exactly sure where.
Let's look at the intro, here's the original song
Here's an alleged isolated guitar track
And here's how they do it live
Although there is a difference between the isolated guitar track and the live performance, it is not that huge, mainly it's just slower live.
However, there's definitely some doctoring in the studio involved, because the studio track sounds quite different - so I get where
adrian fn rules comes from - but I can't quite put my finger on what exactly is different.
Bringing this back around, I agree that the SIT songs sound a bit off to me live and it might be because the production of the album is so specific and omnipresent.