The ROCKMAN X100 Headphone Amp - Boston and Def Leppard Guitar Tones
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- Опубліковано 20 лют 2021
- Hey guys, been wanting to a video on my old Rockman for a few months, After RJ did such a great video I lost interest and I am now just getting around to plugging it in. What do you think of this. Is it still relevant? Is it just a novelty item? The sound is so distinctive that you can tell it's a Rockman when you hear it on just about any album it was used on.
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#rockmanx100 #tomsholz #boston
The 80s had the best guitar tones 🤘
Man I love hearing Rockman tone in the hands of someone who's way better at guitar than me.
Back in '83 I bought a used '81 Fender Lead ii and needed a small lightweight practice amp to take with me to work, so the Guitar store owner showed me a new product the original Rockman. Saw Tom Sholtz's name on it...SOLD! I was a merchant marine engineer working on ice breakers, so had hours to practice onboard the ship, between shifts, by plugging in my Sony Walkman and playing along all my favourite songs. And thanks to you Rich, I dug my old one out of storage and plugged in that old Fender. The 80's live again!
Thanks for the memories 🤘😎Rock on
Brings back my ‘80s memories!! Great Job Rich!
🙏🏾 I will never get sick of this sound! Great vid man! 🤘🏾
Thanks Brother!
Yes sir , thts it , got 1 new back when , still hav it along with a rockman power soak , use em both kinda regular . Love the channel .
The THU RockGuy is an incredible plug-in. I played the Rockman for years. That plug-in is spot on. I bought it a few weeks ago. Outstanding.
I love it. I hardly play my amps now.
Love that sound! Excellent video - and playig, of course. Thank you.
Great intro Rich!
That little thing took over ALL my school nights in the 80s…..😅
Well done vid, Rich! 👏
I love the tone as well. I'd like to find one since it's so easy to use. Sometimes having less options makes it easier to just pick up and play.
Just pulled mine out from the 90S. Its sill in great shape and still have original power supply that died, and I'm replacing the parts in it. Its tough cause it was a sealed unit. I could buy the power unit like yours but it was original to this one. Great demo of the unit and I'm happy to still have one!!!
Sounds really great, and those are two of my favorite bands as well.
❤️🔥💥❤️🔥
Sounds incredible!!!
awesome playing man. i have the same rockman an i will try it, thank for share
great playing and cool sound , Rich. Greetz from GER
Thanks!
Memories of seeing Def Leppard shortly after Hysteria was released.. great video Rich!☺
Thanks!
that was such a great tour! caught it in hartford :-)
Great vid! Really want one of these. None on UK's eBay currently.
I found one of these locally for $100 and it works perfectly. I just checked what folks on Reverb are asking for them and they are like $450 and above, holy crap!
Man you lucked out I need to do something like that.
Epic find!
Great job Brother!
I grew up in the 80’s and I love that tone. I always wanted a rock man back in the 80’s but couldn’t afford it. Now I am too cheap to pay $600 for one. LOL
I dont blame you.
@@RichBischoff Well, I did end up buying one for not much less. I blame you, LOL. It’s such a great sound.
@@armycopter I will take all the blame. 🤣 Did you get one with the power adapter?
@@RichBischoff No, I wish, but the one I got has been refurbished. Cleaned, solder checked, and new caps. Should be good for many more years hopefully.
My uncle had one back in the 80's, and he may still even have it... I remember jammin with this when I was a kid, and always thought it had a killer sound...
Totally ironic, Rich, that you would decide to post a demo of the X100 coincidentally with when I had just yesterday watched a couple of videos of a Japanese-built product called the Blue Goat, specifically designed and built to approximate the Boston guitar tone. Even went so far as to include the same powder-blue trim on the face that Tom Scholz featured in the Power Soak and the Rockman line.
I actually bought one of these back in autumn 2001. It didn't work out for me the way I hoped it would, but I loved being able to plug in and get at least a slight approximation of that tone. "Cool the Engines" and the "Don't Look Back" title track were just 2 of the songs I launched into when I took delivery. Because performing on stage with it was prohibitive, I launched into a quest to try approximating the Boston guitar sound that has taken me through to the present time.
Awesome monster hair sounds from such a little box! Awesome monster hair playing from Rich! I'm curious to hear what you think some solid entry-level tube amps (combos or heads) would be good for multi purpose use (usable across most genres).
You know Orange has those hybrid micro heads that I think probably work well with pedals. They like a hybrid, part tube part solid state. I might be reviewing those sometime.
killer intro man
I always wanted one, but they were beyond my pockets capabilities. Now with the Kemper and Helix, I can get pretty close, with the like of Top Jimi’s Boston pack, or that from Live Play Rock. Love it!
