Roland MicroCube Combo

You already know the features: very small SS guitar amp that's powerable for a long time on 6AA batteries. Makes quite a bit of noise for as small a speaker and power. For what it is, not too bad for features, though the effects are understandably under-developed. Hey, for what you pay, you can't be too nit picky here. Not a perfect amp--by a long shot, but ok for a starter.

Using it with a Washburn WI something with DiMarzio Steve Morse special bridge pickup and EJ Custom neck pickup. For such a small amp, I think it does a commendable job of putting out sound (read "noise") for jamming by itself--it's what it was designed for; and using it far from outlets for a long time. It's a tiny little speaker--obviously you're not going to get big cab sound from it. I don't think they did a good job with the distortion settings. Just a touch of chorus on the clean channel is ok. Tuner isn't worth too much.

He're where I dock this toy. The volume fritzed out on me after a couple months. I took it in to have it fixed and it came back with the same control (by the loose feel of the pot). Worked again for a little while and as started cutting out on me again. I know the pots are pc board mounted toys but I"m going to try to figure out how to hard-wire in a real volume control to bypass what Roland gave it. It's a cheap amp, cheaply made and could have used some better parts in construction, but then they would charge what bigger amps cost. So you do get what you pay for. Haven't had much else that I can gripe about for now, but opening it up and looking in, I'm sorry for the cheap quality of components.

Roland? Customer Service? I don't think it's their bag. I'll find out more as I get further into this thing. The band-aid repair just got me out of warranty service, so I'm on my own. I don't want to trash it if I don't have to, but I'm not going to spend a lot fixing it.

I'll give it an average recommendation. It's not high dollar, and it doesn't sound like it. It's not heavy duty. I'm glad for those who have not had problems with theirs--and I wish mine was like that too. I'm beyond going for another one of these just because I would rather stick close to an outlet and have better sound. Need a battery operated amp and not a whole lot of sound? It's pretty good if the pots don't shell out on you. It's got a lot going for it. I'd push the rating up to maybe a 7 if I had no problems.

The feature is simplistic. The amp model is enough for may kind of music. Very portable (I think it's the first one at this class, only later VOX and Line6 followed with their small amps DA5 and Microspider). What I have seen so far Roland/BOSS has always been the leader for innovation in this field.

The good thing about this amp is the 2 dedicated AUX-IN jack with different size 1/4" and 1/8". The audio sound reproduction from the AUX-IN is the best in its class, I presume because of the full range speaker. This has always been my companion for jamming (for playing MP3 or sequencer as backing track). The response is really flat. If you pair in stereo it can be a good PA for small room. My Cube 30X AUX IN is not this good. Maybe because it does not have a full range speaker.

Good enough for a quick practice, just grab the guitar and MP3 and play. But for better sound I like to put other multieffect in front of it and set the amp to JC120, tone and gain mid way, effect and delay are off. I normally use Korg AX5G or ZOOM G1X in front of it to make it sound better.

It damn quiet. The AUX IN mix well with the guitar but you have to control the volume in the audio playing device not to make it too loud.

The overall guitar sound is sterile, it's like there is no life in it. But adding other effect in front of it, you are set.

Never broke. Good and sturdy. I used to have two of these and I sold one at the same price I bought. Yes, because after years of abuse (take it to travel overseas in a carrying back, dropped it sometimes) it still works and look like new (just wipe with clean cloth).

never had to use them.

A very good product for overall value. This is a very successful product from Roland. A friend suggested this through internet after seeing my review on MicroBR. I was so happy with my first purchase and bought another one (but I sold the older one with red colour to buy VOX DA5 for different flavor, but I still keep the black colour one).

For more and better amp sound and effect tweakability, you can buy VOX DA5, it's a bit louder and has better guitar sound in my opinion. But the AUX-IN sound is worse than Roland, I guess because it does not have a full range speaker. But the DA5 has additional channel for Mic, so you can also sig while you play. Good for street musician.

But I'm still happy and I'm keeping one. Good value, especially when the price is this cheap. Way to go Roland!

The complement of features on this amp is excellent considering what you're going to be using it for. For such a tiny box the volume it projects is huge. Perfect for bedroom jamming with none of that annoying hiss and hum of larger amps. The battery life is respectable too! All you need is the little amp, a guitar, pick and a lead and away you go. Sweet!

The tuning fork has to be the weakest link; would a tiny digital tuner really have cost that much more?

A separate mic input would make this the ultimate busker's amp ever.

A footswitch would also be handy.

Any guitar I use with this amp sounds as awesome as I can play. I've used countless cheap combos over the years and this sounds far better than all of them. It's just plug and play for a great sound. I can't vouch for how closely the models resemble the originals, all I know is that EVERY option sounds great. I tend to use the JC setting the most - I love a clean sound - it responds beautifully to my touch. I often use an Aphex Punch Factory Compressor for those hidden harmonics and the right attack. The Micro Cube has a similar feel.

I've spent hundreds of hours over twenty years trying to get the right sounds with numerous modellers, valve preamps, eqs, compressors etc etc. The Micro Cube pretty much nails it right out of the box. Don't tell the wife, otherwise she'll be wondering why I haven't got rid of the other stuff!

Just a disclaimer, I've found the Micro Cube fairly susceptible to single coil buzz (not unlike most amps) - just be mindful of where you are. Also, not suprisingly, the Micro Cube does not handle electric bass very well, apparently there's a new model for that.

So far so good - bought second hand six months ago. It feels really well built.

Roland does try really hard with marketting, so you'd expect good customer support. I've always felt Roland products were overpriced but this one is actually worth it.

Every guitarist should have one of these. It should be your first and last amp. It is undoubtedly the best practise amp I have ever had the pleasure of playing, and would probably do OK plugged into a PA with a band.

This is so much more convenient than my valve head stack and sounds good instantly in anywhere(or with headphones). It records well and is ridiculously easy to use.

I can't believe I've played so long without one.

What I like about the amp is that the amp models and fx are cool and
FUN to toy with, set the tone around 11 oclock for a less mid tone
and put in some delay and tonal bliss can be heard.

The sound of this amp is somewhere on the borderline of digital and analogue.

using batteries gives a brighter, clearer, more dynamic tone than with its packaged ac/dc adaptor.

Later found out that the packaged adaptor is non-regulated one. It gives out a 12v-no-load rating on the voltmeter, no wonder it sounded badly, compared when running it on batteries.

I later use a 9v regulated ac/dc adaptor and VIOLA! the sound becomes, clearer and picking nuance/dynamics comes to live!

looks sturdy nice thick baffles

I gave this a try out test first before purchasing this on the local store, noticing the sales man I wondered, why wouldn't he test the ac/dc adaptor that comes along with the package, and would rather use a different one...???(something fishy).

It was too late that I came to notice that the packaged adaptor suck tone bigtime! and found out that it is a non-regulated one.
.
It sound well at the shop when I first tried it and as I came home and played with it, it sounded entirely different. MUFFLED AND DARK!

Then again I recommend using a regulated adaptor to get that clearer tone.

I sold my Marshall MS-2R just to get this baby, now I feel like I regret and missed that dynamic amp, none the less just use a regulated 9v ac/dc adaptor or atmost batteries to get the crystal clear sound we always want in a tube amp.

Single channel 2 watt amp. Useable & essential guitar effects - chorus, flanger, phaser, tremolo, delay and reverb. Also included is a tone reference tuner. The effects aren't extreme, all sit on the more subtle end of the spectrum, but can be pronounced depending on where you set the dial. COSM amp selections - acoustic, JC Clean, Black Panel, Brit Combo, Classic Stack, Rectifier $ Mic. Gain and Volume controls. Can run with power adapter or batteries. Well made - tough exterior and strap, silver metal grill. I use this amp as a practice tool, or a convenient carry along to play with a couple of friends. I like the features, the effects are sensible and can emulate pretty much any guitar type genre believably (save maybe very heavy metal or any music at one extreme or another).

The sound quality of this micro amp is excellent all things considered. I use a U.S. Strat Plus, Cort Hiram Bullock Signature II, Hamer Artist. Humbuckers, Lace Sensors, sound very good at the levels the amp was designed for. I like the clean JC and Blackface especially. The higher gain amp models really pick up the 'bucker signals and sound equally good if the gain is turned up or down. If an external compressor is added you can get nice picking dynamics. I've been able to dial up a variety of accurate sounds both clean and overdriven - and I tend not to get near the max settings on anything. The amp is 2 or so watts, and although louder than you might expect, it's not enough to cut it with a drum kit, bass and rhythm instruments, but I don't think that's the point of this little guy. A smaller room, coffee shop, living room with a couple of instruments, practice situations are all ideal in terms of this amp's potential volume. If the volume is pushed, the amp breaks up - but consider... 2 watts, 5 inch speaker, c'mon willya? - what is the intended function design?

Solid state, solid exterior, solid reliability. Never had a problem... never dropped it either...

Haven't dealt with Roland on this particular item, but I have had occasion to contact their U.S.A. offices in CA in the past. Always found them helpful with answers to any questions.

I've been playing since 1990. As mentioned earlier my main instruments are a Strat Plus, Hamer Artist and Cort HBS II. Over the years I've used a number of pedals (stand alone and multi-effects). For volume needs I have a Tech 21 Trademark 60 and a Fender Blues Jr. - both terrific and capable of a wide tonal array. So, there are my reference points. I really enjoy playing this little amp. The luggage and hassle factors are low, fun aspect high. The effects are good quality and add a lot to the amp for practice, playing with friends or teachers. To appreciate this amp consider it's name - "MICRO cube". It's not going to cut through a combo mix volume-wise, it's not going replace anybody's vintage tube combo - if you need/want a tube or gigging amp, spend the 'jack' and get one. The Roland Micro Cube is an entirely decent, portable, cost efficient fun amp for practice or use someplace where you don't need to rise above the din of a couple of hundred folks in various states of sobriety or be heard half a mile away. I would definitely purchase one again if such circumstances arose. It's a versatile practice tool, a lot of fun and for me this counts highly. You can't go wrong buying one new or used.

This is a great little amp for what it is..

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Great at low volumes.

I've only had it a week.

don't know.

I'm an active Musician 20+ yrs......This is a great SUPER portable little PRACTICE amp with some nice features.

You know the deal: solid state, a series of Boss amp emulations, some Boss modulation: all very usable sounds, from clean to overdriven & noisy. Purists will surely find plenty to quibble with (and non-experts too: a three band eq would have been nice), but Roland???s rebuttal is the price tag. It includes an onboard tuning tone (A, Ab, G), which you hit & tune to.

I use it as a practice amp, but have also used it for quiet jams.

Covers most styles well. I play mostly clean or slightly overdriven for jazz, rock & fusion, & it sounds great.

Seems solid enough to me, but remember this is a practice amp!

Not needed it.

I originally bought this as a practice amp for my second home. It's the kind of amp I wish had been around when I started playing (over 30 years ago!), when practice amps were what you used because you couldn???t afford anything better, & budget amp meant a pretty crap sound.

Very portable! I'd definitely replace it if stolen! It really is excellent value for money - you really won???t have this much musical fun for so little money.

I started teaching lessons two years ago and needed a small versital amp that was not to heavy to carry. I play classic rock,some country,blues and rockabilly.O got my hands on the Red one! I think that the 7 COSM amp models cover enough ground to please anyone. One of the most useful tools on this soild state amp is the digital tuning fork. It starts out in standard A and can drop to Ab and G. I think this can not only be useful in tuning up but can assist in ear training.For a practice amp it gets very loud. My favortive feature is the Delay. You can slapback quick for Rockabilly or a little slower for things like Pink Floyd(Run like Hell) Or I Ran (Flock of Seagles. The reverb,Flanger,Phaser and Tremelo all sound great to me. These are Boss sounds and they sound like the real pedals.

I play with a Fender Mexican Telecaster with a maple 50s style neck and standard Fender pickups. I was told the rear pickup was hotwired to be a little hotter than most standard pickups.
The amp covers all my bases for my students. I like all the settings. Everything from country spankin' clean, to hi-watt/marshall and boogie crunch. I don't play really loud because my needs don't call fr it. But I have cranked it on all settings and it does not break up. I think the R-Fier setting can cover Metallica to Slipknot.

Had it two years. I've dropped it a couple of times. No problem. Built tough. Don't need a backup. But I teach with this amp,not perform.

Never had to call them...which is a good thing because the Amp gives me no problems.

I've been playing 28 years. I'm two hundred bucks away from owning a Hamer Daytona USA. Had it on layaway forever. I've owned a cube 30 and sold it. I did love it. Roland just makes great stuff!

Built in tuner, tone, chorus, flanger, phaser, tremolo as well as simultaneous delay or reverb, all from the revered 'Boss' fx stable. 5 different amp 'model' settings inc Rolands's own jazz chorus, 'black pane'- fender valve combo sound, 'brit combo'- AC30 maybe, 'classic stack'- no explanation needed and 'r-fier', mesa rectifier. There are also 'acoustic' and 'mic' models. Gain and Volume knobs,- you know what these are. Rec Out/Phones(mono - I believe) and 2 x Aux in, one standard jack and one mini. Power button, 6 AA Cell battery bay with easy access and 9v AC adaptor. Steel kickproof grill, very sturdy cabinet with hard plastic moulded corners and edging. Beautiful to look at as well. Carrying strap with guitar style strap studs. 5 inch speaker.

