Roland MicroCube Combo

Like a Roland multi-pedal with a speaker

Good sound in the store through speaker and through headphones made me buyit for a test run. I got it home and used the line out to put it through my system into the computer (Cubase) and it surpassed expectations. The results were very impressive. The manual states that the modeling works better using the line out signal and I agree, though the speaker is pretty good considering this is a 2W amplifier. I like that there are modulation effects followed by echo or reverb...yes! Effects are limited but useable. Small complaint is that the acoustic guitar modeling includes some noise in it which is gated but noticeable. I have found this to now be an ideal amp DI for my studio, and will also take it to jams and just plug into the PA so I don't have to haul my Fender Concert around. Nice deal for the money.

Very solid except too bad about the wall-wart power supply.

Roland are fine where I am (Toronto Canada).

Good value vs price does what I need it to.

I don't post too many reviews at HC, but this product tickles me enough to want to crow about it a bit.

For the size and especially price, this is a very full-featured and good sounding amp (remember I said with respect to its size). Roland has "overloaded" a couple of the knobs with quite a few features - I'm speaking of the efx and delay/reverb knobs - but that keeps the price point down and the end result is quite usable.

I play rock, blues, try to play jazz, and occasionally do acoustic style strumming nonsense. This amp handles it all, but those that want a battery powered Mesa Recto will be very happy! 8^)

The only feature I wish for is a 450-ish millisecond delay, so that I could do my "Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" imitation. I think it goes to about 250ms (wild guess).

I have five or six hours of playing on it on batteries (the AC adaptor has not been used yet), and it's still going strong. I initially had it running on rechargeable NiMh batteries, which worked fine, but I wanted to see if normal Alkalines might result in more volume - which they don't. I'll return to using NiMh rechargeables after this set of Alkalines goes dead.

I give the product a "10" with reservations, given how many 10s are given on H-C, but I do think this product deserves it as I've tried to point out.

Like another reviewer (the guy with the / characters in his name), I wish the speaker were just a little bigger, to get a little more bottom end. On the other hand, more bottom end would mean more wattage required, which would mean shorter battery life. I believe that in the end, Roland made the right trade-offs to create a battery-powered guitar amp.

The volume level is quite variable w.r.t. the selected amp model - clean amps (Acoustic and Jazz Chorus) are almost not quite loud as I'd like, and yet I can drive just about anybody out of the room (especially my dogs!) with the Recto model set at 5 or 6.

The other thing I've noticed is that the COSM modeling does this weird thing with my PRS Custom 22, where the bass part of the sound gets a little distorted as it decays. It doesn't do this nearly as much with my Fernandez Retrorocket Pro (Sustainer-equipped) guitar, so perhaps this is due to the PRS having hotter pickups. For me this is not overly objectionable and I don't think too many listeners would notice.

I've had it for a week. My past experience with Roland gear would give this a "9" - I've had a lot of their gear over the last 30 years and the only problem I've ha in all that time is a bad rotary encoder in my GP-100 rack mount preamp/effector.

I have never had a reason to call or email them, so "No Opinion".

I've been playing since the early 1970s. I currently have four other (tube) amps, including a Fuchs modded Fender Deluxe, a Framus Ruby Riot (mein gott what a lead tone!), a Mesa Maverick, and a Matchless Skyliner. This will sound weird but I am just as excited about this little monster as I have ever been about an amp - mostly because it runs on BATTERIES and I can disrupt any party or public gathering with extreme prejudice! (Just kidding, but I did tote it over to the neighbor's the other evening and we had a fine session of "name those 70s/80s/90s tunes". Fun Was Had By All.)

I wish the clean tones were just a little more loud; I wish the delay was a little longer... BUT I didn't really compare it to other similar products (Vox makes one) because I have had several Roland COSM-based products and I'm a believer in the tech, so thus came forward my credit card.

I think everyboby knows the features... So I jump it.
Roland site explains very well... so check it out!

