Roland DAC-15XD

Little 15 Watt solid state practice amp the we have had kicking around for almost 20 years. 4X??? little speakers. Chorus, Flanger, and a couple of delays.

You can do just about anything with this little guy.

It only has a single channel which is kind of a draw back, and you can only use one of the effects at a time.

When this thing was new in 1980 somthing it would be a 10+, it still sounds awesome, and has been my main practice amp for a long time (I think a Vox AD30, or Roland Cube 30 is on the horizon though). For long service I will give it a 7

I am a Les Paul/humbucker kind of guy. I play fairly hard rockin bluesy style tunes (revved up CCR/ Led Zep/ Aerosmith, even Creed...ect). For hanging around the house and banging away it is pretty damn good (it doesn't annoy the wife that much).

The effects do sound a little canned, but like I said this technology is almost 20 years old...can't fault the old girl for that. Has a nice warm distortion, and cleans up fantastically.

I am in the military, but use to play semi-pro I guess you would call it. I have packed this thing in my barrack box and lugged it half way around the world and back (liturally). It has been bashed around, used as an amp/chair for 6 months, has had more drinks spilled on it than I care to remember (and many I probably don't) and has NEVER let me down. Gotta be 10+++++

Never needed any customer support!!!!

This little bad boy is almost 20 years old. If it were stolen, I would buy something newer!!! But I would miss it!!!! I have had little Peavey Rage's and other smaller amp and the Roland blows them away. I have a '66 Fender Super Reverb as my number 1, and I can't compare it to that, it's not fair.

For the size, age, and price you can probably get these for now, and for the years of hard sevice I wanna go 10, but because the elecronics are a little antiquated (& not in a good tube amp sort of way) I am going to give it a 8

I bought it new around 1986. I paid about 250euro back then.
(Well 10.000 BEF that is)
Funny that it is on the net!
I have the version with 4 small speakers. The measure about 12cm. There was a version with one bigger speaker also. It consumes 35 watt, but is is a 15 watt amp. I guess the other reviewer who says it is a 35 watt amp is looking at the consumption data on the metal identification panel...

It has all the effects metioned above. You can also connect a second pedal to put the effects on and off.

I use strats on it. (Single Coil)
I cannot get a nice clean tone from it. Compared with the actual new MG Marshalls for instance it is no good.
The effect explosions mentioned above are created as follows:
Input an overdriven sound in the delay. Turn of the effects.
Put the gain and volume down and open the master volume for clean tone.
Put the effect on: the overdriven sound is played once at top volume...

The pots made noice after a few months. I got them fixed after 15 years...

In the beginning it did not work on a gig, but it might have been my nerves since it operates fine since then.

After 15 years the pots were making a lot of noice.
I brought it to my dealer and he shipped it to Roland Belgium and they cleaned all the pots for free. Great service!

I lived with it for quite some time now, but I really need a better amp to enjoy the fine tonality of my American Standard strat and Ibanez AK85....

I bought this Amp from my friend along with a Westone Spectrum Series II guitar for about 150 dollar (1500 swedish crowns). I believe it has one channel. The Amp has 4 different effects not counting distortion. Short delay, long delay, chorus and flanger. I like the short delay which sounds nice. The long delay is okay i guess but i dont really use it. The chorus sounds awful most of the time. Flanger is the effect i use the most. You have 3 different knobs to control the effects with. These knobs determine how many echoes in the delay etc. At certain points the chorus may sound pretty good, thanks to the knobs, but most of the time it sound awful. The distortion is pretty good but i wish you could turn it on like the other effects. You have to mix with the bass, gain and volume to get a good dist which is kind of irritating. You should just get a distpedal to fix this though. I dont play clean on this amp anyway, it doesnt all that great. Its easy to get a good dist sound but to get a nice clean takes a while, atleast for me since i almost never play clean. The amp has 35 watts which makes it able to play pretty damn loud. And on a sidenote this amp is pretty easy to make noise with, a la kurt cobain. Just turn up the volumes, face the guitar pickup against the amp and mix with the effect settings and you will get pretty cool, weird or eerie sounds.