I use a G&L Tribute S500 premium,(Strat) which has Fullerton designed magnetic field design pickups. they sound like strong Alnico's almost Texas Specials when you get the height spot on. Acoustic setting is incredible, makes strat sound like Ovation. Other amp models sound great, but only at Volume, although R-Fier sounds insane at any level, but especially loud.. Acoustic and R Fier my favourites, one extreme to the other, I know! R Fier with a touch of delay, half gain on neck pick up, is bang on for David Gilmour style solos. Acoustic doesn't distort at any level and you could sound like Paco De Lucia, brilliant for buskers. This little gem is so, so loud and totally belies the rating of 2.5 watts output. Effects are excellent as you would expect from the makers of Boss. Despite having single coils I haven't noticed any hum, it is only slightly noticeable on 'Acoustic' and much quieter than my 2 Marshall combos. I tried Vox DA5 alongside this. Both amps are great. I bought the Cube because the cleaner sounds were truer to my guitar - I found the Vox slightly muddy, but Vox had excellent heavy sounds, probably better in that repect, but not overall. Also cube is smaller and uses AA batteries, not C batteries like the Vox and Line6 Microspider- Worth bearing in mind if batteries are important to you. I believe you can get over 15 hours out of the cube on AA's! AA's can be recharged in 1 hour- but C's will take around 4 hours minimum. They also make the already bigger amp even heavier, so consider this if you are going DC alot....

I was given a 3 year warranty free of charge by Roland. I think this tells you about confidence in their own product. Only had it a couple of days say can't really comment, but 3 year warranty is a nice thing to have

Not needed to date

Been playing badly for 30 years and would replace this if it was stolen, no doubt about it. It will probably render my smaller Marshall redundant, it is just so versatile and house friendly It looks and sounds great, runs AA batteries and is small enough to fit into a Tesco's carrier bag. It is a cheeky little amp that is an imposter to the domain occupied by bigger AC powered combo's and has no right to sound so good, whether clean or distorted. If you never play clean, buy the Vox or Line6. If you like a bit of Metal, Blues, Jazz or even Flamenco this is your baby...You can sound just like Gilmour, Johnny Marr,Santana, Paco, Slash,SRV, Hendrix and Van Halen all for ??60.00!!

never had one problem

never had to

update time....just to let all would be purchasers know that i have had two of these boxes more or less from the date of issue and they are as good as when i first got them.

the brit amp..vox mode is pretty much what i use as standard and it has that great clean/breakup ratio worked out.

i would now describe this combo as a time proven classic... its selling point being that its so simple ...i have many amps but late at night or prehaps for a recording i just think what the heck and go for the micro.

and thats what its all about ..its just gets used more because it has that balance of convinience and a good sound.

of course there are amps that beat it in various catagories...but at the end of the day this one will get used more ...its a usefull swiss army knife of a little amp that you will love more each day....and use if you are into just picking up a guitar and even a bass and hacking/noodling out some ideas.

If you consider the price, the features of this little amp are just great. Nevertheless there are two things that I really miss: a volume control for the aux input and a tap tempo function for the delay.

The weak point of this little amp seems to be the speaker. The amp models in itself are excellent. In my opinion they are superior to the ones VOX and Line 6 amps offer. I love the "Brit Combo" emulation especially. I have a VOX AC30CC1 next to my Roland MicroCube and I can tell you: this amp emulation really captures the spirit and soul of an AC30. It is not as dynamic and lively as an all-tube-original, of course, but it comes clother than all the other soft- and hardware emulations, that I have heard, including VOX??s own emulations, Native Intruments Guitar Rig and Line 6.

Aside from the Brit Combo the "Acc. Simulation" is a nice gimmick and the Jazz Chorus emulation sounds great for these completely clean 80s sounds as well. The distorted sounds are a little weak. This is were the 5"-speaker meets its limits, I think.

The usual reliable BOSS/ Roland construction. I except no failures.

If this little amp got stolen or lost, I would definetly replace it with another Roland MicroCube or Cube. I must admit that this amp got me thinking. It replaced an all-tube Fender Champion and I do not look back. I was very sceptical about modelling amps in the past. But the Roland MicroCube is a very versatile and good sounding amp. I love it.

This amp suits many different styles of music, from jazz to ubermetal.
Has also few effects from which I found myself using the reverb mostly.

Overall sound of this amp is quite dark, though my Jackson humbuckers might have something to do with it. I play mostly metal, so I use the R-fier preset. I really would appreciate more options in tweaking the sound, since there is only a tone knob.

I've used this amp for about two and a half years for now. Sound is still as good/bad as it was when I bought this. Considering that this amp has been abused by all means possible in my usage, and it still works, id rate it a full ten for reliability.

Havent needed customer support yet.

I would probably not buy another amp like this if it was stolen.
I like the size of this amp, but I think that the small size reflects to everything on this amp. For a starting guitarist, this amp is probably the best choice there is.

Tiny digital practise amp that actually sounds nice... UNTIL THE SPEAKER BLOWS!!!

I wish it had:
1. A better quality speaker.
2. Better "Acoustic" and "Brit Combo" simulations.
3. Bass-Mid-Treble controls instead of the single tone knob.
(Lose the tuning fork if necessary.)

It sounds good until the speaker fails. My microcube farted out badly right out of the box. So I returned it immediately. The replacement worked nice for the first few uses, but started to fart out badly by my fourth use. I only played the amp at very low volume each time, babying the damn thing. I use a Fender '57 Stratocaster, which has relatively weak pickups. The speaker must be a real piece of junk, or there is a serious design flaw with this amp. In fact, the floor models at my two local Roland dealers are also blown.

However, when it was working I found everything very useable, except for the Acoustic and Brit Combo settings. The Acoustic is way too weak and anemic, even when I'm playing in the neck position on my Strat with the tone rolled down half way!!! The Brit Combo has this awful raspy tone that sounds nothing like any Vox or Marshall combo that I've ever used!

Well my second one worked for 3 practise sessions before the speaker failed.

ABSOLUTE JUNK SPEAKER!!!

I didn't bother sending the unit in for repair. Why should I waste my money to ship a defective item? Ultimately, I returned it to the dealer for a refund.

I really wish Roland will improve this product, so it can handle a freakin' guitar signal. It should be able to withstand a high output humbucker with all knobs maxed out, let alone a weak Strat at low volume.

I'd buy one in a heartbeat if they could make it reliable & improve the Acoustic & Brit Combo sounds. I'd buy a few if they could do that and also add separate Bass/Mid/Treble controls.

I'm sure everyone already knows about the features. If you don't, jump to Roland's site or take a look at the demonstration video on Youtube.

It's packed for a practice amp. What i'd like is two modulation effects at once, and delay and reverb working simultaneously. Maybe the DSP inside isn't capable of it, or Roland didn't wanted to do it (left it for more expensive models). Amp simulators are good. The eq could be hi-lo and mid pot, i really miss the mid tone control, to drop it while playing hi-gain rhythm riffs and to boost it while soloing to get puching harmonics.

Nevertheless, i gave it 10 because it's really packed with features for a practice combo amp.

I'm using Ibanez RG series with Infinity 3 and 4 high output humbuckers. The coils are splitted in the middle position. The first two presets (acoustic simulator and jc), with a bit of chorus and reverb really sound wonderful while using coilsplit. Crystal sound. I don't care much about other amp models besides r-fier (high distortion based model), and it sounds really good.

Effects are BOSS modeled and they're pretty much the standard stuff (which means great). I miss more versatile chorus and delay control (range / time). In this case, you can add a bit of chorus and bit of delay, because increasing it you get wobbly odd sounds IMHO only suitable for some experimental stuff. They could've added two extra pots for controlling secondary variable of two enabled effects.

The sound coming out of this little box is great, and frankly i can't believe it's only two watts! With the r-fier model, gain to maximum, you're going to piss your neighbours with volume on 50%. I have to try it in the garage with drummer, in right position i think it could even fill that role too.

However, the cabinet and the speaker are small and while the preamp section is greatly simulated, you lose the "bigness" of the sound there. Normally for a practice amp, but with sound power and features MicroCube has to offer, it really goes out of that domain.

And yeah, the tuning fork is a great addon for quick tuning corrections. I'd also like real/balanced preamp recording output so you can direct inject it into PA system or whatever. It features a standard headphone output.

The amp looks great and rugged in construction. I had it for only two days, so i don't know about reliability.

I haven't dealt with the company. One year warranty.

Fantastic value, great practice amp that will get some potential from your guitar, unlike other practice amps. Rugged design, good company.

features on this amp are great. you can dial in almost any sound you want. the effects are also great.

i use this amp with a gibson lp junior, a fender american strat, and an epiphone lp. most of the amp models work great. the jazz chorus, the fender reverb, and the vox ac30 sound great. also the rectifier doesn't sound too bad. but the marshall setting sucks! the sound sounds muddled and weak. but that's probably my only complaint with this amp.

i can't vouch for the reliability of this amp because as far as i remember it sound okay when i first got from guitar center, but lately it rattles and makes a buzzing sound it the volume gets too loud, and the fuzzyness of that marshall setting that i mentioned.

never dealt with them. i don't know if they would do anything about my problem.

overall it's a pretty good little amp its portability makes it attractive. if it was stolen i wouldn't buy another one because i have a very reliable epiphone valve junior and a fender g-dec, and i don't need a small portable amp any more. i still use it as an effects pedal into my epi. i would say that this amp is a good buy but try it first and make sure you're buying a good one.

It's jazzy, it's rock, it's crunch, and I can even plug my acoustic in on the acoustic channel (comes out a bit thin though) or practice my vocals on the mic channel (haven't actually tried this yet.

Let me say that after 9 years of my Line 6 Flextone II XL amp, which at the time I bought it was Line 6's flagship modeling amp, I came to hate modeling amps -- until this one. It's about quality, not quantity -- it doesn't feel like a computer trying to imitate over 30 amps -- it does 4 or 5, but does them well. And the effects (flanger, chorus, reverb, delay, tremolo) even sound better on this than on that giant, incredibly heavy 2x12 Flextone!

For it's size it's got GREAT sound...obviously if you really want to rock out, you'll need something bigger. The tone on the JC120 is amazing...doesn't even feel like a miniature solid state...has that warm tube feel on that channel.

I use it with an American Fender Strat. The sound stacks up great next to any amp, let alone from a tiny 3 lb. box! I play PowerPop, R&B, Beach (ska/acoustic) pop and Adult Contemporary...and this can fit most of that. This is really more of a practice amp...but man, it sounds good. Not terribly noisy...tons of variety...immensely portable...clean is not distorted at high volumes...but the Rectified channel is ballsy, low-end distortion. I love jamming on that setting.

For 89 bucks (use those negotiating skills) it was a complete steal (figuratively). I can't recommend this amp enough.

Obviously not a gigging amp...perhaps you could try mic-ing the box, but this is really a practice amp. You'd probably look silly on stage with a tiny square behind you. But it's been reliable for six months and sounds as good as the day I got it. I give it a 9 just because you can't gig with it. Haven't tried the preamp for recording yet though...

No issues yet...

Been playing on and off for about 11 years...my gigging amp is a Fender SuperSonic. I also do a lot of acoustic and piano stuff, so not really a huge rock guy.

But I swear, this amp is the best 89 bucks I've ever spent. On anything.

Lightweight, compact and very portable solid state guitar amplifier. Settings for amp modeled sounds; Acoustic, Jazz Chorus, Blackface, Brit Stack and Rectifier (Mesa Boogie). Effects channels; Reverb, Delay, Tremolo, Chorus, Flanger & Phaser. Battery powered or AC adapter.

Don't let the small package fool you. This small amp packs a pretty good wallop! You probably won't be able to keep up with a drummer and a full band, but what do you expect. I play all styles from Classic Rock, Blues, Hard Rock & Pop in a few bands. I bought this amp strictly for practice and to keep in my locker at the Fire Station. I play a Fender Telecaster and a Fender Stratocaster. Normally I play these guitars through a Fender Super Champ XD and/or a Line6 Spider Valve 212, depending on the size of the gig. Of course the Micro Cube won't sound as warm or as good as my tube amps, but it does exactly what I expect and more.

I've not yet owned any Roland products until this amplifier. However, everyone I know that owns and plays Roland equipment, have not experienced any problems. Besides, I try to take good care of my things. Time will tell...

1 year warranty. Hope I never have to use it. Again, only time will tell...

I shopped around for this type of guitar amplifier. I wanted something compact, battery powered and portable. At first, I was going to buy a classic Pignose, but after research, I decided that the Roland Micro Cube was better for what I was going to use it for. The sounds and effects are very close to the ones I use on my amps that I perform with, so my private practices are more seamless. This is the best amp of it's style and price range. It is a great practice amp! If you wanted to go street perform, just take it with you and sing in an area with good echo and acoustics. You just might get discovered!

It was made in 2008. This amp s very versatile, while it has the most important sounds. I play mainly blues and classic rock,
You can find the features on the official page.
It's a practice amp, and 2W is enough.
It has everything I want, so I am satisfied.

