Rockman Sustainer (half rack)

It may take you a little time to figure out how everything works but is worth it

This distorsion is one of the best. For all you people who think this distortion will give you that instant "Boston tone" it won't. You will have to get a Rockman EQ and Stereo Chorus. I will admit I thought the same way by all these reviews but it is all worth it when you have the Rockman sustainor, EQ, and chorus. When all together it makes you do a Homer drool eeeelllllllaaaaaahhhhhhh. It makes no hum or hiss at all. If you see this for a good price buy it on the spot.

Very reliable the unit is only 1 year younger thatn i am and still works beutifuly

Tom Scholz sold the company to Jim Dunlop in 1995 and since then Jim Dunlop has craped on the Rockman name.

It is pretty easy to use, you need the EQ and the chorus but is a great unit.

Trivial Joke. It's a distortion unit, it's not rocket science, folks.

Heh - ok, strange sorta thing here. This is a guitar half-rack distortion. I've sold all of my guitars in favour of analogue synthesizers and drum machines.

Basically, this thing sucks on nearly every level. Throw a synth through it, some sort of screaming lead synthline, expecting it to come out even harsher - no luck. It sucks. Period. No good for synths, no matter what I do with it.

Wonderful accident happened - I had it on one of the aux sends from my mackie cr1604, and accidentally threw a TR-909 bass kick at it while the sustainer was in "clean-2" mode. HOLY #@%^&.

Basically, the rest of that afternoon was the reason I've made this box pretty famous in my circle, renamed as "the magical blue bass-goes-BOOM box", and it's been passed around among friends for long. It doesn't make the basskick any *louder*, per se, but it expands it - well, sideways. What was once a "thump-thump-thump" becomes a room-shaking "BOOM-BOOM-BOOM" that invariably forces people onto the dancefloor.

Never had a problem. The box is built like a tank.

Heh - don't know, never had to check.

Yeah. Bass-Goes-Boom. Mooahahaha.

I know it's a bit different than what everyone else uses it for, but to all those people that hate theirs, I'll give you $20 each for them. I have people here who'd buy mine for $200 in .5 seconds.

If you're a live-PA trying to figure out how to make the floor shake, the secret is COMPRESSION. Compress everything. This box is basically a dedicated compressor for your bass kick (which should be on a seperate channel on your mixer anyway). What can I say? It's cheap, and incredibly effective. I can't get this sound with an Alesis compressor rack.

Guitar folk - before I was reborn as a technohead, I used this thing on an Alvarez Dana Scoop. Distortion was nice for leads; creamy and looooooong, but no real bottom-end to it. Clean-2 was the best setting, made the electric seriously sound like a good accoustic.

The buttons and sliders are a bit small, but otherwise easy enough to use. I do not re-set it a lot on the fly, so this is not an issue.

Sound Quality: 11 (ours go to Eleven!!!)
This thing is a "must have" sonic piece from the past (if you can find one). I lucked out and found one in pristine condition from The Pedal-Man at Anatomy Guitars in NYC. I had to have one in rememberance of my favorite 80's rock/punk/hard-core band of the Jersey Shore, the X-MEN. The Lead guitarist, "The Hinge", used this pre-amp with a YAMAHA Les-Paul copy and a YAMAHA 2x12 combo, for the absolute coolest sound of the decade!

Long, long, long trails of smooth, buttery, violin-like sustain (this is its namesake after all!). I agree that the distortion sounds are much nicer than the clean, although the clean tone was Tom Sholtz' hook on the Boston albums. This pre-amp made the "Boston Tone." A very quiet machine, considering the compression and saturation that are going on inside of the ROCKMAN Sustainor.

This pre-amp had to be eight to ten years old when I got it. It performs flawlessly.

Dunlop now owns the ROCKMAN product line. I called for a manual, which they sent to me next-day air. Nice touch. Excellent customer support. My compliments to DUNLOP for not letting this line die on the market.

Dunlop should seriously consider a re-issue of the Sustainor. It is a classic piece. It is unique enough to stand out against the hundreds of other DSP driven effects on the market these days.... LONG LIVE ANALOG distortion !!!!

You couldn't possibly make this thing any easier to use. I purchased mine used, so it didn't include a manual. It was not necessary. There are retarded chimps that could figure this thing out after 5 minutes or so... it only took me 6. It's a 100 model... in case anybody was wondering. Nice variety of features... I especially like the two footswitchable channels. Even beginners could manage to get a good sound in a very minimal amount of time.