I play mostly metal, rock and alternative stuff. the distortion sounds good and kind of dirty which is suitable. though the treble notes doesnt sound very good at distortion. its probably just my guitar that sucks though.

my amp has never been any problems. it works fine all the time. i would probably use it for smaller gigs, like in clubs or at parties etc.

its a great amp for someone who's not very experienced but also good for someone who are and doesnt want the most expensive thing on the market. a good amp.

I got this amp from my uncle, who's had it since the late 80's...I've had it for the past six years, and it's been used and abused quite a bit. It's also an open-back tube, and it's pretty small, I'm pretty sure it's 10 inches.

I've used this amp as my practice bass amp, my keyboard amp, my loudspeaker for my microphone and CD player, and my mainstay guitar amp (though I'm looking to get a Marshall or Line6 combo). Obviously it didn't work to well with bass, but with keyboards its awesome, and with guitar its okay. And I had a load of laughs with my friends as a kid plugging in my mic and swearing into it with the long delays! lol

The effects on there are awesome (short delay, long delay, chorus and flanger), I just wish there was a way to trigger them by foot, and the amp's only 1 channel! It's got a line out, which sounds okay (miking it's better), and it's got a headphone jack, but you really hear the imperfections of the amp this way (see sounds).

I've used many guitars that I've rented or borrowed in the past, Fender Strats, a Gibson Les Paul Standard, and countless Ibanez guitars (mostly RGs). The Les Paul was a problem to this amp--the two humbuckers were way too hot for this amp, it kept crackling even on the cleanest setting.

When the gain is cranked, its a boomy midrange fuzz. It doesn't compress your guitar playing even when at 10, so all subtleties will be heard. This can be a good thing, but I dont think its good for power chord rock.

There are two volumes on this thing, one is 'volume', and the other is 'master volume'. The 'volume' is actually a second gain stage that causes the amp's diode to start clipping. Though this doesn't sound anything like amp gain, it's not a bad thing. It makes the amp sound like it's being overdriven to the limit when in fact the master volume is at a whisper-quiet setting. Wanna hear what amp diode-clipping gain sounds like? Listen to the opening riff of Black Sabbath's 'Paranoid'.

The EQ section is bass, 'treble'--which is really midrange (??)--and 'presence' (which is really treble). This amp sounds horrible when the mids aren't either maxed out or at more than 6. But then again, this amp was made in the 80's, and amps simply weren't designed with no-mids in mind. And not many guitarists were killing their mids just yet...except for early Metallica, and if you ask me, they sounded hilarious at that time.

Anyway, on to the rest of the amp. The delays are terrific, there's one button for 'short', which is around 20 to like 100 milliseconds. The 'long' delays are from around 100 milliseconds to 2 seconds.

The chorus sounds gay, and one of the reasons is because of the chorus' placement in the signal chain. The chorus comes after the amp's own gain in the signal path. So the distortion is being chorused. The end result is a muddy blur of flangy phaseness. And for some weird reason, if you are using a distortion pedal or the amp's gain with the chorus, the amp's high-mids become extremely shrill.

There also seems to be some kind of gating action when using the effects at all. You play nothing and the amp is dead quiet, and all of a sudden when you play the softest note and then choke the string, you can hear the note itself among pickup noise and general amp hiss, for the duration of that soft, quick note. Though this works to some degree with the delays (making them sound like tape delay), it doesn't help the chorus effect.

The last effect, flanger is awesome. You are given three knobs to control the rate, time and depth of each effect. With delay, that means you control how loud the delay is, how many there are, and how quickly or slowly they arrive. With the chorus, I dont understand how that works and I can't get a decent sound out of it anyway, and for the flange, (this part's cool)--you can leave the flange at one point of its jet swirl and it sounds pretty cool.