Roland JC120 - pure jazz sound, Twin Reverb - warm, blues jazz, country, blues, AC30 - Shadows, Brian May, Marshall - Clapton, AC/DC, SRV, Van Halen, Mesa - It sounds very good, but I'm not a metal player. The amp models sounds very good. I found it very useful the Mic mode, while I could use my acoustic guitar with it. It sounds just great. Sometimes it will be useful, I'm sure.
It has an effect section with chorus, flanger, phraser, tremolo. I don't use these effect frequently. They have limited possibilities, while it is very difficult or impossible to mix the wet and dry signal. The knob adjusts mainly the time of these effects.
It has another section which is delay and reverb. I think they are ok. The delay is not a pure delay. It's an echo and a slight reverb combo. It sounds good.

I have it for two days. I don't have any problem. I read that some people had problem with the speaker. I hope I won't have problem in the future... But I would like to mention that every gain/master amp could be burn its speaker. Be careful with the volume. If you hear that the speaker buzzes turn the master back. Don't forget that it's a practice amp! Speaker distortion was one element of the traditional guitar sound. (Hendrix, Clapton) That guys used the powertube distortion to make those sounds. They played their amp VERY loud. You can listen the live record of Wild Thing from Hendrix, and you can hear that some of his speakers are totally damaged. :D It's a Roland, so I hope the best. But while I have it not so long ago, I give a 7.

I don't know.

I've been playing the guitar for 14 years. I have a Laney LC-30II tube combo. I love it very much but it is heavy, big, and VERY LOUD. I have an Ibanez S2170 Prestige guitar. I also have a lot of pedal effects. So I have a high-end equipment, and this one for traveling.

I'm just very jealous while in the time I began playing the guitar there was not such a versatile little amp like this...

> Ultra-compact electric guitar amp, that runs on 6 AA batteries, or the included AC adapter.

> DSP amplifier modeling, with 7 amp models:
ACOUSTIC (broad mid-scoop & extreme high boost)
JC CLEAN (Roland Jazz Chorus)
BLACK PANEL (Fender Princeton/Deluxe)
BRIT COMBO (Vox AC series)
CLASSIC STACK (Marshall Plexi)
R-FIER (Mesa Boogie Rectifier series high gain channel)
MIC (optimizes the amp for Hi-Z microphone input)

I wish it had separate Bass/Mid/Treble controls, Time adjustment for Delay/modulation effects, and a better speaker!!!

I use my two workhorse guitars with this amp...
- Fender '57 reissue MIJ Strat with Duncan JB-Jr at the Bridge
- Ibanez MIJ RG570 with Dimarzios: PAF-Pro(N), V.V.Blues(M), Norton(B)

I compared this amp to the Vox DA5, Line6 Spider III 15 Watt, Fender VibroChamp XD, and various Fender, Marshall, and Crate solid state amps in the $250 or less range. The Micro-Cube has the most useable & inspiring sounds of the bunch. I really wanted to like the Vibro-XD, but it just sounds way too thin & has very uninspiring overdrive & distortion models. The Spider III is just plain horrible! The Vox DA5 has very poor overdrive & distortion models. All of the analog solid state combos I tried had poor overdrive/distortion sounds.

Unfortunately for the Micro-Cube, its speaker farts out badly. This happens even at low volume. Also, I find the single tone control quite limiting. This is a big problem on the BRIT COMBO, CLASSIC STACK, and R-FIER models, where I would like to scoop or boost the mids, and have independent control of the highs.

I've been playing for over 18 years. I own & have used a variety of nice gear from Mesa, VHT, Soldano, and others. Regarding the Micro-Cube, I was looking for an easily portable practice amp. Unfortunately I cannot recommend the Roland Micro-Cube due to the speaker break-up problem. The lack of separate tone controls is another big mistake with this product.

This being review # > 180 I can skip the details --- its a nice portable amplifier. Well made, tight. Runs > 20hrs on the batteries --- I have taken it all over and it does the job.

I am kind of a clean jazz guy -- and stay pretty much in the JC clear mode. Tele/Strat/Les Paul all sound really good.

Heres the issue --- if you start reading the various news groups on this, you will see that there are units that the speaker has gone bad -- mine is one of them. About 6 months after I bought it, the speaker started to buzz - the classic "farting" sound. Since I don't play load, and never use distortion I was a bit surprised, and knowing that this only has 5-7 watts of power into speaker, you wouldn't think you could blow this speaker. Its really not that big of a deal -- its happens.

So I called Rowland --- I am still under warranty (parts 1 year, labor 90 days - I am at 6 months)--- the problem is that microcube has to be sent to CA for repair - I pay shipping both ways and labor to replace speaker. With insurance, shipping could be $50 bucks, labor is $35/hr; time could be 3-5 weeks + shipping. I paided $125 for the amp at CS, with a coupon I got it for $110. Instead I just ordered a new speaker ($18 including shipping) and will install it myself (I have a MS electrical engineering so I should be able to handle that) - they did warn me it would void the warranty -- a little annoying but I understand. All in all, customer service girl was very polite.

Good amp - if it were lost or stolen, I would buy another.

Amp emulations, effects, super portable, can run off of batteries (but comes with a power adapter, too). Also works as a PA if you switch it over to the mic setting and have a mic cable with a 1/4" jack instead of an XLR cable. For under $140, that's a lot of capability!

I play an American Deluxe Telecaster with no effect pedals and it's my favorite of the three amps I own. I much prefer it to the Marshall practice amp I have (oh why did I ever buy that Marshall?). There's definitely less growl to the MicroCube, which is fine for the bluesy stuff I play. The rectifier setting is brilliant, and is a sound I can't get out of even a VOX Valvetronix AD15VT.

Small, sturdy, not fussy. Knobs are solid. I think I could drop this and it would be just fine.

Nothing in the price range matches the combo of effects, sound quality, battery power, the rectifier emulation, and the ability to double as a cheap PA. This is also the easiest to use combo amp I've seen. The VOX Valvetronix I own gives me fits with all the settings and options and the knobs doing different things in different modes. The VOX is louder, yes, but the MicroCube is more pleasant overall.

I'd definitely go with the MicroCube over a tiny Marshall, VOX, or Peavey.

Got this as a Christmas present from the missus - asked for a little Smokey tuner (it can be used as a practice amp too). She came home with the Microcube. Wow is the only word I can say. The rig has plenty of features that I've found to be really fun to work with. Single channel - but has "six" amp options plus a "vocal" option. There is a headphone/aux out that makes for 100% listening quiet.

This is my late at night don't disturb the others amp. I have plenty of tube powered gear. It does all I need it to do for what it was purchased for.

Like one other poster - my fave is the "Brit Combo". The "Blackface Twin" combo is too bassy - distorts the speaker into tone fart land too quickly. The other options are fun to visit but the Brit Combo is where it lives. The amp's effects range from cheesy - tremolo (no where near the true Fender sound I'm used to), good - delay, chorus to best - reverb, phase, flange. Does this mean I can't use any of them - certainly not. Small practice amps are that practice amps!!! The gain - is good but nothing to write home about. I can get a decent "tube emulation" type tone. I still put a Digitech Bad Monkey in front with a DOD IceBox Chorus - allows me to multitask effects when I need to. Most of the time - clean w/some reverb is all I need.

New - no problems. Use the 9V Wallwart almost exclusively.

no opinion - but figure Roland would be there if I needed them.

Too many years to count. Too much stuff to list. The Microcube is a great tool to noodle with and if it were lost - as the story goes - would buy another and go back to noodlin!

07 model
in red, white or black.. i chose red
has 6 diffrent amp models
about 8 diffrent effects
AUX imput
recording input/PA equipment
9VT adapter included, or it can run on 6 AA's
comes with strap
and a tuning fork

really great amp! great for gigs,studio, practice, or even on stage

very great everything on this amp!, lots of variety, lots of diffrent settings really good distortion

maybe its because i use a 2005 dimebag darrel camo flying V with a crappy seymour duncan, and a high gain bill lawrence pickup, its not really bold...but it could just be my guitar, i'd have t use someone elses

i can take and use ths anywere, and its very durable. very outstanding amp

so far, no porblems. and i doubnt i ever will

iv'e bee nplaying for almost 5 years

i have a dimebag darrel flying V, a blue 2005 godin, a sunburst fender acoustic, and a OLP tintop electric

a camo randall
a marshall MG15 amp
a fender mini amp
and a pocket rocket amp.

i wish it had a digital tuner instead of a tuning fork, but else wize, this thing is perfect, i highly suggest getting one if you need an amp for traveling or any other use

Does what it says on the tin.

I love the size of this amp and the look on people's faces when i show it them, just about to laugh at the small size of it when i plug it in and WOW how can a unit that small deliever such a large sound. Personally i love the "Brit Combo" setting with the gain just over half and volume at a third for a great rock sound and turn back the gain for that Vox sound. I used to have it at ear level however now put it on the floor behind me when sitting down which seems to being out the bass more for a fuller sound.

Seems to be built like a brick

Dunno

Excellent,

it it sounds crap it's propably your playing or your crap guitar.

Not sure where it was made, but it seems pretty solid. It's very small and is meant as a secondary amp, starter amp, or a cheap amp to carry around. very portable and have a battery powered option. Although it's only 2watt, it's surprisingly loud, and that's a good thing. It has Roland's effects built in. I don't gig and only play guitar as a hobby so this is probably as much power as I really need.

Okay, I must say that I haven't mess with many amps except for a tube amp that my friends has and my first cheap-ass amp (a Johnson Reptone 15Watt). So to compare it with the Johnson, I must say that it is a million times nicer. Clean mode is nice and clear, and distortion is just right. I can get the sound of most of my favorite bands. Although, I must say that the built in distortion is not good enough to get that Metallica sound.

I can't say much for this because I've only had it for a week, but I think it should last for a while.

Never had to contact Roland.

I've been playing for only about two and a half years, but I know a good sounding equipment when I hear it. This is probably the best small amp that you can get for this price. If stolen, I'll probably look for another one.

Great system.
I love the battery operation. I got 30 hours out of my first set. All the input/output jacks I needed. I loved the sound choices.
Two minor complaints:
1) I would have preferred a better digital delay that I could have used more easily in an echo/bounce role. It would have been rather simple to set up the digital delay in a slapback that could have allowed me to duplicate Flight of the Wounded Bumblebee or Malmsteen's "bow bouncing" in Black Star.
2) What if I want to use a chorus, phaser, and flanger at the same time? What if I want digital delay with reverb at the same time? It's understandable they put those on the same knob, but still very slightly annoying.
Still, those are nit-picks. This amp has every feature I really need except an "auto-wah" effect.

I just play around at home, so I don't need arena-level volume; but I have never needed more than 2/3 of the volume this baby can produce, despite its small size and miserly power usage.

I've used this with jazz semi-hollow bodies, 80s-era Westone "superstrats", Schecter metal guitars, and Carvins.
This amp is able to emulate all the fancy/expensive amp sounds, yet allows each guitar's individual character to come through.

There isn't that much difference between the JC Clean and Black Panel amp emulators, but that's no big deal.

The amp can make any sound I've ever asked it to make for styles from alternative to rock to metal to jazz to R&B to blues to pop.

I've had it for 5 years now, and never had a problem. I've taken it to the desert for two deployments, but other than, I'm not that hard on my equipment; it just sits in my office at home.

No problems, so no contact with company necessary.

I have a Fender practice amp that I never use, but have been too lazy to sell.
The Roland Microcube is pretty much the only amp I think I'll ever need, since I don't plan on every gigging. If you gig, you'll need something bigger...but this amp would probably do fine acting as a head unit plugged into a big speaker, making a homemade amp stack.
If I were going to gig, I would buy a bigger Roland amp based on my experiences with the MicroCube.
If it were stolen or broken, I would buy a new MicroCube immediately.

It's pretty feature-heavy for such a cheap amp. For a beginner who doesn't plan on gigging and doesn't have the cash for a good amp & multi-effects pedal, this is the way to go. Several types of distortion & fuzz, limited delay, reverb, chorus, phase & flange all built in. Certainly nowhere near the control and quality you would get from pedals, but decent for practice.

It's a tiny solidstate amp, so obviously this thing isn't going to sound like a Fender Twin. I think it sounds fine if you're using it to play amplified acoustic or clean/blues electric. Quite obviously, it doesn't handle distortion well because of the size and power limitations. If you're mostly into metal or harsh noise type of stuff, I really wouldn't recommend it. Better off going with a Blackheart mini-stack or something.

Hasn't failed me yet. I've noticed the same issues with the input jack that another reviewer mentioned, but it hasn't been a major issue. Runs through batteries pretty quick, but that's to be expected. I've taken this amp on rugged camping trips, left it tumbling around in the trunk of my car & spilled beer all over it during drunken practice sessions & it still keeps ticking.

As noted above, I've never had a reason to contact Roland support.

Overall, it has been a decent little practice amp. If it were stolen, lost or spontaneously combusted, I probably wouldn't replace it (I'm playing more heavy music lately & that Blackheart stack I mentioned previously is looking pretty good right now), but it has served me fairly well.

