Talk:Rockman (amplifier)

18 March 2018 Changes
Ok, what's up with the article rewrite? It's a pretty sweeping change. Rbcwa (talk) 13:57, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Rockman users
The rockman.fr site has references to ZZ-Top, Billy Idol and Joe Satriani using SR&D gear. I'd like to add some specifics to the Wikipedia article. Can anyone add some non-rockman.fr references/links that can support the Wikipedia article? 75.101.111.190 (talk) 17:22, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Billy Gibbons did use a a Rockman for a couple of things, but he sent his Rockman back to Scholz R&D to have the chorus and delay removed. Joe Satriani recorded most if not all the guitars for "The Crush of Love" through a Rockman. Billy Idol's guitarist Steve Stevens did use Scholz gear as well, but I don't remember what for--I wasn't interested in Billy Idol (no offense intended).

Producer Mutt Lange saw potential in the sound of the Rockman unit, and when Def Leppard was in the studio recording Hysteria he used it extensively on the album for both clean and distorted guitar sounds (perhaps other albums as well--I don't know). You'll notice the distortion is tighter and much more present than is typical of a Rockman. That could have been achieved by either "stacking" a boost, an EQ, or a different distortion in front of the Rockman's distorted sound or by using the Rockman's clean sound driven by a different distortion altogether. The Rockman used LEDs for distortion, and the most commonly used LEDs back then ("early on") clipped early and had a lot of distortion with very little punch (i.e. output).

Sources are 80s guitar and recording tech magazines. The Billy Gibbons reference is from a Guitar World interview--November 1986--just happened to pull it out of the few issues I still have. I'm not as sure of the others. I mostly read Guitar World, Guitar for the Practicing Musician, and Recording Mag. Hope this helps you find sources. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.56.117.200 (talk) 21:48, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Development
The Rockman's inspiration may have been from early designs at the paging and sound reinforcement company first used by the band Boston in 1976. The original design shows the core technology. Delay shows a Hanley-Stogel design bucket-brigade device (Reticon SAD 1024 Analog Delay ICs) was used in the Rockman.

This part needs some work. Sidelining it for now. Rbcwa (talk) 05:26, 15 January 2014 (UTC)