Mockman Vs the original Rockman

[C Bradley]

I was looking on e-bay the other day and saw that someone had an 80's vintage Tom Schultz Rockman for sale. Being a big fan of the Boston guitar sound, It piqued my interest, but the one on e-bay has already gone above and beyond my means.

I saw a schematic for a "Mockman", a clone of the Rockman minus the compression. I've got most of the parts, and what I don't have I can get at the Radio Shack around the corner. My main question is what type of compressor I'd need to build into the Mockman to get the Rockman tone? Also, is the Mockman's output compatible with headphones and the soundcard in my computer? I'm wanting to used this for home studio projects, and it'd make a cool pedal for live use too.

Chris B

[Gary]

any compressor will do nicely.  The Rockman units compressed very heavily.  (I have had several different models over the years.)  Just go with some heavy compression and let 'er rip!

As far as going direct, you'll have to add a speaker sim-type filter after the Mockman.  You could build the original speaker sim section.  If I remember correctly, Munky has posted the schematics to the Sustainor.  Look for the filter (eq) section and duplicate that.

The Mockman gets most of the way to the Rockman sound, but without the huge parts count.  I think if you try rolling off the highs at the end of the Mockman, you may be able to get the sound you are after.  Try rolling off from 5kHz on up.  That should give you a good direct sound.

The Mockman was intended to get you the Rockman type distortion with more flexibility and it was intended for use with an amp.  The older belt units didn't usually sound very good into an amp, IMO.

[petemoore]

BUt the Rockman used as a live' guitar efkt sounds kinda dull...cool [ROckmanowners forgive me] but just muted sounding IMO.
 I doubt this is what Tom used for recording and shows...havin a rep as master tweaker' [tweakin Marshalls and designing efkts], good to use as reference but, there's probably no [like most legendary sounds] on simple ckt that will cause a say practice amp resopnd like that.
 I say incorporate what you know [like TOm did] into YOUR sound [be it influenced by Tom, Pete, Eddie, or Jimi]. I think this is what my favorite recording artists did.
 Many products claim this or that liek 5150 PV amps [named after a VH album etc] are what so 'n so used...but IMExperience most are simple marketting ploys [JH Fuzz Face for example] intended primarily to sell customers on some mass produced product...I never went in for that 'this will get you there" schpeel [I do have a reissue Marshall but that's different...lol]
 I believe many of these 'legendary' sounds are 'happy accidents' incurred along the way by those who SEEK tone, and are aware enough to recognize and utilize useful components...integrating them into the prevailing 'Vibe'.
  Somehow, IMO, attempting to duplicating precisely ... a moment in history is chasing ghosts ... using my knowledge of that time to help shape the future is where it's at for me....I never had all that much luck attempting to conjure the elations of a lucky rock star...after all, warm moist and smoky air SOUNDS different than light fresh, clean dry air does,  whatever the [all important] 'vibe' at the time was, IT can't be reproduced.

[Ansil]

i must say that i don't see what all the bad mojo most peo0ple in the music biz give rockmans.  its all on how you tweak it and what you feed it.  i used to use one for everything from metallica to slayer to vai and satriani.  thats before i ever cracked one open and played with the guts.  i used to not dig the heavy compressed sound as i didn't think it was raw enough. so i stuck an old boss od in front of it, with the gain down and the volume on 6, it gave me a nice full tone with the un shaven hairy munky butt sound i was looking for while still retaining clarity.  as for getting his tone with them, i used to run into a small tube head straight out of this thing,(delay and time based fx on another channel) and we covered plenty of boston tunes as well as some other stuff.  personally i think if you have a nice responsive amp and you know not only the licks but the feel of the whole thing you can acomplish more than any processor out there.

not to rant, but i have had some of the first rack stuff that didn't even have any lcd it had led's to tell me what channel i was on, and lets not forget the non midi stuff.  i used to be a rack guru, i dint' get into pedals as much until later in my life when i got tired of carrying all the rack crap.

i still like a good solidstate preamp into a tube poweramp. but to this day i have an old lee jackson tube preamp that i got for 20 dollars that works better than anything i have ever heard. it is nearly transparent except that it is a distortion preamp, that i had modified when i didn't know jack about diy.