My best advice--if you play mostly acoustic or blues type stuff and you already have a good amp for jamming/gigging, the Micro Cube is a good choice. If you play heavier music or plan on having this be your only amp and you want to play with other people (especially drummers), find yourself something else.

Sound like a toy. The clean tones aren't bad...overdriven tones are cheezy, sterile, and sound like crap. Yeah I know, what do you expect for a small, battery powered amp. Its a fun novelty, but I want more from my amp so I purchased a Songworks 3350 amp.

Yes its about 4 times more expensive but its tube and the overdrive and clean tones (though minimal in variety) are in a class its self.

The Roland Micro Cube is like comparing a Walmart desk top radio to a Bose Wave radio (the 3350). They're the same size and wieght, but the Bose (and 3350) are in a different class in itself that you pay for.

That's just it, you pay for what you get. This amp bored me in a few days...the 3350 wants me to show it off to my friends and is tons of fun to play. Rich screaming leads at low levels and can hang at a moderate volume gig just by itself.

I returned it after a few days. The amp is boring and not inspiring at all to play. If you're the typical beginner who doesn't really play lead, this amp is for you. If you a lead guitarist and really gets into the tone of your amp...look elsewhere. Its toy and sound like it. I would put it in the class of the other battery operated toy amps out there. There is shines.

In the class of micro amps...the Songworks 3350 which only slightly bigger (ac powered) just slaughters it!

10 on features....its got headphones line out reverb trem phaser phlanger can go by batteries can sound like jefferson airplaine type overdrive or judas priest with super long sustain all in this teeny tiny little box that i could bring with me; with out plugging in!!!!!!!!!!:if that dont get u excited SEE YOUR DOCTOR PLUS i get a good JAZZ clean tone out of it(roland jazz corus)....OH YEAH IT HAS CORUS..... i use the jazzz corus mode the majority of the time
cuz i like a clean guitar sound.......but the metal defanatly does it for me .....and the bigbrothe and the holding company overdrive
it has gain.......this is a GREAT AMP

i like it.......this is the onley amp where i changed the speaker...it now has a nice car speaker in it..........mabey a soney or......i forget its a tad bigger tho but it JUST fit in there

Aaaaaaaaaathe onley thing that troubled me about this amp is the .....plug hole for the guitar wire ....it seems to ckick alot sometimes especialy if i move around with it

dont know dont bother with that stuff ..was a lower price amp.....if it was a high end amp .THEN u use costomer support

i give it a imature TEN in this area because it .....its awsom it makes me wonder what all the excitement about tube amps is.....
crawdave2001@yahoo.com....email me if u like

More versatile than the Marshalls, Fenders, Rolands, Yamahas, and Mesa Boogies that I've owned before - as far as multiple sounds from one amp, and pretty much all of the amp emulations are good sounding and usable.

Sound quality for a 10 watt, 5 inch speaker amp? - "10" Sound quality for any amp I've heard in person? - still probably a "7". I'm giving it a "9".

Well, I've owned it for about three hours now...

Three hours...

I paid $50 plus shipping on Ebay for this new-open-box item intending for my daughters to use it for karioke (it has a mic emulation, and built in effects)- and it sounds great for that (try the Rectifier setting Darth ;)). I was impressed.

When I plugged my strat into it I was amazed. I had to go plug back into my Marshalls to confirm that they still sounded better. They did of course, but not by as much as I was hoping. ;)

Wow. Know a beginner who needs a cheap amp? Need a travel or headphone amp? This is a good one.

These have been well covered previously

I am a one tone kinda guy and I liked getting to choose from the different amp models to find a sound I liked without buying several amps to find it. I play in a zydeco band with accordion, washboard and upright bass... I like the JC Clean setting with a little bit of digital delay for a rockabilly/Johnny Cash/Chet Atkins slapback echo and that's it. That's the only setting I ever use. My guitar is a pawnshop prize Yamaha EG 330 strat-like model that does just fine...I can't afford to be a tone freak and let my fingers do the talking anyway...I sound like me no matter what rig I play thru.
Now, if I were going to play in an electric blues band, I would have to go get another amp, for sure..the fact that our band has no drummer is the reason I can gig and rehearse with this rig.

I use the 2 micro cubes at gigs as my standard rig...I split my guitar signal with a 'Y' Cable, and use one cube as my onstage monitor, and the other as a D.I. into the sound board with the settings exactly the same....delay at 2.5, gain at 5, volume at 5, tone at 7, no chorus or any of those distracting swoosh-y effects.
The other reason I bought it is for playing electric on the street and with 2 of these babies, it makes for a very full sound and plenty loud enough for our band. Unplugged acoustic guitars can't hang with an accordion!

No dealings with Roland, though I will probably have to replace the speakers pretty soon as I think they are getting blown out.

I have been playing 26 years. My gear is nothing to brag about and I have let some really good equipment slip away over the years. At the moment I have an inexpensive Johnson Resonator guitar which I love to play on solo gigs (forget the model), a 70's Guild dreadnought which is getting the bridge re-set, a crummy Peavey practice amp, a Gibson A-9 mandolin (bluegrass hot-rod) & my grandfather's 1920's Lyon & Healey fiddle, and a recent chinese Jazz Bass copy. Nothing to brag about, for sure.

If stolen or lost, I might upgrade, but, I'm pretty low-budget, so I may have to hit the pawnshop and get whatever in time for the next gig.

Built around 2004. I got it used in 2005.
I play everything from sparkling clean and bluesy
leads to high gain metal leads and rhythm. This amp does most of it
very well. Clean is not bad. High gain models are awesome. Other features I remember: headphone out, many amp simulations, delay, reverb, tremolo, chorus. I use this amp while I play my ibanez in my
car in the parking lot and my wife is shopping in the mall. This amp
has saved my marriage :-). I have used it to jam with my friends
as well. If its not loud enough, I run the headphone out into the mixer
and use the PA.

Sound quality of this amp is awesome for the size. The fact that it
works on batteries and does not drain the batteries that fast (mine
last for about 3 months and I play it about 2 hrs every week when
I am outside). Clean is not bad. Distortion is amazing.
The first time I took this amp to my band practice (the drummer has
electronic drumset so its not too loud), they laughed at me but were
amazed by the volume and sound quality when I started playing.
I use USA strats, jacksons, ibanez RG guitars with EMGs or SD pups.

Yes its very dependable. I always keep it in my car. For my gigs,
I use its eldest brotha cube 60. And the microcube is a backup if
60 ever fails, which I dont think will happen. I dont think its usable
for live situation but if I have to I think I can pull it off by
running it thru a PA. Ofcourse I am talking about small gigs and
emergency situations, not big arenas.. lol.

never dealt with roland.never needed to.

I have been playing for more than 15 yrs. I got mesa boogie single recto, line 6 podxt live, vamp2, roland cube 60 and bunch of guitars.
If it were stolen, I will buy this amp again for its high gain channel.
I still have to compare it to vox ad15. I wished it had better
effects. I dont like the effects on any of the cube amps.

2007. Modeling amp.

Heres where it stinketh. For three months it sounded great (for a teeny amp) then one day it went into 'crap' mode, never to return. Its buzzy and just sounds horrible. Clean channels arent too bad, but the distorted ones are really bad. They were good but now bad....so I sent it in for repair.

It came back with this reply from Roland

"Ran several tests. Works Fine. Meets all factory specs. Check your settings. Use the clean settings."

Check my settings?!? All two of them? Meets specs? Well I dont know how they measured these as I filled two of the screw heads with wax to see if they would actually take it apart to test it. They didnt, wax still there.

Use the clean settings??! This to me sounds like they admit that the OD channels sound like crap.

Anyway, frustrating. It was good now its bad...and roland wont help. At least it was cheap. But I wont buy from them again..

It was a 10 and now its a ZERO

It was good, and then one day went bad. Ive read the other reviews and it seems others have this same problem. I'll admit that all the good reviews on here are honest as that was how I felt about it too for 3 months anyway....

Under warranty sent it in they sent it back, unopened and unfixed.

Lame!

Playing about 7 years.
Fender Hot Rod DLX. Peavey Bandit 112. Strats

I hate that it was great and now it sux and Roland left me stuck with it.

The features have been mentioned countless times before but here are the highlights. The 6 amp model simulations, 4 modulation effects, 2 ambient effects, gain, volume, tone and headphone out. It also has a somewhat useless tuner and an mp3/CD line in jack. It is very portable and will run on AA batteries (6 at a time)with solidly built construction and a sturdy handle.

As a standalone amp it sounds fairly good on all the different settings but the 5 inch speaker in it is a bit wimpy for any good low end. However, after saying that, what I have found is that if I run the effects and amp simulations from the line out into a larger amp this turns the little guy into an amazing effects line. The digital effects are top notch and the amp sims are very close, closer than most other amp simulation products, which when used as an effects line create great versatility for live playing. Especially for covering various classic songs. I use a Boss AB-2 line switch to change between the cube effects and my regular pedal board. The cube is very quiet, except when you dial in the Recto or the Classic Stack with the gain turned up. My favourite amp sims are the Brit Combo (AC30), Black Panel (Fender Twin) and Classic Stack (Marshall Plexi) while the chorus and phaser (low position) are excellent modulation effects (I am not a fan of flangers or tremolos. The Digital Reverb and Delay are very good and very useful as well. By using the Micro Cube as an effects line in front of my amp, I can switch between the clean sounds of say the AC30 or Fender Twin, then switch over to overdrive from the pedal board. Or I could go the other way and play clean into the main amp through the pedals and then switch to overdriven AC30 or Plexi sounds. Great versatility to cover classic rock and blues. I do this with 2 different Strats (1 stock Vintage Noiseless single coils and 1 hot rodded w/Duncan Strat Rails)and an Epi Sheraton Deluxe (335 style w/2 PAFs. The amps are a VOX AC30CC2x and a Fender Custom Vibrolux Reverb for gigs. A Fender Champ 600 Reissue for home practice.

I have had it for 2 years without any trouble what so ever. Roland are known for reliable products and I have been using Boss pedals for many years and have never had any issues with those. So I suppose what I am saying is; The Micro Cube is very reliable.

Never needed it.

I think this is a great little amp to introduce to new guitarists the fundamentals of different sounds for a very reasonable price. My daughter is beginning to learn to play so I got her one of these to use as she learns. She is having great fun exploring the different sound from the cube while she learns her chords and scales. As for me, well as I have said, this is a great effects line for versatility with excellent digital effects and amp simulations. Can't recommend it enough for these two reasons alone but when you factor in the very reasonable price with the rugged durability and portability, it becomes a no-brainer. Don't think twice before you get one because even if you out grow the Micro Cube as a practice amp, you can still use it as an effects line in your set-up when you go to a bigger amp.

You probably know them already.
My only wish is that it had a chromatic tuner.
Use it for practice in the music room, plenty of power for that. Put a clean boost in front if you need more gain.

I loved this thing as soon as I plugged it in. Very surprising quality and features for its size. I find all the sounds useful with a little tweaking, even the "Mic" setting. I wanted a small practice amp that could just be plugged in and played without effects pedals, this one does it. Sounds great with single coils or humbuckers. I use it with the included adapter, no hum or issues. I have quite a few amps, tube and sold state, this is the go-to amp for personal practice.

Don't know, seems solid like all Roland stuff I've had. Never had any problems with Roland gear so far.

Can't say.

Great value, money well spent; this is a keeper. Highly recommended. I'll give it a 10 despite the lack of a real tuner. Goodbye Pignose!

Solid State amp. Bought new in 2006.
Comes with tons built in effects, settings to emulate different amps.

the best little practice amp i've ever heard.. cool effects and distortion.. even has a built in chorus for that roland clean sound

very dependable

haven't had to conact roland

the boogie sound is my favorite!

2 Watt practice amp with support for battery operation. Enough amp simulation and effects for any practice session. Line in for a drum machine, or CD/MP3 player and headphone out (can't imagine needing that with this little beauty since it sounds great even at extremely low volume)

Not something for a gig, but great for taking to the cottage, campsite, or even backyard practice (without annoying the neighbours)

Unbelieveable!!!

This thing is tiny yet produces some remarkable tone without screaming, ear bleeding volume. I have no idea how they do it but this amp remarkable. I like the JC clean and R-fier models the best, but when I want something a little more versatile, I just plug my GT-6 into it and go nuts.

I've only had it for a week but it apears to be built solid.

Haven't needed any so far.

I've run a Godin Freeway, Ibanez SA260, PRS Custom, and (my favorite) Lado Elite III through this thing and get amazing tone from every axe. The remarkable thing is that I can practice in one room with an infant sleeping in another and not worry about waking the little guy. Such low volume and yet with great tone is what sets this little practice amp apart from the competition.

If it died, was stolen or anything else happend to it, I would have another one within hours. I've already recommended this little gem to several of my friends who have come to love it as well.

I'm so impressed with this, I'm going to check some if its bigger brothers to replace my LINE6 Spider II.

Bought in 2007 direct from zzsounds - two day delivery, $125 total. Everything else is well documented below. I will say I like the controls, simple, solid, very easy to dial in. Don't like the tiny power button on the back, would have been cool if they put a retro-metal flip switch like on legit tube amps, but hey what can do.