Very loud!!! Unbelievable for its size!
For me, it sounds great for a bed room amp!
I will never expect it sounds like some real tube amps with 4x12 cabs because I'm very sure that Roland designed it for practicing purpose.
I bought it yesterday and today I'm really amazed 'cos it sounds so much better than any kind of practicing amps with 8 inch speaker in this price range. (I already had Crate GX-15, GFX-15, Fender Frontman 15, Marshall MG-10... just you name it...)
Trust me! If you are after a great bed room or practicing amp, this is it!!!

Roland and Boss!!!
No more words!!!

Never dealt with them.
But generally speaking, big companiey hardly respond customer's questions.

It costs about U$ 120.00, right?
Yeah, absolutely fantastic value!!!
I have also Roland JC-120, Marshall AVT, Mesa Boogie combo(thay are too loud to be bedroom amps)
I wanna also try Vox DA-5 which has more simulation models and bigger speaker. But at this point, I'm really satisfied with this one!

The features have been covered in detail in other posts, so I'll just jump a few lil things I wish were different or improved. 1) The power switch should be on the top of the amp somewhere, it gets lost in the rear location. A flimsy push button exposed to potential damage does not make a good power switch imo, and a better design would be a small rocker switch atop the amp where it's easy to engage and offers some protection from getting banged up. 2) The speaker could have been a tad larger to handle lows a little better. 3) The intensity of the effects is overkill, I wish they had a more subtle range of adjustment. Other than that, I dig this amp a LOT!

For a full featured and portable 2w amp with a tiny footprint for no more than the price of a mid-priced pedal, this thing just flat out rocks. I found sounds I like from all of the models, though the Brit and Rect were my personal favorites. The Stack has a great clean sound too if you back the gain down a good deal. You can ramp it up bit by bit for some hair too. The Black Panel sees the least use, and the JC model is pretty flat unless you get it wet with some chorus. I don't think it's realistic to expect state of the art modeling from a $100 practice amp, but the bottom line is that this is a GREAT sounding practice amp. It's hard to get bad sound out of it unless you dime the effects. I don't use the effects much, but they can give a tad bit of texture to certain things that call for it. The really nice thing is the sounds are versatile enough to emulate whatever it is you'd like to work on at the time. The Brit model oozes classic rock crunch, the stack is my favorite clean, and the crushing R-fier is great for chunky raunch and gain laden leads. I give Roland a lot of credit for the sound from this lil amp. Oh and one more REALLY important aspect, it's a VERY quiet amp. There is some sort of noise gate circuitry in play, but it is well done and subtle, as it doesn't step on your signal at all.

I haven't owned it long enough to comment on reliability as I was eager to post a review on this very pleasing amp. If it holds up half as good as my gig battered TU-2 though, I'll be happy.

Never dealt with em

Overall I have to give it a 10 despite my nitpicky comments in the Features section above. This thing is a joy to play, and makes me want to play more. I crave high gain at low volumes when it sounds good, and this amp fits the bill better than I could have anticipated. Plus the small size lends itself to plopping on the couch and making every adjustment within easy reach. How many amps can you put on a table (or in your lap) within arm's reach to make adjustments as you jam away. I've read lots of people who praise the newer Vox DA5 for having 3 adjustable parameters per effect etc etc. Seriously though, would you rather plug n play with good sound and instant gratification? or do you want to sit there deciding between 300 and 320ms of delay all day. *rolls eyes* I didn't want a small amp to get buried in knob twiddling and effects anyway, and if the cube had NO effects at all, I'd still call it a tremendous value.

After a 144 reviews I don't think I need to describe the features. Mine is the RED - which is more a lighter ?lipstick? red than I expected. Looks good, makes the amp seem a little more hi-end.

