Return To Boston

Nobody got sustain like Tom Scholz. Nobody. That's because Tom Scholz invented sustain. Well sort of. Tom Scholz was born in Toledo, Ohio In 1947. Tom Scholz grew up, to later create the band called Boston, literally out of his own basement. Out of that basement would come the biggest selling debut album ever, up until that time and for some time afterward! But prior to that he attended M.I.T. and has a Master's in Mechanical Engineering.


History

Tom Scholz began recording in his basement or home studio after a few attempts of trying to be part of a successful rock band, back in his college days. These recordings would later be picked up on by Epic Records, who would sign Tom Scholz to a recording contract. Most of Boston's first album however, came from Tom Scholz basement, instead of a commercial recording studio.


Back in 1970, Tom Scholz joined an M.I.T. college fraternity band called Freehold where he first met guitarist Barry Goudreau and drummer Jim Masdea. One year later in 1971, Tom Scholz began recording songs to present to commercial studios, as well as continuing to record in his own basement. It cost him a lot of money to record in professional studios and although all of his recordings were rejected by record companies, he did however meet singer Brad Delp, out of some of those studio visits. With these fellow band members they formed a band called Mother's Milk, that played their original songs, but the band didn't last long and Scholz went back to recording in his home studio with an older style twelve track recorder he had picked up.

Using just his drummer Jim Masdea and with Tom Scholz playing all the other instruments with the aid of some effects he was developing, such as the power soak (and other effects and recording techniques) he started to get that unique Boston sound on his recordings. Tom Scholz then sent some of these recordings to various music labels and this time several of them became interested. One catch was that Scholz was basically creating the music in his basement, as opposed to the recordings being from an actual band. Despite that, Tom Scholz was able to get the album out and the rest is history.

The band's name Boston, was derived from what was being referred to at the time as the "Boston sound". That first album had a really unique album cover that is a colored drawing of an upside down guitar that looks more like a spaceship, with the city of Boston under a bubble on it . His first album called Boston was released in 1976 and would go platinum many times over. His next album was called Don't look Back, which was released two years later in 1978 and it went platinum as well. In 1986 they came out with the album Third Stage and in 1994, Walk On. His next album was called Corporate America and it was released in 2002 and there is a new Boston album due for release some time soon!


Scholz Research & Development

Boston has an amazingly clear, sustained, super cool rocking guitar sound. The reason Boston has such a high quality sound is because of Tom Scholz, Not only was he a great musician, he was also an inventor. Tom Scholz has a Master's Degree in Mechanical Engineering from M.I T. remember? In 1982, Tom Scholz founded Scholz Research & Development to develop and market music effect type equipment. So he wasn't just jamming in his basement. It requires an astute understanding of electronics to be able to make your own recordings as well as the equipment that got Boston that amazing clarity and sustain.

One of the first pieces of guitar equipment he developed was called the Power Soak. The Power Soak was a guitar or amplifier effect that could get all the qualities of a amplifier that is turned up at full volume, only come out at a lower volume. Amplifiers have certain characteristics at varying volume settings e.g. you need a high volume setting to achieve feedback, but those type of high volume settings don't record well.

After the Power Soak, Tom Scholz developed what is called a Rockman (a stereo/headphone/guitar amplifier) and eventually rack mount versions of the Rockman called Rockmodules, which were various individual effects of the Rockman. Theses effects utilized analog circuitry instead of the digital effects they use today. In this one effect you would have multiple guitar effects such as: compressor/distortion/noise-gates/filters/chorus etc. and all of it packed into the size of a Sony Walkman! Many other bands have used Tom Scholz innovations, such as Def Leppard, Journey and ZZ Top, amongst others. Tom Scholz eventually sold this equipment or developed technology to a company called Dunlop Manufacturing and you can see examples of those effects still for sale on the right hand side of this article available from Amazon.

In 1987 Tom Scholz founded the DTS Charitable Foundation which he personally started with much of the proceeds from his career in music. The foundation or charity is for raising awareness of vegetarianism and to stop animal cruelty, so check that out.


According to their cool and official Boston flash website they are working on a new Boston album so check out the site and look out for that new Boston album release!

To hear one of what I consider to be the best guitar leads ever recorded, listen to the video I posted of the Boston song called: A Man I'll Never Be, at the top right. Skip ahead if you like and listen carefully at the time interval and lead starting at 3:49 to 4:05. 3:54 - 4:02 to be exact.