Where do you get those helix / Boston patches? I would so like to purchase those
Man you got a Napoleon Dynamite vibe hardcore. love the 2min intro before the video..
I just bought the Amplitube Joe Satriani pack that includes their version of the Rockman X100. It sounds amazing! Yeah it might not be as close as the original(to my ears seems to nail it) but at $60 for the plug-in vs $600+ for a vintage original if you can find one, close enough is damn good enough!
Thank you for the demo, realy.
I love the sound.
I m gonna try the emulation by ik multimédia.
I'm pretty sure Satch used the"Sustainor" half rack space Schultz preamp with the sounds of the X100(which I also had) but more flexible settings and "channel" swithching.It also has switchable pre-set eq settings to emulate the resonances of a 4/12 cab, and a really good compressor( this is better on the clean2 setting, but too noisy on gain or boost) still a classic sound, if a little too easily identified.To me the clean2 sound with compression and out-put through the Rockman (analogue) bucket brigade "stereo echo", is a superior, but often overlooked Schultz sound, but it works best in tandem with the compressor and echo.What a tone! I also have a powersoak that I want to sell, that used to belong to a guitar-playing friend who has recently passed away.He used it with a Marshall slx 100watt head when playing at home and swore by it!The Rockman power-soak is a fixed impedance attenuators but one of the first ones available when it first came out, so of course,it too would be imprinted on our collective musical memory banks from frequent recorded examples.Scholtz was one of those pioneers in many areas and is sometimes side-lined because he doesn't warm to digital sounds , nor is he a fan of tubes, but should go down as one of the best solid state guitar sounds of the analogue era.
Satch didn't use the Sustainer - he used an X100 on Surfing. He was later sent a stack by SR&D when they found out he was using the X100 which included a Sustainer. You're about the rest of your Rockman history except Tom's last name is Scholz not Shultz :)
Sounds great Rich. I still think it's cool. Always did love that Boston sound, after Tom Scholtz "invented" this little machine. I always heard a story that he, being the engineer that he is, was tinkering with a broken amp..... and he messed up a circuit, or maybe discovered that it had a broke circuit or something, and got it semi-going again.... and it had this sound. It drove him nutz to get that sound, since he loved it. And alas... he came up with this. Do you know anything about that, or if it's true? Anyway - sound killer. You've got the Boston thing nailed. And I'm a HUGE Def Lep Fan, and I had no idea this was any part of their sound. Cool Vid, and great playing - as always, Rich.
Not sure how he came up with the sound, I just always heard he was a real smart engineer. I also didnt know Def Leppard used them on Hysteria until I watched RJs vid. I snooped around on Google and found an article that talks about how Mutt Lange, their producer, made them play through these instead of micing up amps. I liked old Def Leppard though, high and dry and pyromania, I liked Hysteria, but I felt like it got overplayed on the radio and mtv.
Legend has it that he came up with the bare bones of this model while he was driving to find a way of condensing all the devices that he was depending on for his guitar tone (a Marshall stack, a Crybaby pedal, the original Power Soak) into a single piece of equipment. Love to note if it was true that he hit on the perfect tone by mistake.
I used the half-rack Rockman Sustainor during the late 80's. I have that sound so baked into my head, I can "almost" be persuaded to buy it again. But not quite :)
I love the Clean sound on it though
The clean sound and the chorus effect definitely parallel the signal chain of the JC120. The thing which has always demolished me was trying to approach to make the full blown plexi tone in the distortion channel. Tom definitely went for a different equalisation for that section.
MesaGuit... I know just what you mean-I still have one which I still use to put clean acoustic into my stereo tube guitar power-amp.
Yeah ,that clean2with compression is the coolest clean sound, without actually using a Fender tube amp or a Vox.
Both dave mustaine and Chris poland from megadeth used the rockman x100 as a boost to their marshall amps on the peace sells album
Also, the Rockman is featured in the intro to 502 from So Far So Good... So What.
@@jriamyou8156 both peace sells and so far so good so what have some of my favourite metal guitar tones ever I want a rockman so bad
It does sound exciting
Goooood sound....
While I realize that Dunlop currently manufactures the Rockman for consumer uses on the open market (I still think they do) I would love to see another company take out the mantle and build a similar model to this as it still generates so much interest almost guitar players even to this day.
I have the Dunlop Rockman. It sounds nothing like that. Its just a crappy distortion box.