I'm admittedly a gear head and have been playing guitar and in bands for over 15 years. This is my first solid state amp in 10 years. I've had and still have vintage fender, marshall, vox, and various boutique amps (Rivera, Roccaforte, Dr.z.). So I feel I can tell you straight - this is great little amp. Perfect for bedroom jamming. Perfect practicing to a cd or jamming with your buddy in the bedroom while your wife is watching tv in the living room. I don't mess to much with the effects, some delay, a bit reverb, and I mainly play with the British Combo channel - but man if that's all it had I would still be happy with this thing. Certainly not a touch sensitive as a cranked up tube amp, and not quite the string clarity, but for what it is, it's size, minimal price, this thing is so worth it. I truley enjoy playing through it. If your considering - I'd say buy it, its worth it. By the way, the Marshall Stack, the Fender cleans (black face and silver face era's) and the Mesa Boogie rectifier channels all sound right on to my ears - I just don't use them much.

DOn't know, only had it for a few months - so far so good.

no contact

For $125 bucks, if your looking for a small bedroom practice amp, or something portable to take on vacation, I'd be surprised if you could do better. Fantastic value for $125.

Great portability - carry with your guitar in one trip without being over burdened.
Not extremely light but I like the "feel of quality" you get with some heft.
Battery power is awesome! Six AA's and you're up and running.
Sound flexibility is excellent including many cool amp models - a real treasure trove with easy to understand control dials.

Has no business sounding this good for an amp of this size/cost. Its amazing. Not incredibly loud, but plenty loud. It just blows people away who hear it.

One of those purchases that leaves you totally satisfied how smart and discerning a buyer you are.

Made in 1492, which makes it an immediate classic. Wow. Pushes 120 watts through a 5" speaker. Wow. Made for extensive touring. Lots of effects that can be accessed with the included Brashaw switching system.

This is my main touring rig. I usually have the volume on 2-3 when I play stadiums and even then it is deafeningly loud. I once turned it all the way up and hit a power chord. The sound dissolved the home I was living in. Smoke and ash was all that remained, drifting through the summer air. I'd say it is much louder than a 747 on takeoff or even the Space Shuttle. I plan on standing under the Shuttle the next time it launches. I'll be jamming with the cube to see which is louder when they light that thing up. I'll submit another review after that. This amp sounds like a Dumble, a Victoria, A VHT, a Fender Deluxe/Super/Twin/ Marshall stack, etc...but 100 times as loud. It's very heavy to move around ...probably over 1000 tons, easy.

Just for fun I placed it in a 1 million ton press and tried to crush it. It broke the press into two parts...not a scratch on her. Then I took it to Fort Campbell and had an Abrahams M 2 blast away with the main gun. After 100 rounds, she only had a small scratch on the corner. Finally I threw it into an iron smelter at 3000 degrees. Nothing. So I think it's reliable.

I'm a personal friend of Ignacio Roland and his father, Cornelius. They invite me for sake (Japanese rice wine) all the time and send their Yamaha jet to pick me up in Antarctica, where I live. I complained once that the amp was not made of solid gold. They sent me 100 million dollars and promised to send 100 million dollars every day until i die. That's okay customer service in my opinion.

I've been playing since 6000 BC. I invented electricity and everything else except the internet, which Al Gore invented. If this were lost or stolen, I would simply destroy the entire universe and ask Almighty God to start over, please.

I bought this amp a few days ago for practicing at home, its everything i hoped for and then some in a small inexpensive box.
It has a few different sounds (channels) and also some built in effects.

I like all the sounds it makes except for the acoustic channel, however in all fairness i cant remember ever hearing a good acoustic sound out of a guitar amp.
There are some pretty silly built in effects in it that i doubt i will ever use (Chorus, Flanger, Phaser) and it also has pretty decent sounding Delay, Tremelo and Reverb.
I use a standard USA Fender Stratocaster with this amp and i play mostly blues and country music, i really like the way the British Combo channel cleans up when i roll back the guitar volume.
This is a really quiet amplifier, there is no hiss to speak of.

It seems solid enough, i wouldnt hesitate to take this amp with me to a studio without a backup, i wouldnt gig with this thing, its only 2 watts or something.

The store where i bought this amp is an official Roland dealership, it has been around longer than i have, over the years i have bought five or six guitars from them and a bunch of other stuff, two times i bought effects pedals from them that werent working properly and they replaced them instantly.
Im sure if my amp broke down they would repair or replace it.

I have been playing guitar for 25 years, i own a few other amplifiers, a Musicman 212, a 75 watt Randall and some old tube amps.
I bought this amp for practicing at home, its great for that purpose. Every other amp i own sounds horrible at low volume, they are made to be played loud but this thing sounds good even at low volumes.
I didnt even try this thing before i bought it but i had read a lot of good things about it.
Roland Amplifiers used to sound really horrible to my ears, back in the eighties a lot of people had these large cube amplifiers and i always thought they sounded like s##t, but that was 20 years ago, maybe their amp are better now than they used to be, i dont know.
Anyway, this one sounds just great and for the features and sounds it has its a great value.

I think the features have been well documented previously.

I don't push this amp at all.The setting i use mostly is the marshall/classic stack setting.I usually have the gain on 7 and the volume on 2 tops and use my guitar volume pot to clean up or dirty the sound.This is perfect for me to practise along with backing tracks on my stereo without annoying the missus or neighbours.
I don't use the effects at all, except for a pinch of reverb, but in saying that I don't use chorus on my main amp either.The chorus/flanger/tremelo effects do sound a little gimmicky however, but what would you expect for the money?
The sound I dial in is fine for for my practising needs, so I'll give it a 7

well built practice amp.I've had mine 2 years now and it's fine, although it has been in the same spot beside my stereo for the last 2 years, but it's a rugged little beast.Don't like the mains cable though, a bit flimsy.However, if you have it constantly connected (like I do)I don't see it as being a problem.

2 year warranty.I get all my gear locally and if i have a problen with anything they sort it out for me.

I've been playing 20 years and my main amp is a mesa boogie f-50.I've 2 electrics, a yamaha mike stern and a westbury custom.I also play some classical/acoustic fingerstyle.The roland is perfect for what it does- practising at low volumes and does a passable impression of the sounds it features AT LOW VOLUMES.
If it were stolen or lost, yes I'd get another and I'm going to get another one to have in my in-laws house so I can escape upstairs after dinner on Sundays.

A guitar gods full stack and effects all in one compact amp. It has 2watts and has 8 different distortion types including rectifier and brit combo. It also has 6 effects, which are chorus flanger phaser tremolo along with an independent reverb and delay channel. It is good for practice in small apartment or bedroom or a panhandling or maybe even rehearsals before big gigs.

It is very versatile, with sounds ranging from very clean to very distorted. also there is no middle ground in the sounds you get. If you want clean you get clean if distorted then distorted. It suits my musical style (most heavy metal styles with classic rock, blues and classical thrown).

Very reliable and trustworthy.

Never had to deal with them but they seem to be good people though.

Even though I bought it used, if broken beyond repair or stolen, I would buy another in a heartbeat. Overall, a very reliable piece of equipment.

Excellent selection of professional effects from a range of popular cabinets.

The sound quality is absolutely stunning of what offered. This a little more than a small practice amp as you can use this for professional recording when plugged into a system. The sound on the headphones is excellent. This amp will compete any normal 10-15 watt amp as it is very loud for room practice.

Believe it or not I have gigged once with this amp as plugged through a PA and it out performed my marshall as the r-fier on cube sounded exactly like the mesa boogie.

Never had any.The amp comes with a 3 year standard warranty.

So much in so little price. Iam most amazed with the compact technology and the power this baby can handle. It has replaced my marshall jcm cabinet and a lot of space freed up in my room. Couldnt ask for more.

Some guy was nice enough to post a bunch of amp settings to achieve a certain sound (see below). I'd be really interested to see if others have similar recommendations? I'm pretty new to the guitar, so this really helps me alot. Thanks so much! (or you can email them to me!)


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

A lot has been covered before. Great product.

Awesome...especially direct to sound board for recording. The sound is very good with no noise whatsoever. Not a lot of messing around to get decent sounds. Works with all sorts of pickups.

Built Like a tank.

Own lots of tube amps...this is in fact my only totally non tube amp. This is a practice recording amp and has been rated by that standard. For $100 it was a total no brainer. Yes, I a/b'd it with the VOX DA5. This amp sounded better. I own and ADVT15 and thought the VOX would "beat" the Roland. It did not. I like the red color. What ever the color, the sound and tone is really in there.

This amp is awsome, I have had many, many amps over the 17 years I have been playing ranging from 10 watt practice amps to 100 watt heads with 4*12 cabs and everything in between. For practicing at home this thing can produce any sound you are after. For example before i bought this I had a 30 watt marshall and a good effects pedal which produced great sounds, but this amp can can do exactly the same on its own, it is only rated at 2 watts but believe me it is plenty loud enough for practice. the amp models are great and the BOSS effects are really great.the clean sounds right through to the rectifire sounds are absolutley amazing and you can plug an mp3 player or CD player into it to jam along with and they all soung great, there is also a tuning fork button which is touch sensitive which is amazing.

built like a rock and a 3 year guarantee as standard.

not needed to use them yet.

I bought in 2006, so probably made in 2005. This is my second practice amp I bought in a year. The first one is Marshall micro. Of course, Roland is better. This one got more buttons and features to cater to whatever your style is. You can use AA battery, so it is portable. Size just right, not too bulky. However two bad things. Switch on button is strangely placed at the back, and I didn't understand reading manual of how to use the tuning fork. Easy solution, I bought a digital tuner. So for that I give 8, otherwise I would easily give 10/10.

Sound is brilliant. Digital effect together with delay/reverb is wicked. A lot of choices from acoustic to metal. Surely can fit into any kind of genre.

I have been using this amp for 6 months, mainly practising in dining hall. Possibly can do if gig is just for family members. So far so good, no problem at all.

Don't use it yet.

I bought my first guitar one year ago, so I'm practically novice to judge. But, I love this amp, simply because there is a variety of sound it can produce. My daughter also loves it. I'd recommend for any beginners like myself to try this one. It's worth your investment.

I think is 2006 made, and WOW this baby rocks!
I bought it because I had to spend 6 months abroad as an Erasmus Exchange student and I had the urge to have myself a light compact amp to travel with (and to let the girls go wild with my huge rockstar poses!!! -just kiddin'-).
My shop suggested me this little gizmo. I was skeptical about Roland (this brand gives me too a digital-like feeling) and I think that the looks of the Microcube isn't that gorgeous... But the guy at the shop played a couple of killer licks and I was like wooh.
The good features are the tuning fork, which can look a not so useful tool but lemme tell ya damn sure it is, and the speaker output and direct rec one. I think that I'll never use an external speaker with this puppy, but more expensive amps (like the orange crush series which was one of my possible choices) don't have one, so kudos. The direct rec is good for instant laptop recordings of riffs and ideas (which come and go with the same speed of an italian soccer player falling down after a french one's headbutt).
The on-off switch is in a ridiculously unconfortable pisition and it's ridicously small. I mean, come on! Just another little effort for a plain 10 guys!
Oh, and by the way it's battery powered too! Now I know how to collect some extra change, just rockin' down the street!
It's really small and light, it fitted in my baggage perfectly. Ok, I exceeded the maximum weight, but it was my dozen of pullovers' fault...

That's the interesting part.
Ok, I play my beautiful and sexy Epiphone Les Paul Custom Zakk Wylde model, bullseye finish with passive hambucking EMG's.
This little b#*ch has a bunch of amp emulations. The first one is, well, actually not an amp emulation, but an acoustic emulation. Not my favourite, though, but nice for a relaxing approach to the instrument. Like those nights you just, like, wanna play acoustic stuff.
The Roland Jazz Chorus emu is a little cold for my taste, but it's ok. The Black Panel (Fender Twin) gives a good clean, but whith the gain knob kranked could deliver the right amount of dirt to your playing.
The major problems come with the clean sounds: I noticed with some disappointment the consistent presence of distortion on the lows. Really bad, really bad indeed. But y'know, like good ol' Mick says, you can't always get what you want. I somewhat fix the problem by switching the bridge pickup and lowering the gain... Ok, it's the only real flaw of the amp, we have to admit it, but for the price and the type of the amp (just bedroom practice, I mean the OTHER bedroom practice) it kiks major asses.
And you haven't heard of the distorted ones!
Ok, let me chill out.
The brit-whatchamacallit delivers some awesome Brian May-like sounds, which I think is good if you like Brian May. I like him, I grew up with his mellow tones, his licks smooth like silk and solid rock rithm guitaring. But now it's the dist I use less, because I'm in my Zakk-Dime period.
For Zakk Wylde's kind of rough squealing tone I use the Classic Stack. It's Marshall, it's dirt without too much edges and I push it to the limit pluggin my Boss SD-1 with all maxed out. Good and dirty as hell.
The Rectifier-model is edgy, great sharp highs and punchin' lows (great response on the palm muting!!!) and with high gain pickups (or with a booster) it really SCREAMS!!!
The fx compartment is ok, I don't like those kind of effects so much but I like using some flange or phase every now and then, and the chorus on the distorted to have some cheesy, funny '80s metal sound, really funny. They're maybe a little too extremely biased for my taste, not so subtle, but hey that's all inside a 90 euro and (hardly) 2 kilos!
Good work, really. I cannot but warmly suggest you to buy it, or at least give it a try.

