Dunlop GA Rockman® Guitar Ace

Sounds surprisingly similar to the original Rockman Soloist save for the cool delay and chorus circuit that was present in the Soloist. Still a little noisy but I never really cared because it sounds perfect.Uses a 9-volt battery instead of 8x AAs like the Soloist/X100 which is also welcome.Build quality feels much more solid than the originals due to the tougher plastic used.

My first encounter with the Rockman guitar ace was when I borrowed my uncle's unit a few years back. I was fairly impressed with the unit and would have bought one for myself at the time if I had the money and if I had known that they were on Amazon.com. Fast forward a few years. I decided to listen to the first two Boston albums on my ride to work and eventually the Greatest Hits record became a permanent fixture in my car. One day, while driving the the road, I'm thinking of how great the Boston guitar sound was and that I how I would like to use it on my own recordings. That got me thinking about the Rockman. Later that day, I went on Amazon to see if I could find one and here it was. After seeing some of the negative reviews, I was initially having second thoughts about buying one, but after doing some research, I decided to buy one anyway. What I found out from my research is that Tom Scholz sold his company to Dunlop in 1995 and the only units that Dunlop made were the three units in the Ace series and the accessories for the Ace series. The Ace series was made to be a silent, budget-model practice amp. There are three models in the series: The Guitar Ace, The Metal Ace, and The Bass Ace. The Guitar and Metal Ace models are essentially identical with the exception of the fact that the Metal Ace has a higher level of distortion. The Bass Ace is made for Bass.Upon receiving the unit, I was impressed with the overall quality and sound. The only problem with the sound is that it is overly compressed. So much so that picking the strings normally is not an option if you want the full amount of gain from the unit. I was able to fix this partially by adding an EQ pedal in between the guitar and the unit. I think that the problem could possibly be fixed altogether by adding a compressor pedal to the mix. The headphones that come with the unit are decent. They aren't studio quality, but they are perfect for practice. Lastly, I would recommend adding a noise gate in between the amp and the mixer/recorder if you are looking to record with it.Does it sound like Boston? Well, in order to get the Boston sound, you would have to add a chorus effect and some reverb to the signal. This is something I haven't tested yet, so I don't know. However, it is a solid unit and I will probably be using this on some recordings in the near future. I am also looking to buy the Metal Ace so that I can have something with a bit more gain to record heavier sounds with.

I have owned (and still do) Rockman gear since the late 80's including an X-100 and the original SR&D Guitar Ace. I bought this Dunlop unit to have in my bag for random practicing, but I am horrified by the slide in quality. The distorted tone is similar to the original with a little less Boston tone. The clean is jangly and not much better than OK. The issue with this thing is that if you hold a power chord, the volume swells BAD. It is likely the compressor letting go as it drops below the threshold...but the volume of the chord is louder after 2 seconds than when you play the chord. I seriously can't believe Dunlop sells so many of these. Sadly, I no longer have the packaging so I can't even return it. Ughh.

Finally picked up one of the Guitar Ace's today. I got myself a good quality 1/8" to 1/4" male to malecable, and put a battery in it and ran the Ace via my Vox VX50 amp via either on a clean channel (kind ofquiet, 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 hasno delay or chorus anymore, which is annoying, but my Vox amp has excellent chorus anddelay built in, so I engaged those, and with all of that running and some gain, I playedBoston "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 thisthing. A little goes a long way. The clean sound with chorus and delay sounds very similar tosomething 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 goodheadphones later on. It's cool that you can take it anywhere, etc. I just wish Dunlop wouldreissue the X100 Rockman in a pedal or replica for a bit more money, it would be anessential 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 itthat much closer, as long as that chorus and delay were on. If not, it just sounds like a basic70s and 80s generic overdrive to clean pedal. It will make the lead sound though, a lot closerto 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 messaround 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 youramp 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 someBoston 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 expectanything heavy out of it, anyway. If you have a compression pedal or rack that mighthelp, too, but not sure how much outboard power this thing will tolerate, it's just abasic 9 volt pedal type device.