Not the original X100 but still a fun little guitar gizmo
"Finally picked up one of the Guitar Ace's today. I got myself a good quality 1/8" to 1/4" male to male
cable, and put a battery in it and ran the Ace via my Vox VX50 amp via either on a clean channel (kind of
quiet, too quiet) or a Marshall emulated channel or Vox AC30 channel on the amp with some gain on.
Well, it's definitely not as solid or high quality as the original X100, from what I've been hearing of it online, I never owned it, heard about it for years though. However, minus a tiny bit of hiss in the signal,
(there's no on/off switch on the unit) it does retain a good deal of that "Boston" overdrive sound.
It's never totally over the top, just in that upper crunch or lower crunch mode. The unit has
no delay or chorus anymore, which is annoying, but my Vox amp has excellent chorus and
delay built in, so I engaged those, and with all of that running and some gain, I played
Boston "Rock and Roll Band" and I had something at least, quite close to the Scholz sound.
Be careful though if you turn the gain up on the amp it may give you squealing feedback with this
thing. A little goes a long way. The clean sound with chorus and delay sounds very similar to
something like "Amanda." I'm sure a 12-string through this will sound even more like it.
Well, for $70 I'm not sure it's going to satisfy Boston sound nuts and purists, or pros,
but for beginners or hobbyist guitarists it's a load of fun to play with. I'll test it with good
headphones later on. It's cool that you can take it anywhere, etc. I just wish Dunlop would
reissue the X100 Rockman in a pedal or replica for a bit more money, it would be an
essential tool if they could do that. I think there's enough demand still out there for such a thing.
And the original Rockman rack systems are going for absurd amounts of money now, too.
I could get close to the Boston sound just with my new Vox amp, but, this actually brought it
that much closer, as long as that chorus and delay were on. If not, it just sounds like a basic
70s and 80s generic overdrive to clean pedal. It will make the lead sound though, a lot closer
to Tom's sound as well. It has a touch of that keening wailing lead sound at times.
The Ace worked right out of the box, no issues, so I'm happy. Definitely a load of fun to mess
around with. I hear Amplitube now has a Joe Satriani "X100" plugin for their software,
so if you want a replica of that, you should probably go download that and run it via your
amp or PC. I may get an interface soon and do just that as well. But, this thing is ok,
and it's a pisser having it sitting there on my guitar table and be able to just inject some
Boston action into the mix when I feel like it. It didn't sound that thin to me or whatever,
as some have stated here. The Boston sound was mostly midrange so I wouldn't expect
anything heavy out of it, anyway. If you have a compression pedal or rack that might
help, too, but not sure how much outboard power this thing will tolerate, it's just a
basic 9 volt pedal type device."
Rockman Guitar Ace Headphone Amplifier
"I received my Rockman Guitar Ace and 12V adapter this morning along with a set of wireless Sennheiser RS 120 headphones. The set of headphones that comes with the unit are NOT worth removing from the package.
After seeing many of the love/hate reviews, it became very clear that one needs to remember the purpose of this unit is an option to practice quietly and of course you also can jam along with a music track at the same time. It will never sound like a good guitar amplifier, so don't expect it too.
The controls are simple and straight forward. Plugging the guitar chord into the input of the unit turns the unit on. Two push buttons; Clean/Distort and Semi/Heavy, a volume control, aux stereo input, head phone jack, and 12V adapter plug. Also has a belt clip so if you want to walk around the neighborhood playing you could...
Clean Position: since I am running my pedal board into the Rockman input so I will only using the clean position. It's tinny sounding compared to amp sound; it is usable and adjusting the headphone tone input settings gives it a better tone, seemingly less headphone volume is better I than louder settings. The Rockman and my Wampler Pinnacle distortion pedal appear to not like each other much. Could adjust the pedal but it is set for the amplifier, not the head phones, will be something to work around during practice.
Distorted Positions: Played a bit, not impressed at all! It has a Semi distorted and Heavy distorted settings, the semi setting is OK. Honestly, I use my pedal board for this sound so I will never use this anyway. If you're into metal, the Metal version Rockman might be a better choice. The Heavy Dist setting sounded horrible to me, distortion over ran all tone quality.
After practicing a couple hours with it, which I have been running a stereo signal out of my laptop and CD player with no ill effects and it does what it says. There is some noticeable hissing, especially when the unit is turn up to the louder setting.
Bottom line: It will allow me to practice whenever I want, it will be my solo practice rig. I will NEVER run the Rockman signal out to a board or amp. It provides a usable tone and signal for practice only but will require purchasing a set of comfortable and good sounding headphones. Most importantly, my wife isn't yelling to turn it down anymore. Or maybe she is and I just can't hear it, LOL."
