Which amp is the rockman x100 based on?

I love the whole back story behind the Boston Sound - TS: Kodak cubicle Engineer puts together the 1st album in a diy studio, playing much of the instrumental parts, gets signed with the album pretty much done already and it goes viral in 76 (tho "viral" was not a word in that context back then) - then he engineers what could be said is the first modelling devices, before digital made headway in pedals / recording. I think the reason Boston1 is so timeless is due to that guitar tone - it's one of the few albums from that time I can still enjoy listening to from A to Z - still sounds fresh: the guitar tone, and vocals, melodies, hooks, are all iconic - never gonna happen that way again

 
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The Rockman was used extensively on Hysteria, but only for layered parts. There were other amps used as well.
 
Dave Merrill said:
It's interesting, i was thinking more about the early Boston tones, which aren't a Rockman, they just sound like one, or vice versa, and I really don't care for them, though the album is great.

I wasn't ever a huge DL fan (ducks). Think i know and like Pyromania best, and it does sound good. I've heard it's a Rockman too, but it doesn't have as much of that 800 hz thing going on.

Seems it's not just the modeler that makes a record :)
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Definitely. Also, it seems everything just fell into place for Leppard when they made Hysteria. I'm a long time fan (like a lot of ppl here I like very varied styles of guitar and tone - lamest observation ever I know), and I listened to the documentary about the making of the album and the Rockman worked (I think from what they seemed to be saying), because it could be layered and have loads of stuff added to it but still retain enough of the original feel that the player wasn't lost in the mix. There's probably waaaay too much personal interpretation of what was implied by what they were saying in that sentence tbf.

I listen to the controlled chaos of Hendrix playing through a couple of pedals and a Marshall stack and find multiple things that I think are magical and unreproducible and love it for that, and then Iisten to something I can re-create and play through the FM9 like the Rockman tone and hear something that also marked a particular moment in the progress of guitar tone and like that for very different reasons. Why am I telling everyone this? I have no idea :tongueclosed:
 
CAGOPOCO said:
Being a huge Leppard fan I had an X100 at some point, now I understand nostalgia and everything but the Rockman sound is objectively terrible and completely outdated.
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From my point of view, it's a tone worth cracking, given we have such a versatile platform with fractal, and of course tone matching to those classic records is always on my radar.

I don't necessarily think the straight up x100 tone was that great, but remember, Leppard mixed that tone so that it didn't actually sound like the recognisable Boston tone. Each track on Hysteria sounds slightly different in fact, the way they mixed or EQ'd that tone.
 
WhiteRoom said:
I can't relate to anyone who doesn't like Hysteria or the tones on those songs. They are iconic and amazing, no offence... :laughing:
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Totally agree, absolutely amazing record, never really matched by anyone since, which is a good thing because the album remains unique in a lot of respects, guitar production being one.
 
Dave Merrill said:
It's interesting, i was thinking more about the early Boston tones, which aren't a Rockman, they just sound like one, or vice versa, and I really don't care for them, though the album is great.

I wasn't ever a huge DL fan (ducks). Think i know and like Pyromania best, and it does sound good. I've heard it's a Rockman too, but it doesn't have as much of that 800 hz thing going on.

Seems it's not just the modeler that makes a record :)
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Pyromania wasn't Rockman it was Marshalls - probably why you like it, but the Pyro was a more ballsy straight up rock album of course. They went to Rockmans for Hysteria (and Adrenalize) due to needing more clarity in the guitar tones. Apparently you can layer tracks a lot better with Rockmans because it doesn't have all the extra character of a big Marshall with all the high and low end, so for the album, it solved that issue for them.
 
sprint said:
I love the whole back story behind the Boston Sound - TS: Kodak cubicle Engineer puts together the 1st album in a diy studio, playing much of the instrumental parts, gets signed with the album pretty much done already and it goes viral in 76 (tho "viral" was not a word in that context back then) - then he engineers what could be said is the first modelling devices, before digital made headway in pedals / recording. I think the reason Boston1 is so timeless is due to that guitar tone - it's one of the few albums from that time I can still enjoy listening to from A to Z - still sounds fresh: the guitar tone, and vocals, melodies, hooks, are all iconic - never gonna happen that way again

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I think you're right.. we were lucky enough to experience that moment in time when there were real pioneers doing experimental stuff
 
Frodebro said:
The Rockman was used extensively on Hysteria, but only for layered parts. There were other amps used as well.
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Gallien Krueger was the only other thing used, the rest is the x100. Phil Collen still has the original x100 at his house they used on the album. He talked about it at length in a recent interview, and showed the unit itself!
 
It's my understanding that they also used a Japanese clone of the Rockman called the "Rock Box" that allowed one to turn off Chorus and Delay both. I don't know whether Mutt Lange or the band has substantiated this but it's been discussed here and there on various forums and would make a lot of sense.

On another note: having played a real, honest-to-God vintage Rockman a few times I can tell you that they sound nothing like "Hysteria" in real life. The clean tones are in the ballpark but the distorted tones were undoubtedly massaged with a heavy dose of EQ and so forth. When I was on my "Hysteria" kick a few years ago I built an ampless patch using the aforementioned FAS LED Drive and tweaked the EQs by ear because of this.
 
alexjplant said:
On another note: having played a real, honest-to-God vintage Rockman a few times I can tell you that they sound nothing like "Hysteria" in real life. The clean tones are in the ballpark but the distorted tones were undoubtedly massaged with a heavy dose of EQ and so forth. When I was on my "Hysteria" kick a few years ago I built an ampless patch using the aforementioned FAS LED Drive and tweaked the EQs by ear because of this
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Yep as I mentioned before, same as your observation, we know the Hysteria tone is the x100, we know why they used it, we just don't know exactly how they manipulated it to sound like it does on the album.

It's almost as if they did their best to make it not sound too rockman like, the danger being I suppose, that you could easily end up sounding too much like Boston of course. I did read in another interview with Phil where he said they pulled the x100 apart and actually changed some stuff in the circuitry aswell. That might have been to try and isolate certain effects if I remember correctly. I think they just wanted the isolated distortion tone and added their own reverb and chorus back in etc

But yeah, playing through a standard rockman unit doesn't get you there!
 
What a brilliant discussion I've already learnt a lot I didn't know, and I thought I'd heard most stuff there was to hear about all this. I love it 😃
 
Woz said:
FM3 FW 9.00 Beta I can only import the IR: "Rockman Edge". The preset itself is empty :(

This is the first time I have imported a .fasBundle file so I'm probably doing it wrong. I tried importing this way into an empty preset location:

Preset>Import Preset

I changed locations to where I want the preset and IR saved and it seems to do it's thing, but there's nothing at all in the preset block

What am I doing wrong? I've been looking forward to trying this preset all day.

Thanks!
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I believe there's an Import Bundle option...
 
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