Rockman

The Rockman is a compact headphone amplifier and effects unit invented by Tom Scholz of Boston and manufactured by Scholz Research and Development in the early 1980s. Packaged in a unit roughly the size of a paperback book, it combined an attenuated amp circuit, chorus, and echo into a self-contained device that could deliver the signature Boston guitar tone without a Marshall stack or recording studio. The Rockman was widely adopted in professional studio recording during the 1980s, with Journey, Def Leppard, The Cars, and Joe Satriani among its documented users. Def Leppard used it extensively on Hysteria (1987), one of the best-selling albums of the decade. The Rockman made the arena rock guitar tone portable and affordable and had a significant influence on how rock records were produced throughout the 1980s.