My stage/combo amp experience is robust, lately I've been auditioning small practice/studio amps, (Fender Cyber, Fender Champ, Vox, Ibanez). I have owned the Roland Cube 30, but didn't like it. The clean was far too digital sounding and it was too in-between a bedroom and band practice amp. I like this MICRO much better.

This is a true bedroom, solo practice amp. It's great at what it does. A good concept well executed.

I think the distortion is fairly good, I was was surprised how think the RECT setting is. The cleas sounds a little better to me than the Cube 30, warmer and less ice picky.

It does not handle volume well, the speaker will fart out on the bottom almost immediately. On the fip side, the headphone out is terrific, very noiseless hi-fi sound. I think it sounds better than the clips on the website, but you just can't push it. For what it is, it gets a great mark. If it could handle a little more output it's be perfection for a true mobile practice amp.

I've never had a problem with Roland stuff, but everything dies unexpectedly. Not cheesy like that parts used on some of the Vox amps.

Unless you plan to use your little practice amp to wake the neighbors or compete against some drummer, this is the one to have. It will fit in your suitcase. For the features, there is nothing like it at this price and footprint - and there is alot of pure junk out there.

Just buy it.

As a follow up to my previous review....

I tried running this through every speaker type known to man. Home stereo full range (sounded terrible, by the way), mid-range woofer car audio, full-range car audio, and several 8, 10 and 12 inch guitar speakers from Celestion, Eminence and Jensen. Truthfully, they all sound like crap compared to the 4" speaker which is in this amp already. If you notice, the stock speaker has an additional magnetic donut attached to the back of the magnet which must tune this speaker perfectly to this amp. When using the stock speaker, you do get a little buzziness on clean settings, but it's not an overwhelming thing, and doesn't really detract from the clean sounds usability, so I hope you don't get that from my previous review. All in all, this little amp pretty much rocks, and as I mentioned before represents the best tone you can get at this volume level. So, don't waste any time trying to upgrade this things speaker, it's not going to make the tone better in the least. But I had to try.

So far, so good.

See previous.

I just love this thing. I think it's because it's like a little prize you'd get in a cereal box, but a really cool one. It would'nt surprise me if they started including these in the wrappers of guitar magazines along with all the CD's and other crap they cram in there. It's so fun to sit down late at night with a guitar mag, or some other learning material and be able to play it quietly with some decent tone. Makes learning fun again. So when you fire up your larger amp, you sound like you have a clue. For what it is it's a 10.

This amp offers loads for little, see the other reviews for the listings but given that you get the effects, reverb and amp modelling in such a bargain package I can only give it a ten

Have run this through clean-picking, mellow jazz, dirty blues and psychotic metal styles. Don't care that it's only teeny watts with a tiny speaker IT SOUNDS MEATY and better than most 8-10" practice amps. Plenty loud & sweet enough for the lounge/bedroom/shed/bus....

Nothing broke yet, Roland gear is pretty solid and this little tank feels solid and well put together.

Ain't had call to use them

I have been playing for 30 years and currently play a mix of pick-up'ed steel strung acoustics (6/12) and a couple of solid bodies and a semi-acoustic jazz. I have always been strapped for cash and could only have dreamt about such a brilliant amp as a youth.
I tried numerous practice amps including the Marshall (nice) and the Roland's big brother.....both more than twice the cost but not worth the extra roubles (for practice purposes)
As the other folks said "BUY IT!!!" it's the berries !
For chrissakes it only costs the same as a half-decent pedal...it's a complete and total bargain!

It has everything a beginning guitarist should have, or that a more advanced guitarist could live with at 2 a.m. when the house is quiet. One gain, volume and tone control, a amp type selector, and a modulation effects group (chorus, flanger, phaser, tremelo) and a time based effects control (delay and reverb). It's also got a tuning fork tuner which is really cool. It's touch sensitive, so the harder you press it, the louder it goes, just like a real tuning fork. It tunes to the A harmonic (5th string, 5th fret harmonic) and can be used to tune 1/2 step or a whole step down. Very good as you should learn to hear the correct tone, instead of seeing lights. This amp puts out 2 watts of power into a 5 1/2" speaker. It also has a recording / headphone out, and a CD/Line level input. Also runs on batteries. It's really small.

