RMS X100 Pedal. Bringing 1980s Studio Tones Back.

Hi,

My name is Josh.

I love music from the 1980s.

I am a musician and an amateur effects pedal builder. What you see in the picture is trully amazing.

Ever wanted to get that ultra clean 80s tone on your guitar or keyboard but just couldnt quite get there? Or ever wanted that amazing Boston style Distortion that was so popular with hair metal bands in the 80s?

I certainly chased that tone for a long time until I realized the only way to truly dial it in was to literally recreate it.

In 1982 Tom Scholz of the band Boston released a headphone amp. The amp was called ROCKMAN. It was a true stereo HiFi system that sounded incredible. It was so nice that many engineers and bands used the headphone amp in the studio. Probably 60-70% of the music from the 80s used a Rockman and or its various forms (Rockman X100) in the Studio and live.

However there was one huge challenge. When using the amp live. The issue was it used slide switches and there was no way to have foot control to change the channels and effects while on stage playing live.

Some engineers and musicians modded their headphone amps so they could have foot control but today that is a bit difficult to do since the Rockman line was discontinued in 1994. These amps now go for close to $700.00 and in some cases into the $1000.00s.

Here is where I come in. Several challenges had to be met

1. Make sure there is no active patent (Patent did run out in 2004)

2. assemble a small team to help bring back the legendary amp. But not just simply copy-cat it. We wanted to solve the issues musicians faced with it in the 80s.

For the next two years we pain stakenly reverse engineered 15 Rockman X100 Rev 10 units (none were destroyed)

we then took that data and recreated the circuit 1:1 and even use New old stock IC chips from the 1980s on our prototype and second revision code named "V2"

From there we designed some upgrades. We added a small circuit that converts the old Low Level Output circuit to a true output for guitar/keyboard amps with a low impedance and a 20db volume gain compared to the original low level output.

We then designed a circuit that allows the X100 circuit to be controlled with foot switches instead of slide switches so now musicians can control the 4 mode channels and the 4 effects channels with their feet while playing live.

We then redesigned the shape of the original PCB(s) so they could more easily fit in a traditional pedal enclosure musicians are familiar with. The original Headphone output was kept exactly as is.

With that the very first X100 in true pedal form was born.

We named it RMS X100. (Retro Music Studio) X100

We created a facebook group to sell these in small batches. "Not Just Another Rockman Group"

The pedals are hand made to order by myself and one of my team members. Mark is his name. For right now we only sell them through the group if you like one please join the group.

We want to change that though. We are working on the final revision of this pedal which will shrink its physical size a bit and update some of the circuitry that uses ICs that are no longer produced affectively bringing the X100 to the 21st Centery. Its code name is "V3" respectively.

And with that here is where we need a little help.

I funded the entire project up until this point myself. I am asking for donations to help fund the project to further develope the V3 so that we can make this amazing pedal and tones it provides available to the public.

Any donation amount helps.

There is a link below if you like to join our facebook group and if you like to hear the pedal in action I have posted a video below as well.

The Video features Jake Martin and the featured pedal is our V1 Prototype!

Again thank you so much for your support.

I could not have gotten this far without support from people like you.

Facebook Group (Private Group) Not Just Another Rockman Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/852250755526904

Disclaimer

Per GoFundMe policy no raffles, sweepstakes, giveaways, or promotions are offered in exchange for any donations made to this GoFundMe campaign.