Roland MicroCube Combo

Just bought my Micro 2 weeks ago. After all the past 136 posts about the Micro, I'm not going to break down all the features it has. Here was the game plan...I wanted to open the box, tweak a few knobs, sound good and practice. I'm not going to spend valuable practice time reading manuals, learning to program effects etc. I just want to play and not have to set up my performing rig which is too big, loud, heavy and powerful for the house. I want to use one guitar cord to plug in. Plus, if I can run something with batteries so I'm not tied down to an outlet and its small enough for late night playing when the wife and kids are asleep, all the better. Bonus if it also has some effects to keep the ear interested...well this thing hits the ball over the wall and down the block!! Its far better than I could have imagined!!

Everything sounds great. I find the tone of each amp to be a convincing, usable version of the real thing. I can't believe it's only 2 watts. I really didn't think it could be used for anything but quiet home practice but I am now intending on using it for rehearsals, solo acoustic/electric work, and recording. Between miking the speaker or running the DI out, it should work great. I really like the chorus, the phaser , the delay and the reverb effects. The flanger and tremelo are fun to have but I could take them or leave them. The clean settings are nice although the Fender Blackface setting does distort the speaker when you play on the low E string. The JC setting is right on the money. I have a JC, so I would know. The Vox, Marshall and Mesa sounds are killer. I would have also liked a Fender Bassman 4x10 model but hey, this thing is only a hundred bucks! I have been using it mainly with my Musicman Axis Sport w/humbuckers and 5 way switching. I really like the Acoustic simulator too. I haven't tried the mic channel yet. The small size is great so I will also bring it to gigs and keep it in the car in case my main amp cuts out. The batteries do seem to last a long time, longer than the 20 hours Roland says they should last. It has alot of versatility so you won't get bored easily or quickly!!

Well, here's my only possible issue. If treated right, it should last just fine. The cabinet is made of solid wood and it has a real metal grate covering the speaker. I have never had problems with any Boss product that I own but I have had more than my share of problems with my Roland JC. Again, for 100 bucks, I'd probably just buy another Micro instead of trying to repair it or pay for shipping it out to Roland in California. After my issues with my JC, I swore I would never buy another Roland product but this thing is great. I have paid more for crummy sounding single effects. I don't see how you could go wrong with this amp.

Forget about this one...they suck as far as I'm concerned. Again, this rating is for my problematic JC. Hopefully the Micro is better than that.

Ok...it's like a pitbull puppy...cute as a button but will still rip your face off if provoked. Small but deceiving. By far, the best small, professional sounding, battery powered amp out there. Again, for around a C note, how can you go wrong? I've been playing guitar for 35 years, 25 of them professionally, so I won't say I really like something unless I really do. Check out the Roland website. There's a very good demo of the amp on there. It really does what they say it can. A 10 overall rating!!

Feature nicely covered below.

Purchased this cube last summer, the 1st thing I did, and I'm not recommending anyone doing this because could make your speaker very unhappy, I took the metallic protector from the front and replaced it with a cloth screen from an old Danelectro basket case amp. Makes a noticable difference, common sense would dictate it should, some of the speaker's output is bouncing off the grille. I do use this amp on the road literally in the summer I play outside on days that I gig at night but so far the clothe grille has offered enough protection. Another tip was mentioned a page or 2 below which is, an amp or any audio device with an A/C to D/C aadapter is at the mercy of the quality of the adapter. Luckily being a pack rat, I salvaged a nine volt acid battery that was either for a boat or an old er bike or scooter and this also makes a noticable difference, using the batteries that this amp is set up to handle internally is Ok but not for a long haul. A reviewer noted it was not suitable for playing with other small amps.. I believe it, but with a juiced up lead acid battery it could have made a difference. A disgruntled review below (12/16/)seemed to be agiatated with anyone who thought this amp was worthy of purchase, maybe his power supply was bad or couldn't handle what he wanted, and in fairness to all the reviewers he should take into consideration that its being reviewed as a 100$ amp, on the other hand out of my over stocked collection of guitars there are some that the amp is not friendly to, not particulary and type style of pup but likely the construction and Z of the ones that are not suited for this amp. As far as the amp modeling .. take the names given to each click with a grain of salt.. I don't think too many would expect this cube to sound like a Twin etc.. but it does change the type of distortion. Incidently, the guitar I use with this amp is an epiphone in the style of an SG gibson, 2 mystery black covered pickups which I bought as a outside guitar, it is very compatible with this amp, as a matter of fact I payed 129.00$ for the epi and its turned out to be my favorite guitar for gig or busking. For what this amp is out of the box I think its a solid 8, after taking the grille off and upping the juice, its a light weight 10 for my needs.

