Roland Cube-30 Combo

As a 50 year old player who started at age seven, I've learned to play various styles including pop, classic rock, country and jazz. I play two main guitars, a 1991 Fender Stratocaster Plus (w/ Lace Sensors), and a custom archtop jazz hollowbody made by Heritage in Kalamazoo, MI. My other amp is a Fender Hot Rod Deville 4X10 (Tube), which sounds awesome with the Strat, but hideous with the Heritage. Hence, I was looking for a solid state amp for my jazz box. The Cube 30 seemed well built, sounded great in the clean channel with my Heritage, and was compact and relatively light. (The Fender is very heavy, and I'm getting too old for that stuff.) All I needed was the clean channel, so I bought it. It sounds just like the Roland Jazz Chorus at a fraction of the price. Good thing too, because the effects are not very good. I use external foot boxes instead.

I was not prepared for just how good this amp sounds modelling the various amp types however! It is awesome, as long as I don't use the digital effects, and just play it through the various amp models. I have so much fun playing the Strat through this thing because it pretty accurately reproduces any type of sound I need. I can get all of the rock and blues sounds that I want, and still come clean for the jazz box. Since the thing is so much lighter and less fragile than my tube amp, i probably will use the Cube whenever I'm playing outside my own home.

It seems to be built like a tank, and being solid state, should be very durable. I'm very happy so far, although I've only had it for a month or so.

At $250 (with tax), it is well worth the money!

Normal features of a Cube 30, 2 channels, some effects, no effect sloop which is making me think a lot about using effects with this amp since with most amp the pedals sound better when connected to the effects loop, recording out/headphones jack, nice features for a practice amp

Ok, to be honest I only use it for the clean sound and it's a great clean sound. I use it with an Epiphone Les Paul Custom with an EMG 60 on the neck and an EMG 81 on the bridge and the EMG 60 shines with this amp. I tried a Vox AC-30 and comparing it I think the Cube is better! I think it's a pretty good amp for any clean sound that you want, just choose an adequate guitar and eq it, it's that simple! It's not noisy unless you use it at maximum volume.

By the way, I have played live with it and it works. These 30 watts are loud enough!

I've gigged with it, rehearsed with it and it still works. Bought it 10 months ago

Never dealt with them

I've been playing for 8 years and i have only one electric guitar, an acoustic guitar and 2 amps, one of them is the Cube. If it was stolen or lost i'd buy a new one, that clean sound is worth a lot more than the price of this amp!

Only a handful useable models from all the ones on the amp.

The JC clean channel with reverb is the nicest sounding channel on this amp. If you like some of the low-gain settings or the clean channel, it might be worth buying. The high gain settings like r-fier has too much mud in the signal, and not enough clarity or attack to be usable. There is also huge volume jumps when selecting the blackface or acoustic from the other models. The E.Q. seems to do nothing, even when sweeping the dial 100% the bass E.Q. knob still didn't remove the mud from the signal. It does the same with headphones, so its not the room acoustics. Even with a 7 band E.Q. pedal and an active EMG 707 pup I could not get any note definition on the f-fier channel.

I havent owned it long enough, but it seems to be built like a tank, like all of Boss' stuff. Too bad it's high gain models sounds so-so.

Never called them.

This amp has one of the best sounding clean channels I have ever heard. The Dyna-amp sounds like continuous distortion, but I use actives, so it might be better with lower output pups. The acoustic channel and blackface are pretty cool, but they are 4 times as loud as the other settings. The E.Q. knobs do nothing,the bass knob does not work at all. The high gin settings are 'mushy' sounding, not good for cutting high gain sounds.
I think Roland was expecting everyone that plays metal to immediately scoop all the mids out, but I hate that weenie scooped tone. Any mids in your signal will turn your sound to complete mud.

Standard features for Cube 30. Look at their website. I find them more than satisfactory for a small solid-state modelling amp.

The only things missing, that I can think of, is a different EQ for clean and lead channel and an FX-Loop if you wanna mix in other units.

I use an Epiphone Les Paul Standard (stock humbucker pickups) through the cube.

The clean channel is really clean and nice, even at high volumes. The lead channel has some interesting models, like the "Tweed" (Fender Bassman), the "Classic Stack" (Marshall) and the "R-Fier" (Mesa/Boogie Rectifier). Nice response and sound variation with the "Gain" knob. I didn't use very much the other models. The acoustic simulator was a totally bizarre bad-sounding model. I don't know if that's a problem of my unit or they're actually selling this stuff.