The speaker is the achilles heal of this amp. I took it out, and it is a very well built speaker, very heavy magnet for its size, but nonetheless, it is a 5 1/2" speaker that buzzes when playing low notes on clean settings. This should be forgiven to some extent, as it would be very difficult to design a little dinky speaker that plays distortion well at 2 watts output that also does cleans perfectly. Either you get a speaker that breaks up at low power for distortion or one that doesn't for cleans. Roland chose breakup. You could probably do both well, but then you've designed a $75 5" speaker. Anyway...the sounds on this aren't that bad. However, if you go to Rolands site and listen to the Robert Marcello demo songs, don't think you'll get it to sound that good. You can tell that they used the MicroCube as the basis for the songs, but, they also recorded it in a very professional ($$$$) studio, and as such, they got a lot of the vacuum tube warmth/tone from their mic's, mic preamps, compressors and eq's. Not to mention Robert Marcello is somewhat massively better than most of us. Those songs were not done with a cheap mic into a Boss recorder, nor were they done with the Direct Recording Output, as that does not provide the live mic'd sound you'd hope for. It does work in a pinch, but, amps always sound best when a real guitar speaker is mic'd. Notice also, that the non-R.Marcello Blackface and JC clips are strummed very, softly. All that said, this is a decent little amp for the cheap price, and it's a great amp for it's intended purpose. It will give you a nice palette of the main sounds of guitar music (Acoustic (Acoustic), Jazz (JC120), Country /Clean Rock (Blackface), Pop (Brit Combo), Rock (Classic Stack), and Hardcore (RFier)). So, it's a great amp as you can get these tones in a format that's quiet enough to practice with, with some decent effects to keep it interesting, and you might just become a better guitar player because you can play the same riff 10,000 times at 2 a.m. without anyone else hearing you. Plus, you can screw around with different styles. I feel that once you have this little amp to practice with it will be a frequently used tool to get better. You won't probably use it to play with other musicians because the tone of each amp model isn't that super-stellar as some would have you believe, and I'd never use this on stage because it quite frankly sucks compared to any decent tube amp with a decent speaker. That said, now that I own one, I can understand why John Petrucci uses this as his warm-up / bus amp. It's really handy, quite versatile, and so cute. It is the best tone you can get at such a tiny volume level, and there are many practice situations when that is extemely useful. As a last thought, I don't think I'd use super-high output pickups like Super Distortion, or EMG actives with this as I think the input gain is easily overdriven into digital clipping, thus making the buzzing worse.

Roland really builds quality stuff from my experience with them. Insides look like printed circuit boards, but I'm sure they'll last. Feels really solid. Wall wart is kind of odd, but it would be stupid to put an internally mounted transformer into a 2 watt amp. I'm pretty sure this will last a long time.

I once sent something back to them to be repaired, and to my surprise it came back like a week later completely fixed. Use their 800 numbers, clearly mark your packages, and don't be a prick, and usually people are pretty easy to deal with.