How would I know? I've owned it for less than a month. I keep my fingers crossed 'cause I hate that warranty stuff. It plainly sucks.
(Maybe it's irrelevant, but I have to say that it survived to two airplane travels, in the baggage between two rows of wool pullovers... cool, huh? or maybe not. whatever!)

Huh? Did you hear that?

Ok, basically I'm a bass player (I played for 15 years) but I've always had fun with guitar and drums. I'm good, at least I think so. And I'm good lookin too with the guitar on. Ok, I have just the Epi LP Zakk Wylde Bullseye, Boss SuperOverdrive, Boss DS-2, a russian made BigMuff. All the other stuff is my bass-related gear (some hot stuff but I assume that you might not give a damn about it, so I'll cut it off).
I think that this little amp was what I needed at the moment at the right amount of money I could spend in that very moment. I'm lookin for a good valve combo, maybe a Brunetti or a marshall. But I'm still getting used to serious guitar playing, practising scales and all that stuff, so I think this will do for now.
If someone steals it I'll cry and break something, but just for a couple of minutes. I mean, it's not that much, just 90 euros... but it would suck anyway.
I think that if at Roland the mad scientists could fix that annoying muddy distortion in the clean lows I could eventually consider to buy the new improved version of it.
Now I have to leave you guys: it's almost midnight and I suddenly have the urgent need to shred with my Zakky. And my parents are just next room: isn't it cool? It's a kind of magic...

I mostly play contemporary church music, which means pretty much a little of everything everything but metal. In my bedroom, the metal licks come out too from time to time. This little guy pretty darn versatile, as most digital stuff is. The knobs are really well contrived. They help you get the most out of a small package, but are simple enough that anyone could use them without reading the manual, and tweak on the fly. Admittedly There isn't great depth to the amount of control you have over the effects parameters, but they do what they are supposed to. I mostly only use delay (to cover my sloppy playing) with my other rigs anyway, so it does what I need it to.

Can go anywhere and run for 2o hours, which is pretty sweet. I also think the tuning fork is neat. Gimmicky, but neat.

This item is being rated for what it is: A battery powered practice amp which employs digital modeling. As of now, I've only used it with one guitar, albeit a very versatile one (my other is on another continent at the moment). It's a Hwy 1 Telecaster with a DiMarzio Tone Zone T in the bridge (very good guitar, great pickup). I want to go over the channels one by one but first I want to make some general comments.

The clean sounds distort at mid volume. The distortion is not really overly ugly, and can be cleaned up to some extent with the volume knob. This distortion sounds ok, it's just not, well... clean. So, not much head room. I think this additional distortion might be an asset to the gain channels though. It doesn't hurt at least. The low notes are a little mushy on all models, probably due to the speaker. It's not to bad on the Jazz chorus setting though. This thing also does remarkably well with booster pedals. I tried one with the Level all the way up, figuring I'd get nasty digital distortion for sure. Sounded good, much to my surprise.

Acoustic Model: Does what it's supposed, and sounds pretty good while doing it. me gusta. seems to like single coils much more than humbuckers though.

JC Clean: at bedroom volumes, this channel is CLEAN. really captures that high quality SS clean sound and captures all the nuance of your playing. When the amp gets loud enough to break up, the distortion is not so nice, but it breaks up last of all the channels.

Black Face: a little more mellow clean sound. Pile on the verb and tremolo, and you've got instant surf sound. I don't care for it so much at low volumes, but when breakup kicks in I actually like it better I suspect this is intentional. Good channel for using booster pedals.

Brit Combo: THE BEST channel on the amp. Lower the gain (or guitar volume), and you have a fat, mellow clean sound. At half way, my single coils are clean, and my humbuckers have singing sustain, smooth but articulate. Perfect, really. From there on up, the distortion takes on a bit of bite. It's a very Brian May kind of sound. an approximate Petrucci lead tone can also be found here. At high volumes, this model takes on a more aggressive character that is pretty ok too. I prefer it with the gain backed down a bit. however, This channel is best, in my opinion, at daytime bedroom volume, which is great, because that is where I use it the most. I really couldn't think of anything that would make this channel better.

Classic Stack: With just a little gain, and a neck position single coil (or bright humbucker, I assume), this channel has a very passable blues tone. reminds me of SRV. Does very well with booster pedals on this setting also. At higher gain settings, this channel is not so nice at bedroom volume. It actually sound better when the volume is up pretty loud, more meaty.

R-Fier Stack: This sound is a little to harsh for my tastes at low volumes. It really only sounds good louder, and it's still not really my cup of tea. Well, I take that back, it's pretty decent for metal rhythm actually, but to harsh for leads I think by itself. It does respond very well to external EQ though, so it has it's uses, and it sound pretty cool with phaser. Again, this one is better loud.

Mic: Haven't used it with a mic yet, but as another reviewer mentioned, it has a Hendrix fuzz vibe with the gain cranked for guitars. It's cool to mess with, but I don't usually stay on this channel very long.

At bedroom volumes I would give this a 9 or a 10, at band practice volumes I would give it a 6 or so. Since it's mostly for bedroom anyway, I'll give it an 8.

seems sturdy. Haven't had it long enough to know of any serious problems. It doesn't get hot at all, which is a good sign.

Customer support could be better. They are only open during normal business hours during the week, and they don't have a toll free number. When you can get a hold of them, they are helpful enough.

I've been playing for 5 years now I guess. Playing at church about twice a week, and occasionally doing 'worship concerts', which basically boils down to church music in a rock show format (ie: more work on arrangement and production, longer set, etc.). In terms of other amps, I have a Peavey Classic 30, which is great bang for the buck, but has it's limitations, and a THD Univalve, Which KILLS. The Univalve is an awesome amp which everyone should own. It's best sounding amp I have ever played (though Mesa Mark series amps are veeery nice too); but enough about my Univalve. I also used to have a Marshall TSL 602, but I sold it because it was really heavy and more I need. Sounded good though. I also a PODxt with floorboard that I have used live, direct to PA. It is now relegated use as an effects processor for the Univalve. I have a Yamaha MagicStomp, which I use for similar type stuff, depending on the situation. Finally, I have a Dano Fish&Chips EQ which really helps me get the most out of my C30. I have residence in two continents, so I basically have two rigs. The Micro Cube goes everywhere, of course.

I guess that should be a pretty good frame of reference from which to evaluate my review.

If it were lost or stolen, I would get this or the Vox thing. I haven't played the Vox thing yet. I might pick one up next year, but I am very happy with this for the moment.

Anyway, this thing rocks, and the sounds on it that are good are really good.

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.

Brand new Microcube, presumably 2005/6. So many posts with the features before this, but I'll focus on the one drawback for me, namely the fact that the line-out jack cuts out the speaker when a jack is inserted - this is fine for use with Phones, but it would have been nice to have the ability to take a line out to the PA but still have a speaker active for monitoring. It's probably a simple mod, but as I've just bought this I don't want to start hacking it just yet!

Still, for a small practice combo this has an excellent feature set

Used with my Tele, my Parker Fly and my old Westone electric, primarily for practising (it's a practice amp!). Great range of sounds - I particularly like the Brit Combo and the Classic Stack. I could have lived without the JC-Clean and Acoustic settings, as Black Panel does it for me. Rectifier sounds great but not a cound that I'd use particularly often. With the volume right up the speaker can get a bit farty, particularly on some of the clean tones, but that's not unusual in this price range.

Built in effects are great too - usable without being outlandish. I could live without Flanger (maybe compression would have been a better option?) but the chorus, tremelo and phaser are excellent. Reverb/Delay are both very usable too.

Just bought it, but I've never had a piece of Roland/Boss gear fail on me

Never had to use

I've been playing for 24 years, and play regularly in a covers band - this little amp is one of the best practice amps I've tried. The flexibility of the modelling, plus the effects and aux-in make it an ideal packqage for home practice, plus it has enough poke for jams (albeit maybe drummerless) when required. If it was lost or stolen I'd likely buy another, although I'd be sure to check out some of the current alternatives.

I'd been sceptical about Roland amps in the past, my only previous experience having been on a JC120 complete with its horrible distortion, but this amp has changed my outlook - I'd certainly check out the Roland alternatives when I'm next looking into buying a gigging amp.

Purchased on 05, single channel amp with digital amp models and a nice selection of effects. Plenty of power for a bedroom jam.

I really only use the rectifier setting. While it sounds nothing like my rectifier, its fantastic for sitting in the living room and practicing at low volumes. The distortion is tight and fairly articulate. Notes are very clear and pinch harmonics are cake at low volumes.

Seems ok? I don't really plan on taking it out of the house though.

For a small practice amp with several options this is it! I checked out a few line 6 amps but they couldn't stand up to the small Roland.

Wonderful. Everything you could ever need. This amp is ideal for people who want something to practice with a reasonable volumes. I could well imagine myself gigging with this too, and not necessarily plugged into a PA either. Extremely punchy for its size. Everything they say about it is true. A little wonder.

Fabulous range of sounds. Everything is useable and will find its way into my playing.

Looks as solid as a rock.

Superb. Get it if you have a family, as the low output and headphone outlet mean you can play away at low/ no volume without disturbing others. In terms of value for money and sheer userfriendliness there's nothing else on the market to remotely compete with it. Superb price, superb spunds, superb amp and at last something I can play without fear of waking my young son up!

wont list em all but britcombo is my fave

cant believe some reviewers are knocking the effects-most of the the competition offer none.the reverb is usually the most disappointing effect on an amp this size, but not on the microcube.very useable and convincing.
i also play my blues harp through it and get very convincing honky sounds, without suffering from the usual dreaded feedback-way cool.

only had it 4 days, but its built like a marshall.nuf said.only one gripe-dont like the cheapie thin mains cable.

ok so far dudes

i own a liberty practice amp and a streetman practice amp-neither of these come close to the microcube at all.the streetman claims to be 15 watts, which i frankly doubt big time.it offers no effects and just about overdrives if you turn everything up to 10.it arrived with the vinyl covering hanging off at the edges.poor build quality.
the liberty offers good distortion and enough power , but its reverb is useless.the rechargeable battery in it is a poor performer-indeed, rendering its street use to almost nil.with its retro looks its the best looking of the bunch, but hey, beauty is skin deep.
microcube? buy one dude.

Bought brandnew out of the box,comes with a wall wart power supply, all the features have been done before: it's a little fella with lots of fun features, and it sounds excellent for the money! Its probably the finest budget practice amp around at this time. The phaser/flanger options are shitty, but the rest of the effects are quite useable, but they do sound very synthetic.

What amazes me is the build quality: solid and to be honest; flawless. Hats off to Roland for keeping up a damn fine quality control. Everything about this amp says quality, and you can pick it up for the price of 1 decent effect pedeal, marvelous!

I have a Squier '51, Squier Telecaster, and a Gibson '79 The Paul. The Roland isnt very responsive to different guitars/ pickup changes, sounds quite generic. But the variety of sounds is really cool, its just such good fun! LOud enough to annoy the neighbours. When cranked right up the speaker gives in and turnes to shit, but hey: its a 5 inch jobbie: what do you expect? For the money, its a 9 for sure.

Its a pain, these wall-wart power supplies. I would have paid more for a built- in power supply. As far as reliabilty goes: I can't really comment,I just pulled it out of the box, but it feels rock- solid. It comes with a year's warranty, so if it burns, just return it and get a new one. Roland delivers once again.

Can't comment on customer support, but I have a decent warranty from the shop.

Been playing for nearly 20 years, and have tons of experience. This is a very cool product, don't expext too much, but it has great rewards. The size of it is cool, the portability, battery powered option, its ideal for taking along to parties and suchlike. Get one while Roland still makes them!

This amp is so small that I use it as a "bedside amp". Actually it is standing on my bedside table right now. It's amazing how versatile such a little amp can be. It's good for any style from soft ballads to hard rock, thanks to what the manual refers to as COSM technology. COSM stands for Composite Object Sound Modeling, and it allows the amp to emulate such bigger amps as Roland's JC-120, Fender Twin Reverb, Vox AC-30TB, Marshall JMP 1987, and MESA/Boogie Rectifier. I think this particular feature is the best thing you can expect from a small practice amp like this. Other features that are worth mentioning are: the gain and the tone knobs, as well as the knob for such effects as chorus, flanger, phaser and tremolo. It also has a delay/reverb knob.

I like to use my Yamaha SLG100S Silent Guitar with this amp. This makes the whole thing a very portable ensemble, by the way. The sound is great. I play jazz most of the time, and I can get a very decent warm tone by switching to the JC-120 amp type (see above), and by adding a little chorus effect.

This is an amp intended for home use mostly, so only occasionally is it exposed to risks. But I guess it is a very reliable, durable equipment.

Never needed to get it repaired.

I've been playing for 40 years. Besides the Yamaha guitar that I mentioned above, I have a Washburn J6. It sounds good with that guitar too. I'm really happy about this amp, and I am sure it was one of the best buys I've made.