I have to give this little gadget a 10. Granted, I've only had it a very short time, but it has impressed me already. The much maligned sustainor distortion sounds wonderful and warm to my ears. The beautiful Rockman tone has always made my spine tingle... this little box pumps it out very nicely and plenty LOUDLY. In fact, so far I like the distortion better than the clean channels. I purchased it specifically to get a Boston-like distortion that would be footswitchable to a clean channel (an option I would have died for on my old X100, which I still love). The Sustainor delivered!
Currently I am running my old and trusty Peavey Predator (w/ humbucker) through the Sustainor, into a Rockman Chorus/Delay and direct into my Peavey amp. Soon this will also include a Rockman EQ... which I imagine will greatly increase the variability of the Sustainor's sound. Though, I must admit this little box has some decent variables built in. The treble slider alone can make the distortion go from Scholz's high and mighty mids... to a throaty roar (like I used to get out of the Rockman Ultimatum Pedal). Most of the other reviews have sufficiently identified the options on this puppy... so I'll try to keep the description brief... it does have two seperate footswitchable channels with which I am deeply in love.
I don't find it noisey either... though not being a professional, and not doing a great deal of recording... I may not be the best judge of noise. I only noticed noise when a TV or monitor was turned on nearby... otherwise it was actually pretty darn quiet. Channel switches and such are smooth and seemless... it's analog, so no delays in switching, gotta love that. Adjustable sustain allows you to hold notes longer than Brad Delp.

I have yet to have any problem with a single piece of SR&D equipment. Granted I've only been playing a few years... but it seems sturdy and solid. I'd still like to have a back-up, but that's just my nature.

Unfortunately the mighty Scholz Research and Development company was sold my Tom Scholz to Dunlop in late 1994. So any customer support is impossible... unless you have Tom Scholz's home phone number.
Many people have told me that the folks at Dunlop are rude when fielding SR&D questions... and try endlessly to sell you their new products, or make you pay for photocopies of the old manuals. I have not personally delt with them, and don't intend to. I have found several nice, friendly folks online who have generously shared their wisdom with me... thanks to you all by that way.

No brainer... I look at other rack equipment and the prices they ask are laughable. You can get Rockman half racks for between $80-100 dollars (sometimes better than that)... and the sound quality and user friendliness is second to none (especially the Stereo Chorus) in my humble opinion). I spent $330 on a Digitech RP-7 when I first started to get decent at playing... that digital processor now sits comfortably in its box.. replaced by analog Rockmodules. I am a Boston fanatic... and this setup lets me play along nicely with their tunes... as well as other 80's and early 90's hard rocking bands like Def Leppard, Firehouse, etc. I love my Sustainor already... and plan on purchasing another for back-up use. If it were stolen I'd shoot the bastard who took it.

The Sustainor is simple to use, and everything on the front panel is self explainatory.

I find just the opposite with some of the other reviews iv'e read. While the clean modes are decent (I find them a bit tinny), with a bit of tone manipulation from a BOSS Parametric EQ, the dirt modes were wonderful. Reading somewhere that Billy Gibbons of ZZTop used it to create his sound, I set out to recreate it myself with success, and help from the EQ and a deep reverb from a Marshall (Fenders Hot-Rod Deville is the best for this), which you'll find creates a bit more warmth than the sustainor provides. It's a good unit, but the tones are a bit singular without the help of an EQ. Find a good parametric EQ, and have a blast!

Oh yeah, definitley. I opened it at my shop (i'm a guitar tech), and it looks solid...and clean. Resistors up the yin yang! Iv'e heard these things last so long, there still used professionally.

Ive never corrisponded with the Scholtz team, however I heard that Jim Dunlop now owns the rights to some of the Rockman products, and iv'e no desire to deal with them. I feel unless the original makers reissue a product, it can only loose something in the "translation".

I play Blues, Hard Rock, clasic stuff...some Metal. Im a Zepplin and Kiss man, though I love Randy Rhodes, too. I can do all that stuff with the Sustainor. Im playing 15 years, and when I buy gear, I try to get older stuff that produces the older sounds I grew up with. I would search high and low for another Sustainor, and I guess you could say im looking for another one now. You gotta love an analog distortion sound...Not a digital replication of an analog sound (ALL DIGITAL WITH A TUBE PREAMP FOR REAL ANALOG DISTORTION SOUND...ever hear that one in an add...yeeesshhh!). Im also looking for the Chorus/Delay if any one has it and wants to part with it (TOM SCHOLTZ...COME BACK!).