I've been abusing this amp for a long time, including using basses on it, and it's still intact lol...only now the gain is screwed up...no matter where you set it at, there's a loud click and your magically at either 0 or 10. And the Fender Princeton-like gain it once had is now a midrange fuzz lacking in clarity. But, it still works, and mind you my uncle has used it in jam sessions fifteen years ago! And I should see if I can get the tubes, or the wiring, or whatever fixed up...

I love the versatility of this amp, it's worked really well with alot of things I've used on it. And now that the gain is screwed up, I just leave the gain on zero and use a Boss Metal Zone as my distortion pedal. And with just the right touch of diode clipping (volume at 4 or 5), it warms up the cold pedal sound and this amp ends up sounding allright.

I think it's really suitable for analog synth-type keyboards, the fuzzy gain really suits oscillator tones and all that. I'm getting a Line6 or a Marshall, but I'm still keeping this in my arsenal...I've had it too long to just give it away and also ROland dont make this no more.

The only reason I'm writing this is because I saw that there were only a couple of reviews and neither of them mentioned the most important feature this amplifier has...
The INFINITE DELAY!!!!!!!!!!
The amp has two delays, right?
Turn on the long one, just for arguments sake...
Plug a sustain-type pedal into the EFFECTS HOLD input on the back..
(not the kind of pedal that has an on/off switch, but the kind you have to hold down, like for sustain on electronic keyboards...)
Set the delay length all the way up...
Hold down the pedal, play a few notes..
you'll notice that the delay is on, notes slowly fade out, as you would expect...
ok:Now hold down the pedal, play a few notes, and then release the pedal...
the notes play, and play and play..AND NEVER STOP!!
(it opens up some sort of delay envelope when you hold the pedal down, and when you release it it closes off the envelope)
The delay will keep repeating and repeating with no volume drop or signal degradation UNTIL! you hold the pedal again, and then it will gradually fade.
The best part is while it is repeating, you can actually play OVER what you already have recorded, as the envelope is closed, so what you play will be separate from the repeated sound, you can literally plug a little riff in, close off the envelope, and jam over it..you could plug in a drum machine,(or a mic'ed full kit, whatever) record a really short drum lick, and if you time it right, you can have a beat playing out of your amp, unplug the mic, plug your guitar or keyboard or what have you back in, and play over it..
The SECOND best thing is that you can overlay more sounds in to the delay envelope..
Play one long note, close the envelope, play another note, open the delay for a SHORT TIME, and close it off again..now those two notes are being repeated, but with one on top of the other..
you can literally build a wall of sound just by adding more and more notes...
(the more you add, the more the INITIAL notes will have faded by the time you're done..)
I have never seen anything like it..
ever.
Oh..plus!!!!! The rate knob of the delay will still work too, you can speed up or slow down the delay.....soooooooo....play one really long pure tone, close the envelope...as you adjust the rate of the delay, the frequency of the tone will of course increase or decrease, resulting in higher or lower pitched sustained tone...you can actually play this like a REALLY basic theremin, just by dialling the knob to the note you want to hear..!!!!!!!!!
The other effects are alright too, i guess...

Sometimes when switching between effects, you can get a hugely loud and terrifying exploding sound..
don't know if that's a standard feature or if i'm just lucky..
Delays get kinda dirty as they are fading away to really low volumes( could be because mine is pretty old? Not sure..)
Clean, the amp sounds kinda nice...very bright...
distorton sounds pretty hideous, at high levels
It does have two volumes and and an overdrive knob, so at least you can dial a lot of different degrees..
It's weird, i get the feeling it isn't made for guitar..can't put my finger on it...
something about the eq's..

Had it for at least 6-7 years, and it was second hand THEN...
Nothing that was wrong with it has gotten any worse, put it that way..

This amp is absolutely worth it just for the infinite delay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I also like the fact that you can turn off the automatic sweep on the flanger, and dial the sweep by hand, which doesn't seem too useful except you can stop at any point along the flange, and leave it there, so you are just playing with a tone that is totally shaped by where in the sweep you are...