this cube was pushed of a chair by a lovely little child and hit tar putting scratches on the rugged plastic corners and once fell to the grass, both times no effect to the performance except for dirt that clung to the controlls.

no nothing about Roland

This is the best cheap amp I have played through, suiting my needs, but if possible bring you guitar to the music outlet and plug in and play.. there is really no other way to be sure

Don't know when mine was made...
The amp is absolutely versatile...
Practically every channel offers something good...
I INSIST IN HAVING A DEDICATED HEADPHONES OUT INSTEAD OF THE TUNNING FORK...
I use this practice amp as a "practice amp"...

Play several guitars (even laptops and such) but who cares. It is more important to know the pickups:

Gibson (Classic 57), DiMarzio (PAFPro, Fred, Twang King), Seymour Duncan (Pearly Gates, Tele stacked (STK-2?)& several systems from Yamaha, Fishman, Martin and so for electric-acoustic guitars...

Not noisy... It has somekind of intelligent noise gate...
It handles well all styles, just don't try to play with it at Los Angeles Colisseum (unless you have a good mic)...

Depending on the modelling, the clean channell distorts when pushed... Don't go beyond the middle if you are just practicing... REMEMBER IT IS "A PRACTICE AMP"...

Distortion is always brutal... ain't it?

Now, the reason why I re-write an opinion on this interesting breakthrough amp:

I SAID IT WOULD BE INTERESTING TO HAVE A BIGGER SPEAKER (A 7 INCHER), BUT I'M SURE IT WOULD NOT BE THE SAME. ONE HAS TO CONSIDER WHAT THIS AMP IS MADE FOR: "PRACTICE", AND PRACTICE -EVEN IN THE DAYTIME- "MUST BE QUIET"... YOU MUST CONSIDER THE PEOPLE YOU LIVE WITH... YOU CAN BE A GREAT PLAYER (YOUR NAME HERE) BUT IT WILL ALWAYS BE BORING AND IRRITATING LISTENING TO SOMEONE PRACTICING FOR MORE THAN 30 MINUTES...

SO, I DON'T KNOW IF YOU HAVE FELT IT YOURSELF, BUT IT GOES MORE OR LESS LIKE THIS: "WHEN YOU ARE REHEARSING IN THE QUIETNESS OF THE NIGHT, WITH THE AMP NEAR TO YOU, AND YOU DIAL JUST THE "RIGHT TONE" AT A FAIRLY LOW VOLUME, YOU START FEELING THAT THE AMP DOES NOT EVEN EXIST, AND YOU FEEL YOURSELF CAPTURED "WITHIN" THE TONE... YOU KNOW, THE "AURAL EXPERIENCE"...JUST LIKE YOUR FINGERS & THE GUITAR MADE THE WHOLE SOUND THING... THEN YOU REALIZE MUSIC IS NOT ABOUT HIGH OR LOW VOLUME OR EVEN "TONE", BUT ONLY BEAUTY, IMAGINATION, AND INSPIRATION...

FRIENDS! IT FEELS LIKE FLOATING... LIKE DYING IN THE BEST POSSIBLE WAY... SO, YOU DO NOT NEED MORE VOLUME OR A BIGGER SPEAKER... NOT AT ALL!!!

GUYS AT ROLAND: KUDOS FOREVER!!!

How could I know? Hope it will last forever...

Never dealt with ROLAND...

One year warranty...

Mexico City has no ROLAND authorized service center... Anyway it has 25 million people... May be someone is a fairly good electronics engineer...