This amp can cover quite a large soundscape (in my practise/bedroom recording setups): from perfect clean (if you wanna hear just your pickups), to subtle bluesy, to classic-rock crunch, to fluidly distorted thrash.

EQ: It's OK for the lead channel but I couldn't get much of drastic change in the sound for the clean channel (or the "Blackface" lead model, a Fender Twin simulator). Perhaps its my guitar with the poor quality stock humcuker pickups...

The reverb is nice and the delay is OK but you cannot get really long delay times or repetitions. I'd say about half a second max delay time, dying out after 3-4 repetitions in a bedroom volume configuration.

The modulation FX - Chorus, Flanger, Tremolo, Phaser - are just OK. The problem, again, is that you can't really tweak them. Here, the little knob changes a little bit the "tempo" of the modulation. I don't really like/use them, except perhaps for the phaser, but they can be useful if you want some variety.

I also got myself a foot-swith, the Boss FS-5U, to switch between Clean/Lead. That's a cool feature.

The overall amp is very quiet, and it gets just a little noisy if you start pumping up the volume over the bedroom level. I'm normally below 10% of max, and the amp is dead quiet there, for the lead and clean channel.

I should also note that the Headphone output is quite nice, and for some models I'd say it's even better sounding than through the actual amp speakers. It retains nevertheless a "digital" sounding aura. I have never used it (yet) as a direct recording output.

Problem here: About 12-13 months after I got the amp, the selector knob that switches between the 7 different lead models blew it.

When you turn it, you get the actual model sound you want for 1-2 secs and then it disappears leaving something sounding like the clean channel. You're into the R-Fier with full gain, the red LED on, and you get just clean sound. Fortunately one position kept working: thank God it was the Marshall simulator and not that acoustic crap.

I opened the amp to have a little look inside, and I didn't find any striking problem. Looks like this switch sits on a small circuit board, which must have died out. I'm planning to get it repaired, but I don't think its gonna be cheap.

Too bad. I bought the Cube partially due to the high quality and durability of the company's pedals (BOSS), and it let me down.

The warranty was 1 year. My amp presented a problem right about that time. I'm planning to have it repaired but I haven't dealt with them yet. Seems like Roland has a repair place in Greece, so that could be less of a problem than I first thought.

I've been playing strictly in my bedroom for 8-9 years. Electric guitars for about 6. I like rock, blues, jazz and some more hard-rock stuff now and then. I'm not a talented musician nor have I a good "ear", but through a decade's experience with guitars and music I can tell a nice sound from a bad one.

I used to have a small Park 10W amp (Marshall licenced product of the early 90s, replaced by the Marshall MG series), which is a terrible mess compared to the Cube-30, but was functionning really well for over 15 years (I got it from a friend).

Before I bought it I also checked some small Marshalls, Fenders and Line6s in that price range, but they didn't quite hit it like the Cube.

If it was stolen I would probably buy it again. Perhaps I'd go for a smaller cube (the 15 or 20), cuz the 30 version is way too loud for my bedroom action. The other amps I want to check are the small Orange Crunch and Vox Pathfinders. I found the on-board DFX are not really mature yet, and I can settle for just a reverb. I'm also intrigued by those small tube amps that start to appear (Ibanez, Epiphone, Behringer).

To conclude, I liked the Cube30 amp - especially the clean channel and the Bassman/Marshall simulators - but I was disappointed by the switch problem I mentioned. Thus the 5.

I bought a micro cube and was so impressed with that, I raved about the 30 watt and my girlfriend bought me the 30 watt for Christmas. I make my living with a guitar and have many vintage amps. I use this amp on small gigs and home recording projects. I never would have thought in a million years I would ever use a transistor modeling amp, but it is very COOL!!

I like it!!!!

Its a Roland, what can I say? Its as tough as a boot

Never used them

I've been playing over thirty years and as I said I have tweeds and Blackfaces as well as plexi-Marshall and I love this 30 watt Roland is the bomb!

This amp has plenty of features, none of which are very good.

Strange that people rate it highly in this category and the sound quality category and then say things like "emulations pretty much useless"; "only use external effects", etc.

The JC20 channel and the blackface emulation, both of which are pretty clean, sound fairly good.

All the other amp emulations sound like garbage. Muddy, no sparkle, no attack. Garbage. Makes me wonder if anyone who rated this thing has actually played through any of those real amps.