I'm lazy ...go to roland's site and read :D

good things:
..All the models are very good :D
..The reverb is ok
..It can be loud
..Its so small, but gives punch and bass

bad things:
..Very very flat sound. It has no dynamics at all.
..Low end distortion (caused by the ported cab?).
..Th EQ sounds digital to me.
..The FX are useless... too exagerated.




For practicing, I preffer this amp than Pods or v-amps.

Seems very solid

never dealed

10 years playing guitar. Have owned many guitar amps... from crappy to heavenly biased tube heads.

This is a PRACTICE amp!! Cannot be compared with the big brothers.

I like it.
It's very easy to dial in good sounds. Every amp model is usable!
I has bad things (specially lack of dynamics), but at this price you cannot ask for more.

And it's so light and small!
Perfect to stay next to the sofa :)

This is an update to a previous review, same features as before.

Can only be played quitely without the speaker farting out. Works good if you run it through another speaker or cab, but the stock speaker blows. And there's no point trying to find a replacement 5 inch speaker, the Vox DA-5 runs $10-14 more than the Microcube and has a decent 6 1/2 inch speaker that doesn't love to fart out.

It always works, except for the crappy speaker.

Nice features, nice models, nice AA powered battery life, and sounds good when played quietly. At moderate volumes and up the speaker totally craps out.

Mine's an 05,I think. It's an amazing little magic box. I play a number of styles, from Travis-style picking thru Jazz/rock. You can get an amazing array of sounds and tones with this little amp. It has good power for a practice amp (remember, that's what this is), howver there are some inconsistancies with my unit.

I am using this to amplify my asian-made hollowbody jazz guitar. There is no noise or hum present at all. Here is a quirk that is present in my unit, it may not be typical of all: (Maybe future reviewers can confirm this or not). In some of the amp settings, the volume or output is much louder. For instance, in the 'acoustic' setting, I almost can't turn it high enough. The output is very low. When I dial around to the stack setting, or 'r-fier', the volume output is way off the chart, regardless of where my volume/gain knobs are. Maybe it's the nature of the beast, I'd have to compare to another unit to check.
At very low volume, the sound is beautiful. At moderate volume, things distort a bit, especially at the low end. It almost sounds like the speaker is being overdriven because when you play thru phones, the sound is gorgeous. After all, we're only dealing with a 5 1/2" speaker here. In settings like "black face' which is the simulated Fender Twin sound, your are presented with a fat, rich, chunky bass and the distortion is quite noticeable thru the speaker even at moderate or low volume. Maybe too much is being asked of this little speaker, or a more robust unit should be installed (stiffer cone, larger voice coil, more flexible surround, heavier magnet.) I have also noticed that the enclosure has a bass-reflex port visible thru the lower left front grille. After some experimentation, I found that the amp lost some of the muddy distortion when I sealed up the port. This renders the setup as an 'acoustic suspension' situation, where trapped air within the cabinet acts to cushion or dampen the cone travel of the speaker, mitigating some of the low end distortion. This worked out for me, and I'll leave it that way. Note that I am not attempting to play above a moderate living room practice volume. To sum up: thru the phones A+ Thru the speaker, B-

The little Roland is built like a tank. You could use it for a step-stool

Hope I don't have to go there

I almost bought the little Vox, but I have very limited space for equipment, and this one had great reviews. Very well made, easy to navigate, battery feature is relly cool. The selection of amp styles and effects makes it a little trasure chest of sound. Two concerns: The discrepencies in output as noted above for the different amp selections, and the low end distortion on the speaker. Overall, a very fine little package.

Been done already.

Superb for the size and money.
In fact it'd still be superb twice as big and twice as expensive.

Too new.

See above

Fantastic little amp.
Every guitarist should have one of these.

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!

I'VE READ FOR THREE HOURS ABOUT THEM & WE ALL KNOW THEM BY NOW... THE FORK TUNER SHOULD NOT EXIST AND I AGREE IN HAVING A BETTER EQ INSTEAD "OR" (THIS COUL BE VERY INTERESTING FOR GUYS LIKE MY SELF WHO JUST CARE ABOUT TONE & VOLUME) "A DEDICATED GOOD QUALITY HEADPHONE OUT"... COME ON! IT'S A PRACTICE AMP AND YOU WILL WANT TO GET SERIOUS WITH HIGH GAIN MODELS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT! THE MANY COMPLAINTS ABOUT THE POOR QUALITY REC/OUT ARE NOT FAIR. AS LONG AS I KNOW "EVERY REC OUT IN AN AMP MODELER SOUNDS LIKE SHIT... SEEMS IT HAS TO BE LIKE THAT... AND - THEN AGAIN - MANY REVIEWERS TALK ABOUT HOW BEATIFUL THE TONE CAN BE WHEN USING IT WITH PA SYSTEMS AND OTHER AMPLIFIERS... THAT'S WHY I ASK FOR A DEDICATED HEADPHONE OUT...

LET'S JUST SAY I PLAY SINGLE COIL, HUMBUCKER,PIEZO AND MICROPHONE EQUIPPED AXES. COME ON! WHO CARES WHAT I PLAY WITH! THIS LITTLE THING WORKS QUITE WELL WITH ALL OF THEM, AND I'M PRETTY SORRY FOR ALL THESE GUYS, LIKE THE ONE FROM THE BEATIFUL PORTUGAL, WHO DECLARE THIS AMP SUCKS IN EVERY POSSIBLE WAY. I THINK HE IS A VICTIM OF MISCONCEPTION HERE... AS OTHER OLD FOLK SAID "YOU HAVE TO KNOW WHAT YOU NEED AND HOW TO USE IT"... THIS IS A LITTLE PRACTICE AMP. ANYWAY I CANT HELP TO IMAGINE HOW IT WOULD SOUND WITH A 7 INCHES SPEAKER (LIKE THE BULLDOG ONE USED IN THE VOX PF 10 THAT REALLY HANDLES THE BASS OF MY HUMBUCKERS) THAT MIGHT BE THE AMP THIS GUY AND OTHERS ARE LOOKING FOR, BUT, HEY, THOSE ARE PERFORMANCE AMPLIFIERS (STREET PERFOMANCE OF COURSE)AND NOT "PRACTICE AMP"... TO BEGIN WITH, I THINK A GOOD PRACTICE AMP COULD NOT HAVE A SPEAKER AT ALL... AGAIN, "JUST GOOD HEADPHONES OUTLET"...

I HAVE READ ALL THESE COMMENTS AND NOBODY HAS TALKED ABOUT THE POSSIBILITY OF USING EFFECT PEDALS (OR NO PEDALS)BEFORE THE MICROCUBE. I SUPPOSE COSM MODELING AS A DIGITAL FACT MUST NOT BE OVERDRIVEN BY NOTHING BEFORE, CAUSE IT CHANGES THE WHOLE ALGORYTHM FOR EACH SIMULATION... I REALLY DON'T KNOW... I TRIED A COUPLE OF GADGETS BEFORE THE MICROCUBE AND THEY DID NOT SOUND BAD BUT THEY DID DESTROY THE CHARACTERISTIC "FEEL" OF THE MODELS... MAY BE SOME "DIGITAL" COMPRESSION AND EQ COULD HELP THOSE GUYS FIGHTING WITH THE BASS FREQUENCY PROBLEMS... WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF U SET A CLEAN TUBE PREAMP (ART MP OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT) BEFORE OR AFTER THE MICROCUBE? CAN ANYBODY GIVE ME A HINT IN THESE DOUBTS?... I THINK A NICE TUBE COULD GO VERY WELL "AFTER" THE MODELLING, JUST AS A DIRECT BOX, IN ORDER TO SOFTEN THE REC/OUT... WHAT DO YOU GUYS THINK?...

WELL, WHO KNOWS? HOW CAN U KNOW SUCH A THING... JUST BECAUSE ROLAND IS PRESTIGIOUS? COME ON!

I LIVE IN MEXICO CITY & THIS IS A 25 MILLION PEOPLE JUNGLE WHERE THERE ARE NO ROLAND DEALERS OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT... SO I WILL HAVE TO WAIT FOR THE BEST AND RELY IN THE LOCAL TECHNICIANS (MMMHH...)

I HAVE HAD THESE FOR A FEW WEEKS NOW AND I AM VERY PLEASED SO FAR. I DO NOT EVEN THINK IN THE POSSIBILITY OF HAVING DONE A MISTAKE BUYING THIS... LIKE 12 YEARS AGO, WHEN I PAYED AROUND 800 USD FOR A DIGITECH LEGEND 21 (WHICH IS NOT THAT BAD EITHER, BUT PROCESSOR WERE SO ARCAIC AND EXPENSIVE AT THE TIME... THE NEW DIGITECH MULTIDISTORTION PEDAL COSTS MORE THAN 300 DOLLARS... AGAIN: COME ON! IT'S A DAMN BARGAIN! I WISH IT EXISTED 25 YEARS AGO AS MANY HAVE SAID BEFORE... LAST BUT NOT LEAST, IT IS REALLY FUNNY (YEP, SORRY GUYS BUT IT'S TRUE)TO READ RTHE REVIEWS FROM GUYS WHO COMPLAINT THAT MUCH FOR HAVING BOUGHT SUCH A NICE AND RIDICUOSLY PRICED PIECE OF FINE GEAR...

THE MICROCUBE IS NOT A TOY... THE GUYS WHO SAY IT ARE HAVING HEAVY DRUGS FOR THE FLU OR SOMETHING... THANKS ROLAND...

I bought two of these little wonders about 18 months ago, one for my son who was just starting out and one for myself because I liked it so much in the shop. As features go, they are listed below, everything is simple, it is a practice amp. The only 3 things that are missing is chanel switching, speaker out and mix control for the effects. In light of the purpose of this amp these are not great things to be missed but it would have been nice.
My local tech made me a speaker out and I play it now over 2x12 boogie rectifier cab. Big sound!!!!

Sounds fantastic, no noise, great tube feel. Yesterday I was out buying a new guitar with my son who is a real metal boy. His dream amp always has been a Randall. When whe started trying out guitars his first choice was a big Randall solid state RH100 head with a 4x12 cab. When he found the guitar of his choice he tried it out on the microcube and we were both impressed how this little wonder beat the big Randall in sound (we're not talking volume here).
You can go from real nice vintage clean to great crunch sounds and go big heavy metal with the microcube.
Are there downsides: yes, if you put the volume past 12 the little speaker craps out. However for practice use this is more than loud enough. If you want volume buy the cube 60 (this one is louder than hell and will put many head cab combo's to shame.

It is well made, the only thing that has broken down is one knob that could easely be glued together again. It came of and by accident I stepped on it, otherwise it would not have been broken.

Don't no, there has never been a reason to deal with Roland over this product. I once had a Boss pedal (same company) that didn't work from the word go and got a new one instantly.
But were talking microcube here so I can't rate this catagory since there has been no reason to contact them.

I retired my soldano over it: Am I crazy?!! Hell no! I dare to admit that this thing smokes. I owned a Mesa Dual Rectifier, got rid of it because I thought it was to dark, muffled sounding no matter what tubes I used. The microcube has a better sounding rectifier sound than the original one. I am completely convinced of the quality of sound of this little amp.

For the purposes of a training, beginners or pratice amp, there are ample features (more than any other amp in it's class in fact), to spend hours of good practice time on. Please be reminded that this is a 2 Watt unit, don't expect blow away stadiums with sound (although the record out feature may be used to patch into a board, and then...your imagination can take over).

The one thing I like about all the features is that they are certified Boss effects. Taking advantage of the technology Boss has in guitar effects means that the effects are well thought out and very responsive. With this, Roland went to the hub of effects innovation to load this unit up with Chorus, Phlanger, Phaser and Tremolo on one dial, and very ingeniously a second dial for Reverb and Delay...In this way can run 2 lines of effects simultaneously...That's without factoring in the over drives available.

6 amp modelling settings, and one mic input.

I bought this amp mainly for my son who is starting out. This is a great way for juniors to learn how to use and appreciate different effects to guitar sounds...and with Boss quality, I can trust the effects to be beefy.

The only bone I have with this unit is in the back, where a 1/8 jack is supplid for the power adaptor. I just wish that they used a figure 8 or something a little more substantial.

Other than that it's a winner...

Very nice. Please don;t think you're going to blast the neighbours out of existence or blow away stadiums.

Boss effects are genuine, and do not strip the underlying guitar tone.

I've used a Les Paul, Strat and they both sound amazing.

Hands down the best sound in it's class.

I've tried (in order or quality) Orange, Vox, Marshall, Peavey, all in the same Power class and this one is the winner.

Have had no problems with it.

Good always.

A wonderful introduction into the posibilities of electric playing

Bought fall '04. Features as previously mentioned.

I've used this w/ Fender (sc), Gibson (hb), Guild/Fishman active, etc. Blackface setting especially 'farts out' badly at any appreciable volume (I'm talking quiet living room here, folks), even w/ sc's and very low gain and volume. (See other reviews re: same.)Seems to be combo of input overload, cabinet/chassis resonance, and preamp/amp distortion. Pretty ugly. That's the worst of it, most of the rest, fx, etc, is passable for what it is. Ext spkr jack would have been nice.