Playing for 22 years or so...

I would buy it again with no hesitation...

I love the sound and size, and I wish it had a better headphone out instead of the tunning fork...

It can't be compared with the amps you find around in Mexico City... Anyway, I've hears about a 5 watter VOX amp with modelling... Sounds good... doesn't it?...

I wish it had a better guitar player connected thru every time I use it...

SOME GUYS SAY IT IS A TOY... WELL, WE "PLAY" MUSIC... DON'T WE?

Made in 2005, the MicroCube is by far the most versital practice amp I've owned. It can run on batteries or on AC adapter (Roland was nice enough to include the AC adapter). For it's 8-watts of power and 6" speaker, this little amp packs a huge punch! It has a single aux input (bypasses all signal processing) for a microphone or whatever else you want to plug in there. Headphone/Direct out. All the amp models are good and on the MicroCube we get models based on:

- Acoustic simulator
- Roland Jazz Chorus
- Fender Twin (Blackface)
- VOX AC30TB
- Marshall Stack (manual says it's based on a JTM45, me thinks not)
- Mesa Boogie Rectifier
- Tube mic simulator

Although not all the models around exactly like what they are based on, here they all sound distinct enough to be usable and provide for just about any style you would like. Effects include: Chorus, Phaser, Flanger, Tremolo (only one selectable at a time), Digital delay and Digital reverb are provided. As you'd expect you have no tweaking available for any of these params, just level. It's designed to be simple and please with the defaults and it does that very well!

I playing with this using a Les Paul style guitar, Humbucker pickups... The sounds are very big for such a small package. While it's impossible to make a 6" speaker sound like a tube-driven Fender Twin or or Mesa stack, this little amp does an outstanding job giving you useable big amp sounds. I've never thought much of the COSM modeling (never paid much attention to it), but of course most guitarist know BOSS/Roland is king when it comes to quality singal processors, effects. Everyone else is judged by them it seems, so I should have paid more attention. I've compared these models to what I'm getting from my Line6 POD and I have to say I perfer the sound of the COSM models! While I can't do any deep editing here, that capability is much less important to me than just getting a good dry tone for recording and when I stripped away all effects, balanced out the EQ and just recorded a dry VOX AC30 and Blackface models sounds then compared them to my POD's output I think Roland's COSM modeling technology may be the very best I've heard (makes me want to check out some of their higher-end product or plug-ins).

I've gone from the Headphone output into a PA system and it sounded great! I've also recorded with it using the headphone out direct into the board, sounds great!

It's built tough, metal grill, hard plastic casing, closed back. 100% solid state and it weighs less than 5 lbs, it's tough.

The produce manual is excellent. Roland support has been very helpful in the past, never contacted them on this product.

I went looking for the perfect practice amp... I wanted something I could take in a hotel room me and jam with, something that could accomodate a lot of different styles. I wanted something I could run into a PA system and play with without the sound coming apart when amplified (e.g. too digital mush sounding.. if you've played with amp models much, you know what I'm talking about). In both areas this little cube has really shined. It's like a swiss army knife of amps.. There's a reason why these little guys are hard to find... If you play one you'll have to buy one and if you do you'll be glad you did!

2 watts, battery powered, a handful of amp simulations and effects, all sound pretty good. 5 inch speaker, metal grille, headphone jack, 7 pounds, carrying strap, tuning fork tuner, very solid construction.

Fender Strat and Tele, very versatile, variety of styles/tones available, quiet, speaker will distort if cranked too hard. Pretty good clean sound and really nifty Mesa Boogie Rectifier simulation.

No problems to date, and I haven't had to change the batteries yet (7 months and counting).

Great practice amp, and bar none the best battery powered amp on the market. Everyone needs one of these or a Vox DA-5.

I usually use tube amps when playing, normally a Fender Deluxe Reverb or a Super Reverb, becuase solid states have never really cut it for me, but this ones different. As soon as I played trew this amp, I knew it was a a must-have. The effects aren't as great as a load of stomp box's, or a $250 multi-efffects pedal, but hey, it has 6 effects and 6 amp models, and I think it's worth every penny. As for the amp models, I prefer the black face(because of my amp taste) but the brit combo isn't bad either. The digital tuning fork is perfect when its just you a guitar and this amp. What's great about this amp is it's perfect for practicing. It has a headphone jack, and a line-in jack-actually two(one 1/4 inch and one 1/8 inch) so you can plug your cd player or ipod or whatever right in. Deffenitly a 10!