Very easy to use. Plug it in and get that amazing "Rockman" clean sound. Manual helped to explain the compressing and the smart gate if you didn't know what they are.

I normally use an Ibanez R540LTD or a Gibson Les Paul, into 2 Boss SuperOverDrive pedals, and then into this baby..then straight into my Fender RockPro 100Watt head. Delays or Chorus get put in front of it when I need them. I don't find the unit noisey, but I think the distortions suck on it...I only bought it for the clean sound. I like to play all sorts of music, from Classic Rock, Blues, to Heavy Metal. This helps to achieve the Criss Oliva (Savatage) sound..which i believe was the greatest sound any guitarist has ever had!

I've never had a problem with it, but I've only had it for a little while.

N/A

I would buy this unit again if it was ever stolen or broke. I also would like to pick up a Rockman Stereo Chorus unit to have in my rack.

The sustainor is quiet, has foot switching controls for rhythm volume, channel selection and bypass. It has 4 overall sounds, Distortion, Edge, Cln1 and Cln2. It's easy to use far as the front panel controls. Has individual volume controls for each channel which is really nice and useful LED indicators.

The Cln1 and Cln2 sounds are okay. The Distortion and Edge sounds are very poor. They are too fuzzy and mushy sounding and sound awful on tape. The Rockman X100 unit has much better distortion sounds! I'm no longer using the Sustainor at all. I have my X100 pluged into a rockman EQ to a rockman chorus to a rockman delay and out to a stereo power amp.

It's reliable. Just doesn't sound anywhere near as good as the X100.

Rockman is owned by Dunlop as of 1995. The Sustainor is no longer made. I'm gonna buy a Dunlop (Rockman) Metal Ace real soon and try it out.

I don't use it anymore. Would like to find someone that could swap out some of the parts (resistors, transitors, etc) and make it sound like the X100 or maybe the Metal Ace.

The Rockman Sustainor has a number of features that a very useful. It is a dual channel (foot switchable) preamp that can be feed directly into a PA system. The push buttons and sliders are easy to use. The footswitch control for rhythm volume is excellent.

The sound quality is excellent for the clean settings (CLN1 and CLN2). CLN1 has a clean electric, midrange sound to it. CLN2 has an acoustic sound to it. Both are very distinct and very effective. The EDGE and DIST settings both provide distortion with the DIST being a little more fuzzy sounding. I do not like the distortion sounds by themselves. I use a Fender Heavy Metal Strat with EMG active pickups into a Dunlop Crybaby wah wah, into the Sustainor into a Rockman EQ set at (-3, -3, -2, 2, 5, 0, -4, 5, 8, 9, 8, 3). The cut to the midrange and the boost of the high end really help the distortion sound! The EQ goes into a Rockman Chorus into a Rockman Echo into a Randall Stereo Power Amp into SONIC PA speakers (with Horns). I can match Joe Satriani, Def Leppard, Boston (of course), etc. (rating of 8 because of the need for HEAVY EQ!)

Very reliable, I have owned the Sustainor for 6 years with NO problems.

Use to be manifactured by SR&D (Scholz Research and Development). Rockman is now owned by Dunlop and the Rockmodules (Half Rack) units are no longer make. I have not contacted Dunlop.

I play 80's rock, Def Leppard, Boston, Bon Jovi, Rat, Great White, Satriani, Skid Row, etc. The Rockman Sustainor is a good match. If any of my Rockman equipment were gone, I would replace it in a heart beat, but I wish the Sustainor had more variety in the distortion sounds. Check www.ugbm.com to buy one used.

clean sounds are a snap, if a bit hissy from the typical sholz overcompression, which you can at least adjust on this one. satisfying distortion is impossible to find, however, and this is HORRIBLE on stage. the humble rockman soloist (set for no chorus or echo) is far cheaper and has a more natural distortion.

clean, good. driven, bad. that's it.

i guess it's dependable, but mine has a short in the power cord and i can't sell this piece of crap until i fix it.

for this tom sholz ruined "Boston"?