Rockman Tone in 2017

[LLL]

Re: Rockman Tone in 2017

Is this gonna be played with Scholz as the backing track like in post #2, or a cappella?
?

Why, you thinking about contributing too?

Better get to work. Feel free to use any tips of mine.

[beaubrummels]

Re: Rockman Tone in 2017

Why, you thinking about contributing too?

Better get to work. Feel free to use any tips of mine.

The thing is, that wouldn't be Rockman tone anyway. The first album was what, 1976? I was on tour in 1983 and that was the first time I had heard of a Rockman and someone put a Rockman in my hands and let me play through it. It sounded more like the second album, if anything. The music I most associate with a Rockman is the HSAS album.

[LLL]

Re: Rockman Tone in 2017

The thing is, that wouldn't be Rockman tone anyway. The first album was what, 1976? I was on tour in 1983 and that was the first time I had heard of a Rockman and someone put a Rockman in my hands and let me play through it. It sounded more like the second album, if anything. The music I most associate with a Rockman is the HSAS album.

That's correct - no Rockman on 1st & 2nd Boston albums.

I posted that vid to show "Ace" the tone/playing without backing tracks (prior vid had backing tracks).

[Sirion]

Re: Rockman Tone in 2017

I was just looking at Matrix cabinets, and it struck me that the Rockman systems seem to have pioneered the idea 25 years before the rest of the world came along. Has anybody tried a Rockmodule system or equivalent with a modern FRFR cabinet?

https://web.archive.org/web/20080308055622/http://www.perfectsoundrockrefurbs.com:80/articles.html#Article%2018%20-%20Full%20Range%20Cabinet%20Specifics...What%20Gives?

[Securb]

Re: Rockman Tone in 2017

I was just looking at Matrix cabinets, and it struck me that the Rockman systems seem to have pioneered the idea 25 years before the rest of the world came along. Has anybody tried a Rockmodule system or equivalent with a modern FRFR cabinet?

https://web.archive.org/web/20080308....What%20Gives?

I had the Rack Unit and the Octopus in the late 80's. I found the rack to be very noisy for live applications and quickly got rid of it. The Octopus does not have configurable tip/shield switching which made it unusable with my Chandler Tube Driver. I was disappointed with both purchases and returned them quickly. IIRC there was some kind of hack available to change the tip/shield switching on the Octopus. However, the lag in the switching was also a turn off.

[Lewguitar]

Re: Rockman Tone in 2017

I am not the one blessed with golden ear like our bro Lew Guitar, so to me it's plain and simple: A lot of chorus (intense depth, rate, and level), Hall reverb, one-note-at-a-time playing ala Phil Collen, and voila...there you have it, the Scholz tone.

I think "Hysteria" by Def Leppard is representative, especially the arpeggio in Def Leppard's "Gods of War".

I dunno about a golden ear. More like an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Both a blessing and a curse. Yes: I notice things.

We were playing a gig in Alamosa, Colorado and the band drove to the famous sand dunes nearby and we all went out and walked around for a couple of hours. When we got back to our van, the driver had lost the keys somewhere out on the dunes.

So back out to the dunes we went in search of them.

Guess who found them?

I just kept looking for something in the landscape that didn't belong there.

[Sirion]

Re: Rockman Tone in 2017

I had the Rack Unit and the Octopus in the late 80's. I found the rack to be very noisy for live applications and quickly got rid of it. The Octopus does not have configurable tip/shield switching which made it unusable with my Chandler Tube Driver. I was disappointed with both purchases and returned them quickly. IIRC there was some kind of hack available to change the tip/shield switching on the Octopus. However, the lag in the switching was also a turn off.

So, which modern FRFR cabinet caused that noise? Please don't tell me that it was one of the Matrix cabinets!

[LLL]

Re: Rockman Tone in 2017

I had the Rack Unit and the Octopus in the late 80's. I found the rack to be very noisy for live applications and quickly got rid of it. The Octopus does not have configurable tip/shield switching which made it unusable with my Chandler Tube Driver. I was disappointed with both purchases and returned them quickly. IIRC there was some kind of hack available to change the tip/shield switching on the Octopus. However, the lag in the switching was also a turn off.

You prolly could have solved that problem easily with two other Rockman products:

Rockman Remote Loop
http://www.tom-scholz.com/Manuals/RL.pdf

Rockman Dual Remote Loop
https://www.rockman.fr/Reviews/DRL.htm

[LLL]

Re: Rockman Tone in 2017

I think a major reason why a lot of players didn't/don't like the Rockman is because it required some thinking and knowledge above and beyond the typical ("plug guitar into distortion box, then plug into dimed Marshall and crank it, dude") signal chain that was the rig-du-jour back then.

[LLL]

Re: Rockman Tone in 2017

I dunno about a golden ear. More like an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Both a blessing and a curse. Yes: I notice things.

We were playing a gig in Alamosa, Colorado and the band drove to the famous sand dunes nearby and we all went out and walked around for a couple of hours. When we got back to our van, the driver had lost the keys somewhere out on the dunes.

So back out to the dunes we went in search of them.

Guess who found them?

I just kept looking for something in the landscape that didn't belong there.

Reminds me of the giant comb scene in Spaceballs...

[Sirion]

Re: Rockman Tone in 2017

I think a major reason why a lot of players didn't/don't like the Rockman is because it required some thinking and knowledge above and beyond the typical ("plug guitar into distortion box, then plug into dimed Marshall and crank it, dude") signal chain that was the rig-du-jour back then.

Indeed. I have found this to be the case with quite a few modern units as well, such as the G-System. The difference is of course that there was no Internet back in the day, and no obvious way to get help if you didn't have somebody "in the know" in your area.

[Securb]

Re: Rockman Tone in 2017

So, which modern FRFR cabinet caused that noise? Please don't tell me that it was one of the Matrix cabinets!

No FRFR cab with it back then. I did run it through a Ampeg V4 loaded with G12Hs in it.

You prolly could have solved that problem easily with two other Rockman products

After buying two SR&D product that underperformed I moved on. The Octopus did work with my delay and the switching lag was problematic. I ended up getting a DigiTech DSP-256XL with an ADA MP-1 which I found to have much more flexibility functionally and tone wise, it was super quiet. The DigiTech DSP-256XL was a pain to program but once you had it dialed in they sounded fantastic. I should have never sold it.

[LLL]

Re: Rockman Tone in 2017

The other big "trick" (not really a trick) with say the Rockmodules is they required "full-range" speakers.

The units already had a speaker cab sim built in.

Dudes would plug in their regular 4x12s (full of regular guitar speakers) to the Rockmodules and complain.

[rbc]

Re: Rockman Tone in 2017

I think what people miss is that the Rockmodules are kind of a next step after pedals. You can assemble them into your dream system and add an amp and speakers to make the system complete. I started building up a pedalboard for a standard amp using its effects loop and started to look at those long cable runs with some apprehension. The Rockmodules keep the cable runs for the audio nice and short.

I also discovered that my standard amp systems started to look more like a Rockman system after a while. They always seem to wind up having a compressor, gate, pre-EQ and a chorus and delay added. The Rockman version of that is easier to setup. What can I say, I'm hooked.

[rbc]

Re: Rockman Tone in 2017

I'll add that when I use AmpKit, I generally run the same configuration too:

Guitar -> Compressor -> Gate -> Pre-EQ -> Amp -> Cabinet -> Chorus -> Delay