The Rolls Royce version of the Rockman! Official Big Hairy Guitars DynIR pack for Two Notes: store.two-note... Kemper Profiles: bighairyprofil... Overloud TH-U Rig Packs: www.overloud.c... #Rockman #Scholz #DefLeppard
My NOTAKLON gets as good sustain for $100. I have all the rack effects I ever need now. For $4000 I could a couple new guitars and a Line6 DT-50. 1/2 stack. The XPR does sound great though. I need a new X100 Rockman for almost $500 brand new I like 1989.😂
Man, That's so beautiful! I absolutely love high end solid state gear from that era. It sounds heavy processed but very analog and warm. I instantly thought about Gary Moore's Wild frontier album ...
I just bought an XPRa about 2 weeks ago and it had the Ultimatum mod done to it. Paid $2500 and I didn't even realize it was the "a" version of this unit until it was on its way to me. Only 70 XPRa's were made. I've wanted one of these for 25 years. I'm so happy.
Whats the ultimatum mod , i swear i didnt even Know this was a thing but two days ago i saw a Photo Of John Mayer in the studio , noticed some rackmount rockmans and thought hmm that’s odd .. must be for sob rock … as i have an xpr upstairs i bought new perhaps 89 i went googling and found this whole xpr culture ….
Still got my XPR that I bought it 26 years ago! At the time it was the only thing that sounded great straight into a desk, way before cab sims and IR’s existed!
I've personally never heard a modeler that can ape this properly. It gets "kinda sorta" in the neighborhood but it's not like this. Those XPR's are a thing of beauty.
@@aliensporebomb Solid state paperweights, once you lose the actual tubes you might as well play though plugins. These rockman amps have NO FEEL and you are just being blinded by random nostalgia.
Unfortunately the only they did that was close is the Smart Gate pedal. However there is Japanese clone out there now called the GOAT Generator that does a damn good job of emulating the Distortion Generator Rack unit ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-HO6EgdNqwno.html
that clean direct sound with compression is the sound of endless walks around the high school dance looking for a young lady available for a dance to a slow jam ...with no luck... it's just that sound
@@joshuahenry7482 he said they sell for around $4k? Not sure they could increase much more... Does make me wonder if SR&D could reissue some of these units...
Man…the XPR really does “those things” incredibly well. Wonderful playing/demonstration. Here’s hoping some type of affordable Scholz-sanctioned re-issue/plugin/etc comes down the pipeline!🤞
I cant believe you made this video today, I was literally JUST hunting YT for some rockman love and holy crap, you just covered everything! I miss my old SRD equipment.... but everything I played on it sounded like Boston LOL. I love it, but not today hahaha I 100% BLAME Tom Scholz for my LOVE of stereo effects, because of him every damned rig ive had since the 80's was full stereo, that $%^# cost me thousands!
They are nice, but not like I'd use it for a youtube handle... Oh wait :P Seriously thanks for this review, not many people would did this. I collected all of my Rockman gear early 2000's when it was somewhat affordable, XPR, Stereo Chorus, Stereo Echo, MIDI octopuss, 12 band EQ's. I did have a couple of Sustainors but now I'm content with the XPR for the tones. The Smart Gate I did get was the Dunlop pedal version of it since they own the Rockman rights so they used the original design and tweaked it a bit. If I had to pick ONE piece of Rockman gear for any setup it would be the Stereo Chorus. It's lush, organic, and it can be subtle when set up as such. A lot of owners really love it when they use the full range cabs and a Solid State amp to run it, however my best tones came from a standard 1960 4X12 cab and a Mesa Boogie 20/20 power amp. It sounded a lot "warmer" compared to going Solid State route.
Brings back some memories. I was really into the SRD thing as I was figuring out my 'sound'. Had a few of the half-rack modules that they made...not quite as expensive as this beast.
That ZZ stuff came out of left field for me and it was just dead on. That's a tone I'd never really sought out but wow, there it was like I'd heard 1000 times. Well done man.
I love that the pre-eq has a mid boost. Like a Rockman doesn’t have enough midrange already! It sounds just as noisy as I remember my half rack distortion unit being back in the day. I forgot how much compression they added to the clean sounds, but hey, it worked! I recorded in a small studio in the late 80s that had one of these and I remember the studio owner letting me listen to a recording another band had made using the unit and he told me “I’m never going to let a guitarist get a tone that sounds like he’s got a mic stuck up his nose in here again.” Don’t think he was a fan.
just an aside the new Rockman doesnt compare to the older ones. I guess another company bought out the Rockman and it dosnt sound nowhere near as good. I dont own the new or the old one but this info is from guitar forums and people commenting so make of it what you will...