With a noisy guitar you will deffenitly get a noisy sound out of this amp. When I plug my strat copy in, you can really tell, but if i plug my 1993 Gibson Nighthawk in, it's beutiful. I havn't really tried the mic setting becuase I've never used a mic threw it, but seems clear enough to use if you have to. What's also great is that the amp doubles as a bass practice amp, too. If you just put the amp either on acoustic or JC clean, your good to go on bass, also. As far as tone, if you just tweek it to your standards, you can pretty much get any sound you want.

I'll let you in on a secret. I've dropped this thing. A lot. Not once has it over heated, short circuted, or just crapped out on me. It has a very dourable hard plastic cover and metal grill, so it's pretty much a tank of an amp. If your gunna use battaries, don't expect a lot. you can last a while on them, but if I usually use the AC adapter that came with it, when practicing.

I've played threw Rolands before and know the quality. This amp is no different. Ive never had to call or email customer support, and I'm doubting I ever will.

Deffenitly worth it. I was selling an Epiphone Shereton, A Double neck Danelectro, and an old Hallow body Jazz Harmony at a guitar trade show one time, and I had the Roland out there so people could play threw something to see how they sounded. People would come up to me and ask how much the amp was, not the guitars! For about $100, and you need a practice amp, this is the real deal!

Battery operated amp with Roland's COSM modeling feature. Emulates the following amp sounds: Fender Blackface, Mesa Boogie, Marshall, Roland JC, plus an acoustic amp and mic pre model. Basic controls are tone, gain, volume. Also includes built-in effects: chorus, flanger, tremolo, phaser (one knob), and delay & reverb (a second knob). Built-in "tuning fork"feature.

It has a regular guitar input on the top, plus an aux input on the back (1/4") and a line out/headphone jack (1/4"). Runs on 6 AA batteries or a supplied A/C adapter. It really packs a ton of features for such a small package.

I bought this as a portable practice amp tha go anywhere in the house, and which is also perfect for late night noodling. Given the limitations of a 5" speaker, this amp does an absolutely incredible job of emulating the modeled amps. I mostly use a Strat into the Fender Blackface setting, and I'm amazed how good it sounds (I play a Fender Twin Reverb normally, and while this obviously doesn't mimic that amp's overall presence, it sounds awfully Fender-ish on the Blackface setting). I was using a Pignose Hog 20, but this amp puts the Pignose to shame.

Looks well built, and I've always found Roland stuff to be very reliable.

I've always gotten good service from Roland. They have a helpful website. I've never had to use their live tech support for anything, though.

I've been playing over 30 years and have a ton of gear, including: EJ Strat, SRV Strat, Strat Plus, Gretsch 6118, Epi SG, Fender Twin Reverb 50th Anniversary, Tech 21 Trademark 60, Trace Elliot Velocette, two Line 6 DuoVerbs, etc.

This a very commendable piece of equipment for its intended purpose, and if something happened to it, I'd get another.

This little amp is amazing... (optional) battery powered, line input, the effects that count (tremolo, phaser, flanger, reverb). Good amp models, etc... The competiton doesn't compare. I was looking at the ZOOM modeling amps, they cost more! Rolands technology is superior, COSM models sound great...

I'm using it with Humbuckers.... The amp models are based on (this is from the owners manual): Roland Jazz Chorus (JC-120), Fender Twinreverb BlackFace, Vox AC-30, Marshall JMP1987, MESA/Boogie Rectifier. You can get a lot of famous tones... Here are some patches/settings to try out when you preview this little guy in the store... You have to use your imagination a little... and adjust the tone on the amp accordingly depending on what kind of guitar you're using...

