You're undoubtedly aware of the Sony Walkman, the portable cassette player that revolutionized how we listen to music, where we listen to music, and was everywhere in the 80’s. However, if you were listening to rock on your Walkman, you were probably listening to a guitar sound that was produced on a device not much bigger than the Walkman, that you could also wear on your belt, called the Rockman.
The Rockman was the brainchild of MIT Masters graduate Tom Scholz, who also happened to be the man behind the tiny little band known as Boston, his side project while working on his Masters, a project that resulted in an album that sold enough to become the biggest debut album ever up to that time. That album and the hit single More Than a Feeling revolutionized late 70’s guitar tone that continued through the 80’s, and the riff was so good that it also helped define the 90’s when Nirvana released Smells Like Teen Spirit that was ‘inspired’ by it (We’ll go into hiding now.).
The Boston sound was the result of Scholz’s own hand built gear and processing that he invented. Figuring that rock stardom is short lived, Scholz had the foresight to commercialize this technology and created Scholz Research and Development in 1980, and shortly after released the Rockman. It turned out that Boston wasn’t short lived, and neither was his company.
The Rockman was a very simple device that you could plug a guitar into and would simulate an amplifier, with output signal leaving the device through a standard headphone jack, allowing you to both plug it into a normal stereo to practice, or just practice into your headphones without disturbing anyone. Processors like this are common now, but at the time, this was revolutionary.
It was somewhat affordable and had very few features. It had a distortion, ‘edge’ and two clean guitar tones, along with a simple echo or chorus effect. What you got is what you got, and since it had a very unique sound that couldn’t be tweaked except for before and after it in the signal chain, it’s pretty obvious when one is being used, which was pretty much on everything, and much like last week’s subject, the Yamaha DX7, was so everywhere, that it became part of the sound palette of the decade. Also like the DX7, it was so intertwined with the sound of the 80’s, that it was caught up in the backlash with the 90’s assault on 80’s gloss.
Much like FM Synthesis, people are once again appreciating this device and sound. Even with modern digital guitar processing that can do a million more things than a Rockman, the simplicity and sound of the device has inspired reissues, both virtually in hardware and software. Also, so many of these things were made, and they’re so simple, you can find various versions of the Rockman on the second hand market for reasonable prices, and due to their analog simplicity, they’re easy to restore and keep in good working condition.
Now it's time to pump our fists to celebrate the Rockman.
Boston - Don't Look Back
ZZ Top - Gimme All Your Lovin'
Def Leppard - Hysteria
Here's some chorus after all that distortion. Also, apparently Scholz slightly modified the Rockman for Def Leppard, so their sound is slightly different.
Joe Satriani - Surfing With The Alien
Christopher Cross - Sailing
Let's slow it back down.