All the amp sim's are fun to play with, and I like the fact that I can play late at night and no one can hear me except me. I like the fact the the effects are usable (subtle), and not over-the-top. They are about the amount of effect that you'll actually hear on a professional recording. The speaker is marginal, and I'd really like something better. For all you considering a replacement, it is a 4 ohm speaker. I believe you could fit a 6 1/2" speaker into this case. I tried running this into a 1x12 Celestion 75 watt cab, but that really killed the tone of the amp models. I believe that ideally you'd want no more than a 15 watt 8" speaker for this amp. Maybe a full range car audio speaker would work. Hmm. Now that I think of it, that's probably the answer, a decent 4 ohm 6 1/2" co-axial car speaker. Remember, it's an amp modeler, not a tube amp. Thus, the actual amp does nothing more than cleanly reproduce the digital pre-amp/amp (modeled) tone (the actual amp doesn't contribute to the tone the way a tube amp would in a non-modeler). The speaker on this looks somewhat full range, and the Celestion I tried rounded-off the top end too much. I'll try hooking it up to a regular home stereo speaker to see what it sounds like before I say any more (you won't blow the amp if you hook it up to an 8 ohm speaker for a bit, it's solid state). All in all, an excellent amp for the cheap price. As a practicing guitarist, I'll always have this little thing. It's 11:41 pm on a Tuesday, my wife and kid are asleep, my house is quiet and I'm bored, so I think I'll go play it now. Best Regards, JR11

Made this year (2006) I guess, in China.

I won't go into detail - read the other reviews and you'll get the picture.

A 2 watt amp with a 5 inch speaker? Don't knock it until you've heard it!

If you can't be bothered to use headphones and you want a practice amp that you can turn up just enough to be audible late at night and get a great sound, this is it.

The only limitation of this amp (considering its purpose in life) is that you can't get delay and reverb at the same time. Personally, I like a lot of delay and a bit of reverb, but it's one or the other. Similarly, chorus, flange, phase and tremolo are mutually exclusive.

That aside, it's got enough power for the bedroom - you're not going to take this on stage, are you?

I use it with all my guitars - from Telecaster to Jem, 335, Strat and LP in between, whatever I feel like playing sounds sweet through this.

It's very quiet (on all counts) being a 2W solid state amp :-) It has a few amp sims, so you'll probably find something to your taste. Personally I like the Roland JC, which it does rather well (wonder why??). For me, that's the best sound for practice as you can hear every note. Or you have an AC30, Blackface Twin, Marshall stack, etc ...

Ermmm - not an anp you'd gig with ...

But it looks like it could take some serious abuse for its diminutive size.

It's pretty new to me, but it's Roland, and on past experience it will do the job.

Had loads of Roland/Boss kit, nothing ever broke, so I can't comment on customer service. Just hope this is as reliable as the other stuff.

Playing for 30+ years, have owned and still own lots of guitars, a Laney LC-30II amp (sweet) and a Behringer modelling amp (not bad).

I've tried a few practice amps, mainly little Fenders, but on the whole they've either been too loud for home practice (once you've turned them up enough to get a decent tone), or just crap. Exception would be the Laney LC15-R, which is definitely worth annoying the neighbours with.

I can honestly say this is the first practice amp I've ever had that does the trick for me. I don't mind using headphones when I'm recording, but sometimes I just have to hear the guitar through a speaker. You can play this turned up to 1 or 2 without disturbing anyone and it sounds awesome. If you need more volume, it's there up to a point - then you have to get your real amp out!

I don't think there is anything to match this for features at the price - I did look, but this is the one I wanted, and I love it.

It has some usable effects, but not enough adjustability with them. The range of tones is OK, but barely worth the money, compared with other modelling devices. I only use gainy distortion, thus the clean tones were irrelevant. it needs a loop and more tonal adjustment range.

I use a strat with an X2N in the bridge and a chopper in the neck. I play mostly high-gain neoclassical shred and bought this on a whim. Most dissapointing sounds, very cheap and digital for the current state of music technology. After hearing some clips on the net, I thought it sounded ok. After using it, I'm displeased. Just lots of bass-heavy crappiness. I was only able to get an acceptable sound by switching it to acoustic and running an Ibanez SM9 and Alesis microverb in through the front.

I would have given it a higher rating based on my previous experience with Boss/Roland, but those weren't made in China. No problems yet(knock on wood)

hope this is never going to be an issue, they don't have a toll-free line.

Been playing since 1981 and used all manner of equipment and "toys". If it were stolen, I'd buy anything else. I like it's size, but hate it's tone.