Pretty awesome.
I just ordered a Rockman on eBay to try out with the new Tone Matching feature... should be spot on!
Thanks. May I give you a couple of tips? I assume that's a yes.
I've owned the Rockman portable X-100, several of the Rockman half rack space Sustainors (which aren't all the same inside), and the Ultimatum. I don't know why but for some reason ALL of them have a cab simulator that has FAR too low of a cutoff point. In other words they are all "dull" sounding and all the EQ in the world won't correct for it. They do a decent rhythm tone, but let's face it, users want the lead tone (IMHO at least) not the rhythm tone.
The Rockmans DO however shape the midrange of the tone quite nicely for a Boston type lead tone. My suggestion would be to alter the final sound that you get (which will be too dull to sound like the original or second Boston albums) in some way so that you don't filter out as much of the high frequency content.
Tom Scholz, for whatever reason, either made a conscious decision to make the cutoff freq of the cab sim WAY too low, or he screwed up when he designed the Rockman. I don't know which. All I can say is that if the cutoff frequency were raised the Rockman would have been a kick-ass product. A lot of people make fun of it and call it a cartoonish version of the Boston sound, and I have to agree, but it's ONLY because of the dull sound, again IMHO. If it had the "buzz" of the original Boston leads, which could have been achieved by simply setting the filter cutoff higher, it would do a GREAT job for Boston leads.
I have some other news I'll share. I have an unfair advantage that allowed me to gain a lot of insight into the Boston sound. I have the complete 21 track multi-track of More Than a Feeling with every single instrument including each of the lead guitars on its own track. You would be very surprised to hear some of the raw tracks. Some sound very crude. But when you play it all together it sounds phenomenal. I even did a remix of the song for my own listening pleasure with the vocals louder and with more bass in them and with an enhanced bass drum, etc. etc. Please don't ask for it - I don't want to get sued and frankly I don't think this should be floating around out there. I stumbled on it one day online and now I don't see it anymore. My good fortune but it's locked in a vault over here.
One other tip for anybody using this patch I posted. If you want to reduce the brightness, use the second PEQ that's in the signal chain (it's PEQ1 but they appear in reverse order). If you go into PEQ1, go to the F2 tab, and set the gain to zero, using a run of the mill lead position humbucking pickup you will get a sound that's almost indistinguishable from the raw lead guitar on the multi-track. The reason I used PEQ1's F2 tab to brighten the sound was to match the album. It's obvious that the raw track was brightened up in the final mixdown. For solo playing, turn that gain down to zero or maybe slightly higher and you can crank it up louder without it getting harsh sounding. If you want to use it in a recording leave it as is or EQ to taste.
I do however think that the distortion I got from the compressor (Sonitus in Sonar) to put on top of the amp distortion made the character of the distortion slightly closer than just the Soldano model used. I wish Cliff would make the release time of the compressor 1ms instead of 10ms, or better yet 0.1 ms. This would allow a unique type of distortion to be obtained that I can't get out of any of the amp or drive blocks. A person can wish...
I gotta say, I'm totally blown away by this piece of equipment. Even after owning an Ultra for years, I'm still blown away. The 50 user IRs and the IR creator and the new design of the cab block are brilliant additions. I didn't put any "room" in the cab sound (and I suspect a lot of people are going to abuse this function and screw up their recordings) but adding just a TINY bit of a small room to the sound can bring the sound alive IMHO.
Thanks.