also some of the little sustainor preamps had a switch in the back that was not a channel switch but a boost switch, it says channel but it was really a boost i found 6 out of 10 were this way, all of mine were stock, i don't know if this was a fluke but its one of the best sounding units i have ever played.

ps  a freebee here, if you want an awesome sound use one of those radioshack isolation transformers, it has a 300hz to 5khz range, isn't that odd,  right in the guitar freq. range??  hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

makes an evil tone control either pre or post,  eliminates the need for an input cap also.

radioshack catalog part no.
273-1374

http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?catalog%5Fname=CTLG&category%5Fname=CTLG%5F011%5F002%5F016%5F000&product%5Fid=273%2D1374


1:1 Audio Transformer  (273-1374)    Specifications    

Coil Turns Ratio:......................................................1:1
DC Resistance:
  Secondary:..............................................60 Ohms  10%
Impedance:....................................................600-900 Ohms
Frequency Response:........................................300 Hz to 5 kHz
Insulation Resistance:.....................More than 100 megohms at 250VDC

[Johan]

like it or not. Rockman's have been used on so many albums over the last twenty years ( most of them in the eighties ) that you allmost have to consider it to be a classic sound...and I have heard more than a few "real" amps sounding worse after going through a poor miking and some cheesy procesing...if it works, it works. And if it fits in the track...

Johan

[C Bradley]

Thanks for the information guys! I think I'm just going to build the Mockman solo (without compression) and try it out. One more question though, is it the compression that makes the Boston guitar sound so smooth or is it just the type of distortion circuit?

Chris B

[Ansil]

more so the compression but the distortion doesn't hurt either. its more of a blend i would say like 65/35 in favor of the compression. but that is really for any compressor. i have seen the compressor bypassed on a rockman before and used with something else with less than spectacular results. but the key thing about a rockman is that they work extremely well with each other.  kind of like the little dano pedals.  they don't really soudn that good with other pedals, but they come alive when you play all of them together.  

ps where can you get the mockman scheme.

[Mark Hammer]

The thing people tend to forget about the Rockman was that it was intended to mimic a mic'd amp.  If you run its output to a wide-bandwidth mixing deck (PA or recording) *as if* it were a mic'd amp, it can sound great.  If you plug it into an amp, and effectively "reprocess" it through the same bandwidth constricting factors, it probably won't sound all that great.  Not unlike sticking a mic in front of a tape recorder speaker and expecting the second audio dub to be as good as the original.

Probably the single biggest factor in whether an ertsatz DIY Rockman will sound good is the choice of headphone.  Seriously.  Some headphones make guitar sound amazing, and others make everything sound appalling.  Certainly steeer clear of "ear bud" listening devices for such a practice pack.  You'll want nice big diaphragm over-the-ear types for that solid bass.

[jsleep]

I'd like to challange all you guys that said the Rockman doesn't sound good thru an amp.

Guitar->X100->7-band eq pedal->amp

tweak the eq and amp until it rocks.  My experience is that it's every bit as good thru an amp if you run it thru the post eq and get your amp set on a good clean dry flat sound.

IMHO, the death of the rockman was that it's just a one-trick pony, albeit a very good trick, most of us want to be able to change tones, etc.

JD

[Mark Hammer]

I wouldn't definitively say it doesn't sound good through an amp, but if it fails to make person X happy when played through an amp, there is a perfectly sensible reason, and one needs to be mindful of those factors when plugging anything into an amp.  I like applesauce, but I wouldn't expect it to be "better" or even palatable if I stuck it in a high speed blender and pureed it even more.

[C Bradley]

ps where can you get the mockman scheme.

I found it off of a link at Run Off Groove's sounds page.

Chris B

[C Bradley]

I simulated the circuit in circuit maker and did a Bode plot of the output, swept from 10Hz to 10kHz, and you get a huge hump at around 4kHz or so. Is that considered midrange or treble? Other than that, the output is basicly just a square wave.

Chris B

[Ansil]

you said

"I found it off of a link at Run Off Groove's sounds page.

