Tom Scholtz Rockman

[6STRINGS 9LIVES]

Tom Scholtz the MIT graduate who gave the world the Boston guitar sound , engineered and developed what could arguably be called the 1st modeler. Released in the early 80's the Rockman was a small electronics package designed to be able to allow the player to have some portability and privacy.
The Rockman gave that distinctive Boston sound and was no one trick pony .. the chorus was very cool and the distortion and od features were amazing , how good were they , well i can remember in the early 80's tons of gigging players using them di to the board to get some amazing results, they were everywhere ..Def Leppard used them in the studio and legend has it that Billy Gibbons used one on the zztop single rough boys .The little sandwich sized plastic box was for the time simply amazing . Anyone who has ever played one will undoubtedly remember the beautiful sustain and eq .
Tom Scholtz developed many other electronics inovations including the Power Soak , an attunator, which enabled high powered amps to be played at high gain levels without high volume levels .. Scholtz eventually sold the company to Dunlop sometime in the 90's . Rockman's are available on ebay on a regular basis for 100 bucks or so , a very cool blast from the past ...6S9L

Attachment 735

[Tone2TheBone]

6S9L - I still have my Soloist (a less expensive version of the Rockman)! This unit only had chorus and not delay/reverb. Once in a while I'll plug in and go down memory lane. It's a sweet sounding unit actually and yeah it does have that distinct Boston sound. I also remember the Reverend Billy saying how that little box was a tone machine. Coming from HIM that is saying something.

I also used to have the Rockman preamp unit (Rock Module).

http://www.geocities.com/rockman_gear/ (edited to add)

It was a rackmountable Rockman a little bigger than the sammich unit that was housed inside it's custom rack enclosure. Along with that module was the Chorus/Delay module. Back then you could mix and match modules...one of them being an EQ I believe (it's been a long time yikes!). I think my units had a built in Noise Gate which was the coolest part about it. It was an automatic Noise Gate and it worked extremely well! The amount of distortion and gain from the Rock Module made me "famous". It was all out saturation. I ran the unit straight into the board for most of our gigs we had at that time....using the stage/rehearsal monitors for my own listening. I had even built me a custom switching unit from parts I bought at Radio Shack so that I switch channels and activate the delay/chorus live. Wow what great memories. I ought to shop around town looking for them again. Or Ebay. Cool thread 6S9L thank you!

[Plank_Spanker]

I have fond memories of my Rockman.

[Robert****]

The Rockman was cool. I thought it had fantastic OD sounds. My buddy had one of those and I was always envious. I got a Roland GP-8 later, something I always regretted - horrible distortion.

[Spudman***]

I skipped the Rockman and went for the Boss unit.
It has Drive, Volume, chorus, reverb/delay, clean and dirty channel, and eq. You could also plug in a mic, 2 sets of head phones and chain several of them together for group jams. I still have it but I can't remember which gear wing I stored it in.

It sounded great running into my Princeton believe it or not. It was really handy for learning tunes while others slept. It had an aux input and I could also run it into my portable boom box and play along with albums that way too.

Cool little units both the Boss and Rockman. I'm going to have to dig that out and try recording something with it...if I can find it.

EDIT*
I found it...and a whole nuther room full of gear that I'd forgotten about. Now to turn on the heat to that wing so I can dig around.

Anyway...it is the Boss HA-5. It sounds cool. I'll get something posted right away.

[SuperSwede]

Anyway...it is the Boss HA-5. It sounds cool. I'll get something posted right away.

The old unit that had a text with something like "Play Bus"?

[Spudman***]

The old unit that had a text with something like "Play Bus"?

That's the one. I couldn't afford a bus to play, but we drove a pretty cool van.

This must date back to the days of your 20mb hard drive.

[Katastrophe]

Scholtz is a genius, not only as a amph designer, but as a great creator of a catchy hook on the guitar. I had a Hush II CX noise gate in my rack that was durable and worked as advertised. I wish I had a Rockman from that era, too!

[333maxwell]

Tom Scholtz the MIT graduate who gave the world the Boston guitar sound , engineered and developed what could arguably be called the 1st modeler. Released in the early 80's the Rockman was a small electronics package designed to be able to allow the player to have some portability and privacy.
The Rockman gave that distinctive Boston sound and was no one trick pony .. the chorus was very cool and the distortion and od features were amazing , how good were they , well i can remember in the early 80's tons of gigging players using them di to the board to get some amazing results, they were everywhere ..Def Leppard used them in the studio and legend has it that Billy Gibbons used one on the zztop single rough boys .The little sandwich sized plastic box was for the time simply amazing . Anyone who has ever played one will undoubtedly remember the beautiful sustain and eq .
Tom Scholtz developed many other electronics inovations including the Power Soak , an attunator, which enabled high powered amps to be played at high gain levels without high volume levels .. Scholtz eventually sold the company to Dunlop sometime in the 90's . Rockman's are available on ebay on a regular basis for 100 bucks or so , a very cool blast from the past ...6S9L

Attachment 735

Kind of funny now.. I had a friend who got the orginal one way back when..

I thought it was very cool.. so I went to go get one and they were backordered.. so I never got one.. and here I was actualy jealous of my buddy and his lil headphone amp.

All these years later and I still resent the grinning lil @*Q$^!!!

[tot_Ou_tard]

I always get confused between Rockman & Rocktron. The latter has modelling units like the new Prophecy II (expensive!), but I don't think Scholtz has anything to do with them.

I've never heard any of these modellers.

[wingsdad]

It cost me $189 new in 1981. Listed for $250; extrapolate that to today’s dollar and this puppy was pricey. It's taken a lickin', but it's still tickin' @ 100% & it's still still my #1 go-to, easiest to use processor. Runs on 8 AAA batteries. Came with a 1/8" stereo-dual RCA ouput cable & those cool folding headphones so it would fit in the accessory compartment of most guitar cases.


Brilliantly versatile with a bunch of slide switches. 3 operating modes: 'Normal' is Tom Scholz-speak for the preset Chamber Echo & chorus on; you can switch either the echo or chorus off, but never run completely dry (duh...why would you?). 3 Output gain presets to select depending on where you send the signal for best match. 4 'amp' settings, each with a preset EQ curve: 2 different Cleans, Edge for some dirt, and Dist for potentially all-out balls-o-fire. The 1/4" Aux stereo input takes any stereo or mono jam-along cd or tape source or a 2nd guitar and 2 1/8" stereo phone outs so 2 players could jam or listen to each other, but mainly, so you could also send the signal to a board or amp or both.



On the back, a belt buckle (or amp handle) clip and little blue variable Input Gain knob...really the key element to set the unit's degree of distortion or clean sound, controlling the perfect marriage of your guitar pickups' output strength and the processor. The rest of the magic is up to you and how you set the vol & tone pots on your guitar to regulate that component of your sound.

Scholz was planning to come out with the Bass Rockman, too. I’d ordered one, but it never happened.