The Rockman sounds super compressed, so the other piece of magic not to forget is the Mutt Lange production technique. At the time of Hysteria he was having every note picked abd recorded separately. That is just as much a contributor to the sound as is the design of the Rockman.
Basically Def Leppard, Cutting Crew, White Snake and ZZ Top Eliminator era.
Megadeth peace sells too
That's awesome! Killer tone from a classic piece of gear. How do you have it set up in this video? Are you using it with anything else that would impact the sounds, or is that all Rockman?
Maybe a delay and reverb I put on in post. But idr.
This is a surprisingly good sounding piece of gear. I have never heard of these until recently.
Also, Im looking to set up a decent room mic for recording me and a friend, and could you tell me about your miking setup for this video? Ive read shotgun mics are not good for small enclosed areas and are best suited for large environments.
I did use a shot gun mic in this video. Running it into a Focusrite isa one mic Preamp.
@@RichBischoff thanks for the reply, what shot gun mic did you use? And would it be best to acoustically treat the room its recording in?
Yeah I'd treat your room. Here is the mic I use. amzn.to/3EUZ2xZ
Very cool indeed!!... 80s in a box. Did Cindi Laupers guitar player use a rockman? He always had a very chimey chorus clean sound.
Probably
@@RichBischoff I bet the X100 could also get a real convincing early 80s Alex lifeson tone. There's something about the harmonic overtones/undertones surrounding the fundamental notes on these units. When you really dig into the strings it squeals and sings kind of like a cranked amp/cab... sort of. It's something more than just pre/post gain EQ. I read somewhere that you can't even get the bare components anymore for these. So even if Tom Scholz opened the patent and Dunlop (or someone) cloned the circuit layout... you could never really manufacture them in any kind of volume. Great playing and thanks for uploading!!
Hi man. Thanks for that awesome video. I own a Rockman x100 as well and I’d like to know if the red light is supposed to blink when attached to the rockadaptor like it does with batteries or if it stays still.? Thanks for your response.
I I think the light slowly fades in and out.
@@RichBischoff Thanks Rich.
Joe had his rockman turned into a patch on his new pack from Amplitube.
We need this in a pedal!
That would great!
You used to be able to get these for under $10! I found one in a thrift store back in the 90’s for $3.
So you plug your guitar into the Rockman and then another cord goes from the Rockman into your amp?
Do you know Goat Blue Generator？
Of course, I love Rockman sound.
That sounds great I wish I had one but I don't feel like paying $600 for something that might not last. How easy is it to get all the electronic components that might fail? Thanks man that was really good.
I'm sure it's expensive to replace parts on these with them not being made anymore and hard to find.
I really love this tone.. is there a stomp pedal out there that might be close or same as the rockman ?
I don't know of one. I think RJ Ronquillio found a plugin that emulates it well.
Yes it’s call the Goat
@@mottosierra1372 yeah I just watched a video on that.. not quite the same , but yes a good alternative..
Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top used the Rockman X100 all over the Eliminator album.
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ # Bangkok. Thailand😄
Yeah, Def Leppard used a rockman on songs such as animal. The real credit should go to Boston because it's almost like 3D for your ears.
Any other effects pedals to create same sound?
I think there's a plugin.
Could anyone advise how to connect the Rockman to an interface for recording? Thanks
Instument cable out to the input on your interface or you can get an 1/8 inch to stereo 1/4 inch cables and record in stereo.
@@RichBischoff Thank you. What are the typical audio levels coming out from the low level output? Is it in Mono only? Thanks
I have a rockman distortion generator.
clean 2 is no cab emulation (Marshal)
Can I plug one of these through a combo amp I have a Fender 2V amp
Sure
Is there a way to get rockman tone on the helix?!
You can probably get close.
Play my into two JCM DSL 100's stereo and not "looking back" Iron Maiden - ZZ top - Top Gun and more . Play Them With Real Amps ! Boston Live is Guitar Heaven
Sounds like the hay day of rock lol
I was working at a food court in highschool. The night before i bought an x100. I looked behind me and there was this dirtbutt behond me in a jean jacket, greasy hair and hes with a super model. Then 20 min later my buddy tells me it was tom shultz if i spelled it right.
Can you use it as a pedal too?
No, You can’t, it’s only a pre-amplifier sound effect.
I used to run it into the front end of a clean half stack amp. So in a way, that was like running it as a pedal. It sounded great!
I can’t believe the x-100 are going for $1000 usd on eBay or reverb. I’d love one of these. Also just woke up today and this is the 3rd guitar video I’ve watched where I’m honing in on how bad the timing is to everyone’s playing. Maybe my reality is coming apart, losing my mind. Maybe I should stop sleeping with my metronome on.
