Post by DavidPost by DavidPost by u***@yahoo.comThis may have been asked before, but does anyone know the rig used by
Boston on that song. The opening guitar intro just floors me every
time.
I remember reading in a magazine (20 years ago at least) about Sholtz
having a patent on some sort of compression/echo unit. Not being up on
all the current gadgets, what would come closest to that Boston tone?
Thanks
Ron
That would be the Scholz Rockman. Don't know what he used on the album
though but the Rockman should get you in the ballpark.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=41421&item=3780509295&
rd=1http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=41416&item=3781538
I read in an I.E.E.E. magazine interview a number of years back, where
they interviewed Scholz. The first album ( Long Time on this ) were
Marshalls. They were fed by very early prototype rockmans. The second
was sort of a hybrid, and if you listen to the third, it's all rockman
and has been since.
Like Van Halen 1, the tone of the first was never gotten again..
And Sholz did it in his basement on a 12 track recorder, playing most
of the instruments himself. Pretty sure Brad Delp was in early on for
the vocals. Once the demo tape started getting a bunch of attention
Scholz put together a band to be 'Boston.'
Other lore has it that he built electronic analog doublers out of
bucket brigade chips as commercial digital delays were a ways off. Also
he may have used an attenuator on the Marshall. His electric guitar was
a Les Paul with DiMarzio Super Humbuckers, pretty sure his acoustic 12
string was a fairly cheap one.
I remember an very old (70s, early 80s)Scholz interview where he said
he just built the stuff he needed because he knew how. Before he quit
his day job he was an electronics engineer for Polaroid. There was a
homemade Scholz fuzzbox used on at least a few solos, possibly one of
the few Boston guitarist Barry Goodreau (sp) got credit for playing.
Lots of "Boston 1" info/trivia/legend floating around out there.
Of course, one of the reasons it was came out so well is that Scholz
began his pattern of analytical perfectionism with the first album and
worked on it forever (whatever 'forever' was in the 70s- years?) before
he deeming the demo good enough to be shopped.
There's another story that the major label who signed "Boston" (CBS?)
insisted that the album be rerecorded using union engineers or
something, so he sent the most of the band to LA to mess around in a
big studio while he finished tweaking it at home. I've always wondered
about this story. I don't doubt he sent the hired guns out to LA, but I
sorta think Scholz must have wanted to mix in a full blown studio, with
gear he could only dream of... Only he knows for sure.
As mentioned in the other posts, the Rockman was an early 80s box
designed to get the Boston sound and probably hit the market after the
second album. I remember buying "Third Stage" as I knew it was all
Rockman and considered it a demo record for that technology. It sounded
ok, but few albums have touched the tones on Boston's first album.
The Rockman Was revolutionary for it's time- a 'stack in a box' had
never been attempted before and if you used the thing as originally
intended -for headphone practice- the compression, stereo chorus and
analog transistorized grind was pretty amazing through those
headphones.
Of course, almost as soon as Rockmans came out players were plugging
them into recording consoles and straight into PAs. Those Rockmans
needed a Bunch of eq to sound decent on tape or onstage.
-------
This kinda reminds me of what happened almost immediately when Line 6's
POD came out in 1999. It was a device intended/designed for direct
recording, but was almost immediately put into live performance
situations-with varying degrees of success- by many players. Folks have
PODs figured out a lot better 5 years into it now, and Line 6 has made
some changes and upgrades to make them more gig friendly, finally
coming out with the POD Live pedal this year for those players who just
won't buy a Line 6 combo or stack.
--------------
The recording/live expanded Rockman stuff which came out in the mid 80s
did a better job than the first headphone practice boxes. One of the
guys in Def Lepperd said the whole "Hysteria" album (released in 1987,
it took 2 or 3 years to record) is mostly Rockman devices. If it's
true, I assume he meant the more expanded individual components, not
just a Rockman into the console...Though the Fixx claim they plugged a
simple Rockman practice box into a recording console to get the clanky
squeezed, chorused clean sound on their biggest radio hit "One Thing
Leads To Another."
When you think of the idea of the Rockman- even if it doesn't really
hit the mark- it's pretty special. Nowadays tons of guitar tracks are
laid with small direct recording devices: modelers, sansamps etc all
doing a pretty good job of what the Rockman tried to do...be a big or
loud amp simulator in a small box.
----------
One of the local classic rock jocks likes to do rock trivia during the
commercial free drivetime hour at 5pm. Recently he played a couple of
songs from the first Boston album and mentioned that Every song from
that album has become a classic rock staple over the years. You hear
some (much) more than others, but eventually you'll hear every tune
from Boston's first album if you if you listen to much classic rock
radio....or even other rock oriented radio formats (except any of the
alternative formats.)
Only a very few bands/albums can make that claim. Boston 1 was well
written, well played and especially well produced and recorded. It's
sonic gold.
Steve