Don't know, but it's a Roland, so I'm guessing it will last like a tank.

No comment.

Save your money. I sold this thing and bought a Valve Jr from Epiphone for $120 less. Forget about transistors and get a real tube amp. The attack will make you want to play for days without stopping!

Put your money into pedals for the Valve Jr (eq is a good one) and you will come out miles ahead. Trust me, it kicks this amp's butt any day of the week unless you are planning to play clean and loud. If you want dirty and loud, get the Valve Jr. It's a very loud 5W when it's disorting.

Keep saving your money and buy a bigger tube amp if you ever need to. Transistors are for amateurs, just ask any pro.

I've own it for 1 day. But I have tried my friend's cube30 for about a month :D
I bought it because my amp is broken. I just use it for silent practicing at my bedroom and use it for home recording. All I need is a good clean channel because I use Tonebone HotBritish for distortion and BadMonkey for booster

i use a Epi Les Paul Classic with 2 humbuckers (Duncan 59 and Duncan Distortion) and it sounds great with both. i play pretty much anything from blues to 80's heavy metal and it suit my songs just fine. it is never noisy.

The clean channel simulates a sound of a jc 120 and it sound so damn good with my boss ce5

Lead Channel:
-The acoustic simulator is good enough but I don't need it.

-black pannel(clean), surprisingly very good with my tonebone on.

-british combo, I hate it

-tweed, I don't need this

-classic stack, hmmm...tonight i'm gonna check how it sounds with my tonebone on. I think i'm gonna set this classic stack for cleaner sound and let my tonebone handle the distortion. Hope it works.

-metal stack, I hate it!

-r-fier, suprisingly good. I use it without my external fx. I set the bass/mid/high at 11/1/12 o'clock and the distortion feels wide. Think Dream Theater rhythm guitar tone for example.


Effect:
-chorus, its good only for clean channel (JC120). But I think my CE-5 sounds better.
-flanger, not too good
-phaser, I don't like it
-tremolo, good but yes, its completely useless
-delay, good but not too good.
-reverb, good. I like this.

I'm not going to use this amp for my gig. It's a bedroom amps only for practicing. My friend told me that if I change the speaker to some celestion or something like that it will sound punchier. But I don't need to sound louder for practicing. If I need to sound louder then I have to buy some head cabinet like marshall-crate-peavey etc and not this one.

never had a problem

I've been playing for 9 years. I have two guitars: Epi les paul classic tobacco sunburst and some cheap washburn lyon guitar.
I use badhorsie2 wah, boss ce-5, boss ns-2, digitech badmonkey, boss dd-3, boss ps-5, behringer eq700 and tonebone hotbritish.
I've not compare it a lot because I limit my budget to $150. Many combo amp is better than this, but it stil worth the price.
if i would lost it id buy the Line 6 combo or buy again a new cube 30.i wish it camed with a foot switch and the clean channel for every metal amp modelled in lead channel.

By now you know about the features of this amp, so I wont go into that in this review.
But I will say that the FX and Delay are pretty good and more than useful, they work well.
Yes I wish some things were slightly different, but that's because I'm used to spending hours and hours tweaking Line 6 trash, and going through Boutique pedals into tube amps.
This amp is simple to use, that's why it's so cool.

I think the JC Clean is perfect for what it's supposed to do. I own a 66 Vibrolux Reverb, the "Holy Grail" clean Fender amp, and I'm quite happy using the Cubes Clean Channel, is sounds good to me.

But here's a great little trick I discovered whilst messing around.
I have a Boss OD-20 Drive Zone(COSM) pedal, the one that models 22 distortion boxes.
So I put it in front of the Cube, and whilst messing around I discovered that using the Cube's Black Panel and the OD 20 for distortion I get some incredible fat tones, very impressive.

I set the Black Panel with Gain halfway, but here's the weird part.
I set the EQ at Bass/Zero, Mids/Fully Cranked, Treble/Zero.
They say those EQ settings normally put an amp in "neutral" mode.
Well, the OD 20 Metal Zone and other sims into the Cube sounds unbelievably good, way way better than the Cube's Rectifier and Metal sims.
Try it, use any of your Boss pedals, it works.

No opinion as yet

Roland, Boss, must be good.

I've been playing for about 7 or so years.
I own 62 and 68 RI Japanese Strats, a Les Paul Studio, and a Floyd Rose Strat, also Japan.
The Fulltone OCD is my favourite pedal into my 66 Vibrolux Reverb amp.