I went your channel to see how good your timing is since you're being a critic of everyone elses timing. Your timing didn't exist since you have no content what so ever. Maybe you could do a lesson video on timing. Just saying.
@@RichBischoff my sincere apologies for hurting your feelings friend.
Wouldn't be the least bit surprised if Tom Petty used one of these in the studio.
I wish someone would make a decent clone of these
I agree.
it was an xpr...most of the time
Best Rockman tone i ever heard was this, ua-cam.com/video/ggZX4GcWbiw/v-deo.html
That little box was made really cheap but damn did it get a huge tone when used right!
I owned over 10 of these, they break real easy!
They are great little devices. But, if you want one these days, the online extortionists who are selling them want an arm, a leg, several toes, and the deed to your house. Instead of paying $500+ for one, I'd rather pick up a used Marshall and use pedals I already have (or which can be gotten cheaply) like an EQ, Distortion, Compressor, Delay, and Chorus. Or, for the bedroom solution, I create presets for Guitar Rig 5 and other amp sims - both free and paid. Plenty of cheaper solutions for the tonally inclined. 😁
Haha! True!
Marshall amps and most VST amp plugins sound very samey and generic. The Rockman has a much better and more distinctive sound.
@@neilkendall5499 When I see comments like yours worshiping the Rockman, it just shows me that people still don't bother to learn WHY Tom created the Rockman in the first place. It wasn't created to make a better sound. It was created to save on tubes. There were a bunch of factors that went into it. Recreating the Boston sound he got in the studio required running the amp tubes into the red every night. So, every other night, they were replacing ALL the tubes in the guitar amps. That gets expensive.
So, he invented the Rockman to fix that problem. He didn't create it because it was 'better' than a Marshall. He did it to save on tubes and set-up time for the concerts every night. And, if you listen to the sound of the first two albums - PRE-Rockman - and the ones afterward (1986 and beyond), the guitar sound is different. It's not BETTER. It's different. I'm a BIG Boston fan and I've chased that tone for years. Sure, I could buy a Rockman and sound like everyone else. Or I could use my brain and figure it out for myself.
And, besides, having used a Rockman many times, I like the VSTs and presets I made better. Why? Because they're ADJUSTABLE. The Rockman only has 3-4 things you can do with it (without spending the SEVERAL THOUSANDS for the rest of the gear he made). When Boston's on the stage, they're not all plugging into little headphone amps.
@@Axess-sv8nq It doesn't matter WHY he created it or whether it's a 'little headphone amp'. It produces a great and distinctive sound with no fuss, whether live or in a studio. I think Marshall amps make people 'sound like everyone else' as they're so overused and cliched. I've always thought Marshall amps are highly overrated and don't sound that great in my opinion.
@@neilkendall5499 "This channel has no videos." Yeah. Every single time.
its still a great sound. And it won't make you sound like Boston either. Even Tom Scholz doesn't sound like early boston with his new digital gadgets, in my view. Wish he would have stayed with the same exact process that got him the early sound.
tom schultz never got into digital gadgets? what are you talking about?
Yo! Why would you think the 80s weren't cool anymore?.
Were you around over 20 years ago. If so you remember all things 80s were no longer cool. What was once not cool is cool again. I literally remember being in a band in the 90s and being told my guitar sound was to 80s and to change it.
You dont have to play good (like he does) to sound good on these. How do I know? 😝
The current Rockman Guitar Ace sounds nothing like that. Dont buy one thinking you'll get that sound, you will be sadly disappointed.
Why buy a vintage version with the most ridiculous prices? I consciously refrain from the systematically increased prices for vintage gear. These are new in the shop for € 125 including warranty. It's just a tool. People are so fixated on material and showing off vintage gear.
They are 'new in the shop'? Are they still being made, and where can I buy one?
Name the shop for me so I can buy 3.
The guitar shop
need to work on dynamics...voice is WAY below level of guitar!
why does every x100 video on youtube have Def Leppard in the title? Def Leppard sucks. Tom Scholz is written on the box so maybe talk about Boston a bit more.
I think if you watch the whole vid you'll see I talked about both... lots of bands used the rockman in 80s even though it was invented by Tom Scholtz.
Sorry to be a downer, but besides driving up the price on something we can't get already, what was the point of this video?
Uh, thanks I guess.
The Rockman has a unique compressor release recovery that makes it swell very musically when sustained chords are held. It also makes volume swells sound amazing
The ‘80s not cool any more? 😂