DREAM THEATER - John Petrucci
TONE - 45%, EFX - OFF, DELAY - 50%, GAIN - 10, MODEL - R-FIER

NICKELBACK - Chad Kroger
TONE - 55%, EFX - OFF, REVERB - 50%, GAIN - 4, MODEL - R-FIER

CREME - Eric Clapton
TONE - 55%, EFX - OFF, REVERB - 50%, GAIN - 8, MODEL - BRIT COMBO

JIMI HENDRIX - Wind Cries Marry
TONE - 45%, EFX - OFF, REVERB - 50%, GAIN - 3, MODEL - CLASSIC STACK

ZAKK WYLDE
TONE - 50%, EFX - CHORUS 2 - DELAY - 50%, GAIN - 10, MODEL - CLASSIC STACK

SRV
TONE - 75%, EFX - OFF, REVERB - 60%, GAIN - 6.5, MODEL - BLACKFACE

It's build well... you can drop it and it won't break.

Fantastic, buy one...

This amp was made in 2005. It's a little swiss army knife... For about $125 you get...

An 8-watt battery powered amp (AC adapter included for when you want to plug-in). A handful of great models (the ones that matter), Acoustic simulator, Jazz Chorus, Fender BlackFace (for blues), Bristish Stack (sounds like they are shooting for a modern Marshall JCM model here), "Vintage Stack" (I'd guess this is trying to model a vintage 100-watt Marshall head, like those made popular by Clapton and Hendrix in the 60's-70's), Rectifer is obviously Mesa Boogie model... Amp models are fun toys and for this small package these sound fantastic.... Of course they are using the Roland/BOSS COSM modeling technology which is good stuff.

Aside from the amp models there are some great effects packed in, selectable Digital Delay and Reverb which can be combined with one of the following effects: Chorus, Flanger, Phaser, Tremolo. Gain and Volume controls are provided. There is no EQ, just a single tone knob.

On the back side we have Phones/Line out which you can use to run into a PA system and actually get a reasonable tone (think of it as a POD with less features and a built-in speaker)

There is a Line input which you can run a rhythm machine into, or get a small mixer and run your Microphone, Rhythm machine, Keyboards, etc.. Turn your MicroCube into a Micro PA.

Coming through the speaker it's amazing what a tight little punch Roland has managed to squeeze in. It sounds amazing for what it is. When you plug in with earphones or run out to a PA system it sounds amazing for the price....

Of course there are some models that sound better than others. I've yet to hear a Blackface model that really worked all that well and the acoustic simulator is only tolerable, but for this price those things can be overlooked.

Roland customer support is great.

This little amp sets a new standard in the portable amp (i.e. battery powered) category! If you're looking for a little amp you can take around that's battery powered for $50-$70 you could buy a Pignose, one of those little belt-clip Marshall or Dean Markley gimicks (there are a few choices there, they all stocking stuffer novelities) with these type of amps you get little or no effects and they are not ment to be taken too seriously.

With the MicroCube, Roland has released a new breed of portable amp that is more than just an amp. It's something you can use as a substitute for your Line6 POD if you left it at home, but then you could also take it to family picnics and entertain everyone on battery power. Hands down the coolest guitar gadget I've seen in a long while, play one and you'll probably have to buy one.

made in 2005
Features already well covered in previous reviews

Used with cheapo aria start copy. Made me smile the 1st time i played it and is still making me smile. I don`t have the volume that loud as its used for home practise and guitar class lessons only, but for 2 watts- its Plenty loud- people were asking me if i was sure it was only 2 watts due to the great noise this throws out.
Love the chorus and reverb effects
Acoustic and J.C with chorus on sound cool.
Black panel, combo, stack and r-fier are great with loads of sound options.
Compared to my marshal mg 15cd this blows it away.

Built like a reall Brick but still new so will not rate at this time

N/A

Just a beginner really, but have checked out hundreds of reviews for various products and have never written a review about anything before and distrust reviewers who go over the top and give 10`s, However I am so pleased with the micro cube that i felt i had to post this.

Used to own a little fender champ valve but this is the very, very impressive- A classic in the making.
Maybe a bit pricey compared to other small portable practise amps but it is worth every penny.
Just Buy It!