Chris B"

i couldn't find any links off run off groove.  could you email  me said link.

[Ansil]

it is high mids in my book.

[B Tremblay]

http://runoffgroove.com/mockman.png

[bwanasonic]

I still have a Rockman Soloist that I used for years, but the jacks were always kinda wonky and made for ear-bleed squealing that I would have to constantly jiggle the plug to dispel. Tried DeOxit, but that didn't help. One thing I was always curious about was the *secret* sound I got by setting the dist/edge/clean switch on the balancing point between edge/clean (? could have been point between dist/edge) . On my eventual *To Do* list is fix the squealing jack and rig up a suitable wall-wart. The cord on my original wall-wart kind of disintegrated.  As far as running it into an amp... umm no thanks. But I could still find some down-and-dirty uses for it recording direct. The thing is a real bitch to take apart and put back together if I remember correctly.  Does the POD series have a Rockman setting? It really does capture a certain era.

Kerry M

[Gary]

JD and Mark,

I have had/still have several of the units.  Including the Rock Modules.  Want to buy one?

It can sound good through an amp, best method being direct to power amp.  Even better is Mark's suggestion of going to PA.  I have done both and it was pretty good.  But have you noticed the lack of bass?  That's where your EQ comes in.  I think it sounds great for recording, since it sits in the mix so well.  Here's the hottest tip yet:  Split your guitar signal and feed your normal chain on one side and mic it to the PA.  Send the split out to a Rockman and run it direct to another channel of the PA.  Now run a 50/50 mix of the two signals to the FOH.  You'll dig it.

The death of the Rockman was when Scholz sold the company to Dunlop.  When it was SR&D, you could get loaners while your unit was being fixed.  That was customer service!

To answer the question about what are the key components of the Rockman sound:  The keys EQ and compression.  The clipping is a soft clip setup, similar to a Tube Screamer.  SR&D often used 3mm red LEDs for the clippers, despite what the patent documents show.  The main parts of the sounds are the compression and the EQ shape.  Lots of signal around 800Hz to around 4kHz.  The level drops at 400Hz, then dops at a faster rate below that.  Not unlike a more complex TS-9 with compression.

But, what do I know?

[Ansil]

if you have one of the old sustainors that had thecompression dist and gate in it i would be interested.

[Mark Hammer]

In 1987, Bill Berardi published a circuit/project in Electronic Musician called the "Fuzztain".  It used a pair of CLM6000 optoisolators in a clever way.  The LED halves were used for a standard diode clipper, like the Mockman and the BluesBreaker.  The LDR halves were used elsewhere in the circuit though for gain reduction.  Hit a chord, and when the LEDs lit up and started to clip, they would simultaneously turn down the gain of an earlier stage so as to maintain a fairly constant level.

You don't need to do anything all that complex in the Mockman instance.  Just park an LDR over the LEDs on the board, and connect the LDR to the feedback loop of the first stage. There will probably be some toying around involved, since you don't know exactly how much gain change might be produced, but you could eventually settle on something that provides a decent amount of compression.

Consider the following.  Disconnect the pin 6 side of the 470k resistor and tie the wiper of a 500k-1meg linear pot to pin 6 of the dual op-amp.  One lug of the pot goes to the free end of the 470k resistor, and the other goes to one lead of the LDR.  the other lead of the LDR goes to pin 7.

Now you have a dual-path parallel resistance comprised of one leg of the pot and a fixed resistor (path A), and the other leg of the pot and a variable resistor/LDR (path B).  As you make path A higher resistance, fluctuations in path B have a larger impact on the combined parallel resistance.  As you rotate the other way and decrease the resistance of path A, the effective resistance depends primarily on the 470k resistor and fluctuations in path B resistance have decreasing impact.

I'd post the Fuzztain schematic but at the moment there are some server issues preventing me from administering my site.

[troubledtom]

i gave mine away to a friend .
   but i did a whole LP w/ bill ward from black sabbath fame w/ it.
             peace,
                - tom/mezo
  ps; look for a lowdown in europe. a metal mag has found me, and they are doing an article on the band.