I found my preproduction prototype on Reverb years back. I spent the better part of a year looking for it. It cost about $1200 at that time, and that was priced high compared to the 8/900 most of the others were going for. I don’t believe it had been serviced, and the buttons are sticky. But with some patience, it’ll do everything you’d expect. My buddy had the XP100, he was kind enough to lend it to me for a month or so back in the late 80s. And after that I bought the ADA MP1 when it was new. There are good reasons for all of the preamps. The XPR is such a unique sound, you sound great here. But the ADA has its own screaming sounds, and for those who get into other preamps, they all have a unique result. What’s most satisfying is having a decent collection of power amp output sections to pair with these preamps. I am always surprised by adding the Mesa preamp to a Marshall power section with Greenbacks. But going direct to console, that’s always been a great clean alternative to classic Fender sounds. These days, for people who have Fractal and Kemper units, it’s just nice to have a full color palette to paint with. I find lots of reasons to not play, that’s life. But if you have an interesting guitar rig, that can break the barrier and get you to sit down and enjoy some alone time. Another of your outstanding demos, happy jamming.
Awesome dude!! I still have my Rockman XP 100 portable amplifier from 1989/1990. It was my first real amplifier. It has the same layout as this preamp but with a built-in solid state power section with Rockford Fosgate speakers but it Jams.
yes please, I managed to get a semi working copy of the rockman by Nobels, and Im not exactly looking forward to dig into the electronics of that thing lol
I used to run a sustainor mixed with a Marshall back in the 80’s…..I had all the Rockmodules….and they weren’t cheap back then….They were $250 to $300 a piece brand new….that was a lot of money in 1987….I liked them though….instant 80’s for sure…
So nice!, I bought the Rockman XP100 amp brand new when it came out and kept it till about 2002 kick myself everyday for selling it they want $6k for them now days in good condition.
Yesterday, I think, the Professor of Rock put out a video on Def Lep’s Hysteria. One of the things that stuck was a quote from the engineer that went something like this, “The rockman sounded like absolute sh1t and you couldn’t get a good tone out of it but when it was layered and EQ’ed it became something different.” Back in the day I wanted one of these and didn’t have any issue with solid state, as I learned on a Peavey Bandit with a few pedals. Did I want a Marshall stack, oh yes, very much, but that was out of my price range in the 80’s. Good stuff. Love the videos. Thanks!
They used little GK combos through a Palmer DI for lead and distorted tones. Clean tones were a rockman with the compressor bypassed. Edit: maiden also used those gk amps on somewhere in time and seventh son.
I think they are great for recording, but they don't cut it live! I had a friend, back in the day, that would do gigs with it going through the PA and it got lost in the drums. It is that Satriani and Def Leppard sound from the 80's. Thanks for the demo, great to watch as per usual Mr Nielson :)
Yeah those cleans are incredible and I don't know why but as soon as you associate a certain tone with the eighties, you feel like you can't use it because you're living in the past or something... lol ... but it sounded great!
@@BigHairyGuitars definitely understandable and thanks for giving it a shot to recreate these cool tones. I'm wondering if the Kemper has effects that can get in the ballpark to simulate the sound of the compression and FX of the XPR, then you'd probably only have to profile just the clean direct signal off of the XPR. Hoping for the best! :-)
Consider this my vote for a Kemper pack, as well! FWIW, there's a particular Italian profiler dude that did the Rockman X100 and, at least to MY ears, got pretty darn close to the tones my actual X100 can put out. So I think it's possible for the XPR, but it is probably a LOT of work. I don't want to put a link to a competitor's product here though, but it's easily found because that dude posts all the time on the Kemper forum. Feel free to tell me delete this post if it's bad form to discuss this here.
@@SliderJeff Hi Jeff. Thanks. It's VERY difficult to get a comparable profile for the X100. So if you have a link to someone, feel free to post. Also, people can go to my www.bighairyprofiles.com to see if I manage to make some in the future. Thanks!
@@BigHairyGuitars Thanks, Michael. For reference this is what I was referring to. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-z5CgPvSME_8.html. Again, it might sound like dog doo to more professional ears, so YMMV. :)
The clean is THE CLEAN, used on everything back then, thank you for this. The clean alone makes me want it. The dirty tones meh, sounds like a rockman + added some eq. But that frikkin clean is the absolute baddass-est
@@DOKITT yeah the units are rare, and the same cleans can be achieved many other ways that are not rare. I won't waste time seeking out rare stuff that's 40 years old. Thx though
I have an XPR that was restored by a man named Dave Accomando who is a rockstar in the Rockman refurb business. I paid just shy of $1,000 for mine 4 years ago and I see them going for $3,500+ What the HELL happened??? There was a time when and XPR couldn't fetch a cool G...