I don't know the year it was built but I figure sometime in the mid 80's. I bought it as a blues harp/harmonica amp after using one a friend owned--and it took quite a search to find one The one I found was used and in great shape. The amp has one channel and built in effects (distortion plus digital delay, chorus and flange). You can use distortion anytime but only one of the other three effects at one time. That's fine for me and for the use I have for this amp--but it might not be wonderful for guitar. The amp has a line-out (essential for my purpose) and a headphone jack--and it has an effect jack that you can attach a pedal to (on-off) but I haven't tried that.

I use the amp like this: Shaker dynamic harp mic, 1/4" cord to a VestaFire parametric EQ, to the amp. I use the VestaFire EQ as a notch filter to suppress feedback (works great). I set the amp facing me as a stage monitor--I built a small angled stand for the purpose so it's aimed pretty much straight at my face--and line out to the board. That way, I know exactly what sound I'm sending to the board/PA. I get plenty of monitor volume for anywhere I've played setting the thing up like this--but then I work with players who use moderate stage volume (but LOUD out front :-).

The amp is solid state and most harp players state they prefer tube amps. That being said, I love the sound I get from this set-up and (for instance) Lee Oskar from WAR (when I saw him) used a Roland JC-120 solid state and he has pretty good credentials so solid state doesn't necessarily mean *bad for harp*

The amp suits my style perfectly. For folks who know harp players, I get a very nice even distortion with good edge (a la Mark Ford) and very full tone when I set up like I described. As an aside--guitar players usually love my harp tone and I get LOTS of very favourable audience and other musician comments on the sound I get.

I can't take the distortion above about 11 0'clock without starting to get very poorly defined chords but that's fine anyways--at 10 or just under 11 o'clock the thing just howls and the chords are clean and differentiated. What I mean is: I want each note in a chord to sound distinctly--at 11 and over they start to get blurry.

The delay is very flexible, from short to long and with variable depth and repeats. I use short delay for a bit of fattening and two repeats for a bit of *carry* on the note--subtle.

I haven't used the other effects enough to judge--except they work and there's a fair bit of flexibility.

The amp has bass, treble and *presence* controls so I can vary my tone enough to play any type of gig I get--from classic country or western and mellow jazz, through funk and R&B to kick-ass metallic blues-oriented riff-rock.

The amp is simply relinble. I've had it for four years with NO problems, ever.

I've played almost 40 years and so far--I like this amp better than anything else I've used--and I've used a number of the classic harp amp/mic combinations (bullets with Fender tube amp models, etc). If this amp were lost or stolen I would simply cry--and then I'd email over 150 used musical equipment stores and pawn shops like I did last time and hopefully find another one.

Is this guitar great for gigging with a guitar guitar? I simply don't know but it's a great all purpose harp amp. I do play guitar but I only use this amp for practice purposes with the axe. It works fine--easily the equal to any other small practice combo I've used and the built in effects are VERY handy for practice--no need to set up a pedal chain.

I'd like to try the DAC 25 XD so if anyone has one - get in touch :-)

The features on this amp are great if you only use distortion or dont play shows. A problem is there is only one channel and the clean volume cant go loud at all without adding a little distortion but the with the gain and volume up this amp could play a show this amp can go real real loud it was made in the 80's which means its good and good quality

Im using an ibanez g10 series guitar and im in a punk/grunge band were are like a mix of blink/nirvana guitar and blink/offspring lyrics. This amp is perfect if you arent playing clean songs id buy a distortion pedal. Wow the flanger, chorus, and delay are amazing! Im serious i payed 96 bucks on ebay. I got a steal. The distortions real good if you got a problem buy a pedal.

GREAT AMP! I would play a gig with it anyday it could cut peoples heads off. Never broken down.

Dealing with roland right now i bought an 405 amp and it broke down in a month or so it didnt blow out it just kept shorting every once in a while.

Its great ive been playing for about 3 months and can get any sound i want out of it id buy two of them if i could. I love the delay put the mic into it and start swearing, its great. This makes my other amp think of suicide. I still wish it had two channels thats its only problem. BUY THIS AMP