Guitar F/X Licks

The Scholz Rockman represented a breakthrough in distortion technology in the late 1970s.  M.I.T.-graduate and inventor, guitarist Tom Scholz was also the leader of the popular rock band Boston. Scholz developed the Rockman preamp to simulate the tone of his cranked Marshall amps and added some extra processing niceties in the form of pre-set chorus and echo effects which could be switched in and out of the basic signal path.  The Rockman was the forerunner of today's amp emulator units and remains a classic unit.  One of the most identifiable dirty tones in guitardom, the Rockman has been used by players as diverse as Jeff Beck and Allan Holdsworth in addition to legions of other guitarists, and of course Scholz himself.  Today's lick is played on a Gibson Les Paul Standard and a Rockman X-100 box plugged directly into the mixing board ("D.I." or Direct Injection) for a characteristic result.  The lick is in G major and features a diatonic melody colored with string bends and vibrato.  The figure in the first bar uses an uncommon technique where an additional note is fretted by the left hand while holding a whole-step string bend to generate a very vocalesque legato effect.

Learn this lick and then practice to