I heard and played a bunch of tube amps in the last few years, they need high volume to really shine, the Cube 30 doesn't, it sounds great at low volume and even better when loud.

I won't bore you with what you already know.

I bought this amp a little over a year ago and I submitted a review for it not long after. I raved about it then and now it's over a year later and all I have to say is...I JUST LOVE THIS LITTLE THING! I just can't get over the tone I can get from it. Since I've owned it,I sold 4 of my guitars. When the people came to my house to try out the guitars,I plugged them into "the cube" and each person that played through it,raved about the tone that came from this little gem. To me,this is the ultimate practise/recording amp for the money.

I've owned it over a year now and I play use it on a regular basis. Never had a problem with it. It's so solid. I really believe if I through it off the roof of my house onto the street,it would still be in one piece and still work. Of course I have no intention of doing that!

I can't say. I never had to call them.

I've been playing guitar for 30 years. I've gone through a ton of gear. I've heard a lot of different amps and played a lot of different guitars. I know the good stuff from the shitty stuff. When it comes to tone,I'm very fussy. So I think I know what I'm talking about when I say that the Roland Cube 30 is one of the best amps out there in it's price range. Actually,I want to rephrase that. The Roland Cube 30 is one of the best amps out there. Period. If it got stolen,and I got my hands on the bastard who stole it,that son of a mutha will wish he was never born
when I got through with him. Needless to say,I would buy another one in a heartbeat.

Its a solid state 30 watts with a 10inch speaker. Its very loud, I have never gone past half volume even when playing with loud drummers. Lots of channel models, JC Clean, Acoustic, Black Panel, Brit Combo, Tweed, Stack Classic, Metal, R-Fier. Chorus, Flanger, Phaser, Tremolo, Delay and Reverb effects. Input, Aux In, Recording Out/Headphones and Foot Switch jacks.

I bought a footswitch for it to switch from JC clean to the lead channel. I am not sure if this is normal but it takes 2 presses for it to switch, which is annoying and kind of makes it useless.

Paired with a good guitar this amp is extremely versatile. It offers a huge amount of usable tones and allows you to cover many genres from vintage to modern, clean to high gain. I switch between the JC Clean, Brit Combo, Tweed and Metal channels fairly often and they allow me to mimic just about any band or artist's sound fairly well.

Contributing to the versatility of the amp are the included effects, although I must admit I do not use them very much (apart from a touch of reverb). On the subject of reverb, it comes on very strong. I have the dial turned so it just barely comes on and even then it is very noticeable, especially when you turn the volume up. Overall I like the sound of it but if you turn it up it'll sound like you are playing in a bathroom. The delay isn't as good because you can't set the delay length or anything like you can with a normal delay, so I never use it. The chorus and tremolo effects are decent (and usable). Flanger and Phaser aren't my thing so I can't really comment on them.

The amp sounds great if you are just playing in your bedroom or jamming but its not the best for recording. The speaker is very powerful and doesn't get flabby at high volumes which is a plus, but on the other hand its a little too noisy to use for recording.

Overall I'd probably give it an 8 but considering the price and that its meant to be a practice amp I will give it a 9 because it definitely excels at what its made for.

Built very solid and meant to last. I have had mine for 2 years and its traveled around to many places and received a fair few knocks and it hasn't minded one bit. The input jack is starting to get a little lose but that is probably more my fault than the build quality. I have gigged with it without a backup, I know it can be depended on.

I have played on an old Roland Cube (pre COSM) which I'm guessing would have been around 10 years old and it was still going just fine despite being thrashed by school kids everyday (it was an amp for a high school). If thats anything to go by then I guess the new Roland Cubes will last forever.

Never worried about the warranty and have had no problems so I can't really comment about customer support.

I have been playing for 5 years and I am a bit of a tech head so I like to do a lot of work/tinkering on my guitars which means this amp has been played with a lot of different pickups. The only other amp I own is a Fender Champ 15w but I have gigged with a Marshall 100w combo.

It has great versatility for a prac amp. Sounds good at low volumes but can also be really cranked and get extremely loud for its size. Lots of usable tones from the different modeling settings and most of the effects are usable. As stated before I don't like the delay effect or the footpedal for it.

When I was buying it I compared it to a Marshal 30DFX, obviously I felt the Roland Cube was better.