With sound like that I call it broken, right out of the box. I've had it a year, shoulda returned it, but for $125 wasn't worth the time and expense. Bought from DJM, 1 1/2 hours away. Wouldn't buy again from them but that's another story; a long one.

No experience

I've been in music 45 years playing, fixing, buying, and selling. I've used most everything over the years. I picked this up based on reviews much more flattering than mine, and compact size. I'd replace this with a modeling amp just a tad bigger.

I wanted a practice amp I could throw in the car and not worry about.

This is it!!


It has a few effects and a few different amp tones. The great thing is that almost every setting is useable and you don't get bogged down with menus and options.

I use this amp with a mid 80's MIJ Tele with US Fender Vintage pickups, a Gibson Les Paul Studio and a Fender Smith Strat.

All of the guitars sound individual and retain their inherent characteristics through this amp.

The amp has no hiss and the quality of tone is WAY bigger than you'd expect from the size of the speaker.

The tones I use most are the "JC clean model" and "Brit Combo". The modulation effects are spot on as are the reverb and delays.

No fuss just the sounds you want.

It seems very reliable....it certainly is built well.

N/A

I had a Cube 30 before this and although I was very pleased with the sound of it, it was just a little too big for me to carry it around the house with me (plus it didn't run on batteries).

This Microcube has the same effects and sounds to me identical.


I LOVE THIS AMP!!!

The microcube, your average practice amp on NOS. Not you have a bedroom amps that doesnt have to be real loud to sound good, it comes with effects, which most practice amps dont. However the eq is a bit limited because there is only one knob for high and lows. There are settings for acoustic sim, for those of you that plays at churches that hates rock music, then an electric clean for your guns n roses "Paradise City" intro, and you got the Black panel which is slightly distorted, and then the combo and classic/R-fier for your heavy metal sound for those of you that plays Christian rock at a church (try Stryper for a change...). This unit takes batteries so you can do it like Dewey Finn in "School of Rock" where he straps a mini amp to his leg.

This amp has too much presence. There are no adjustments for presence so this thing sounds almost synthetic. However we're talking about a practice amp, and a damm good one too. Most other practice amp doesnt have built in effects and things like that. The sounds are good, its just that it seems to lack the feel of a real amp.

I have never tried to throw this thing out of a window so I cant comment on how reliable it is. Im sure most solid states are quite shock resistant as long as they were properly made.

never dealt with them

Good portable practice amp for those that lives in small places or crowded places where its easy to wake up neighbors... If lost I'd go ahead and buy some marshall 30w amp or save up for an inexpensive tube...

Fantastic. Trully amazing. There's a life time supply of tones on offer here.

Let me start with the channels:
Acoustic= acoustic simulator
JC clean= super clean tone that can sound funky (Red Hot Chillis Peppers)
Black Face= Fender amp tone, treble and bass rich, very clean (Nirvana- teen spirit intro sound)
Brit combo= Mid-rangy tone that can scream and wail (Queen- Bryan May)
Classic stack= Marshall ballsy tone, crunchy and bluesy (AC/DC)
Rectify= Metal distortion sound great for lead and rythmn (Metallica)
Mic= slightly distorted punk soundind (The Clash)

The effects are chorus, flanger, phaser, and tremelo. There's also reverb and delay. All of these are pure quality digital effects and as good as any Boss pedal.

You play guitar and there is a sound on here for you. It is loud enough for a house easy.

The battery's last for ages, brilliant.
Great build quality.
I've turned this up full and it still works fine.

Not needed.

The best practice/house amp in the world. It does everything you want from an amp and more. Well worth double the price. Get one now if you are after a solid, reliable, versitile, great sounding practice amp.

I'm rating this pretty high in features because as a PRACTICE AMP it's the best I've played. It has a lot of onboard effects that are pretty usable. The amp models arent half bad either and the distortion is actually pretty good. Normally gain stages on these sort of amps just don't hold up well at all but I was actually VERY surprised when I flipped it on and tried it out.

You only get a broad EQ sweep and don't have control over individual bass, mids, and highs. You only have a sweeping control for the effects too. And of course, gain and volume knobs.

The amp models include: Acoustic, JC Clean, Black Face, Brit Combo, Classic Stack, R-Fier, and Mic.

Also has a neat little tuning fork button that when you hit it gives you an A 440 (there are two other settings).

The fact you can run it off of batteries is great too!

I'm giving it a 10. If you are in need of a small practice amp that isn't completely lifeless this is a FANTASTIC amp, but keep in mind it's a small solid state amplifier. So I am rating it on the fact that as a practice amp it sounds great, but don't expect it to hold up to any sort of professional gear.

The reviewer that stated the amp "farts loudly on the low-e" must have a faulty cube because I'm not getting the same effect through mine.

Cleans aren't too bad. Acoustic is usable with a single coil pickup. I was really surprised at the R-Fier distortion setting. I expected something weak here but this setting has a lot of power to it considering what its coming from. It holds up very well for practicing and playing along to CDs.

The only thing I don't like (but doesn't really bother me so it doesnt effect the rating) is that I had to re-EQ it on each of the amp models to get a sound I like. Every channel seemed to favor a different setting on the EQ, Gain, and Volume knobs... so if you like switching channels a lot this amp will probably annoy you.

The effects sound great and are very usable. The delay is surprisingly good and the chorus was nice and deep. You also have the trippy effects with Flanger and Phaser. I didn't like the tremelo effect, but thats just me.

Built like a rock. Speaker is covered in a metal grating and it has big plastic guards screwed on to the corners. Knobs are recessed into the top. I've already dropped it from about 3 feet up onto concrete and it works fine. Not a scratch on it either.

N/A

I am a guitar instructor that travels to my students' homes, so I needed something portable and lightweight that I wouldn't mind dragging all over the place. I purchased the amp really because of its size and portablity. I wasn't too concerned about how well it sounded, but I am glad I lucked out and got this great sounding little amp, as it can compete with some of the bigger setups my students own.

I also needed a good practice amp. I recently got rid of my Fender amp for a much larger and more professional set up (Mesa Rectifier) and with a big 4x12 cabinet this isn't something I can practice with in my apartment.

I needed a good, portable practice amp and this amp accomplished what I need in spades. Great buy!

The sounds range from o.k. to horrible. The clean sounds fart loudly when you hit the low E. You have to keep it whisper quiet to prevent it from buzzing and quivering. Not good. If you need an amp that you can play at 3am and carry with ya from room to room this might be your amp! Otherwise forget it. I am shocked at the 10's for this category. I will consider this next time I want some info on a new product. Too bad its not a more reliable source of product info. Anyway, I will rate the sounds at 7 for 3 or below on the amps volume, and 2 for anything higher. Average it to a generous 4.

Been playing for 16 years and own a bunch of gear and various amps, some cheap peavey solid states to fender tube amps and the pvs sound way better than this thing. I tried to like it and may have kept it for a goof but when the thing couldnt handle the low E on a clean sound even with vol low it had to go back! Hope this helps save you some time and money

Read about the micro cube on several websites. I always had the wish, to get a small but good amp for different things: sing and speak over it with a microphone, and play guitar. When I read, what the amp ist able to do, (a variety of effekts) I bought one over ebay. Now I have it, and I can tell, what they wrote in internet is true. Size is liker a car battery, it finds a place in the smallest
room. Its well built, its solid, good look. The knobs are comfortable to use, working exact. Yes ist a versatile amp. You can
create a lot of sounds, if you take a little time. I use this amp mostly at home. Its loud enough, its good for a good neighbourship,
which is important for me. I wish, I could adjust the strength of
the effects, this is the only thing I would like to change. But if you look at the price, its OK without.

I-m playing a standard american strat built 1989. For an amp oft this
small size the sound is good. No question, the low frequencies are
missin, you should not compare the micro cube with a vox pathfinder 15, or a pf 10. (I have theese amps and like them very much) They have bigger speakers, and a higher output. The micro cube brings out a middle to high range of frequencies, in an astonishing quality for a two watt amp. The amp is not noisy. Really not. Well solved, Roland! The distortet sounds reach from lightly crunchy to heavy distortion. You can adjust that very good, mostly even with the volume knob of your guitar!)What I like is the effect section. I you play rythm guitar, accompanying songs, the flanger effect comes wonderful jazzy. I like the tremolo, which is not so impressive like
my vox pf 15 tremolo, but its absolutely useful. I like the delay effect, very good! Its exactly what I alway wanted. I-ll keep this
little amp, I love it for what it is, not always thinkin about what it could be. Roland works on the next generation of amps. I-m shure.
Lets wait and see. For this size and this speaker the sound ist
topp!!

very good.

never dealt with them

Its a wonderful little construction. No dount: Sometimes I think about buying the cube 30 for a louder stronger sound. But this is
not really necessary. the 30 would be too loud for my room. The
micro cube is just right, bringing me fine sounds, when i sit there,
playin my strat. I play rock, I play folk and country, a little jazz,
and this good soundin companion helps me to find my music. I use it
with batteries, that makes me free in movement. In the next days I will receive a microphone, may be I-ll write again, how the amp sounds with it.

this is already written before.
i would have liked a tuner....

the sounds it produces are okay, not as wonderful as many others write in my opinion. the "blackface" is very much useless and does nothing but farting around when it should twang. the ac30 is okay and fairly loud. the marshall is kind of alright and the mesa is actually pretty nice. you can tweak around and get pretty reasonable sound for jamming along with records. the effects are quite usable. nice is the tremolo addition. but be aware: this amp does not sound at all like a real tube-amp!

looks raeely sturdy. weak point is the outboard electric power supply.

no idea

this is a pretty nice home-practice amp. the good thing is: you have to unpack only one cable to get a bunch of sounds. and it is very nice to carry it around on a bicycle. i like the amp but i am not at all totally blown away like some other players that put reviews in here. i own a kustom tube 12 a with some mods, and a fender blues junior in a custom chassis with a celestion vintage 30 speaker. the little roland does sound okay when played via its own speaker. it sounds nort really good thru other amps and thru headphones. and it is not good for recording stright into a computer. it looks like a do ikt all wonder, but that is not really true, unless you are satified with poor results. but for homejammin it is good, specially with the effects.

Great features - lots of cool amp models using roland's cosm simulations. includes reverb/delay and chorus/flange/phaser/trem. Gain, volume & tone. I'd say there are a lot of features for the $$

I've been using this amp for about 6 months - I try and wait at least that long to write a review.
This amp sounds absolutely excellent so long as you keep the volume fairly low. Another reviewer wrote that it is fine from 4 and under and I would say that is correct.
I took it to practise with a friend (just two guitars) and I made a big mistake taking it. By itself, it sounds really warm and full - again at low volume. Playing with someone else using a Fender champ, and suddenly my Micro sounded really really thin and had no umph at all. AND, by turning it up, it seems that I have now damaged either the speaker or the circuit because even at low volume certain bass frequencies break up to an unlistenable degree.
So, the lesson here - use it for a solo practise amp and never turn it up beyond 1/2 way and you'll be happy. I am offering my rating based on that scenario.

Because of the above mentioned problem which has yet to be resolved, I think the reliability is of some concern. But all the knobs feel sturdy and the jack is good and tight. It would have been better if the knobs sat just a little below the recessed edge of the top - as it is, they are just a hair above which leaves them susceptible to damage - but not bad at all.

Use it as a solo pracise amp and it's a 10 and I highly recommend. If you are looking for it to be a bit more multi-purpose to bring to a friend's house to jam (even if just a guitar duo or quiet practise) and it's the wrong amp.

Seems pretty good for the price/size.....effects all sound pretty good.

Sounds good enough for practice....maybe even try recording with it....

Only had couple of days

Haven't needed them

Been playing for a while and I was just looking for a little practice amp that I can take with me wherever I go...vacation, hanging out, top of a mountain etc..something that didn't need to be plugged in or need to carry around stomp boxes or floor processor. I think that this isn't a bad little amp for what i want it to do. Its small enough (i think) to take on your carry on when flying too...the only real complaint that I have about it is that I wish the power button was on the top of it and not the back....come to think of it all of the controls/aux input should be on the top....oh yeah, the "micro cube" sticker on the front grill looks cheap, stupid and detracts from the amp....I peeled it off....I suggest you do the same!

My little pignose went "toast" .. I went to replace it and the shop that once carried Pig has discontinued in favor of the Micro-Cube. The musician below does have a valid point about the Pignose by comparison but I did have good luck with the pignose miking it for gigs, it suited nicely what my deal is which is early electric.. from earliest Muddy up and including Early B.B. King, but with that said, this amp reminds me of a fool size amp that got shrunk leaving a fairly big and rich sound. Surprising rich tone or hollow distortion which is what I enjoyed about the pig but this takes sonics to a new level, but also gives the pig sound. (smallest)
If I was manufacturing this amp I would have put a handle of some sort or scoops on the side, but they have a shoulder strap which attaches on either side of the amp. has a rather generic ac/dc (9v) adapter but at least it comes with the cube. I use an acid battery from Rack Shack (12v) with 12-9 adapter (a quality adapter) wish these companies would just up the voltage to 12 volts so a pure 12 volt source could be used.. maybe I'm ignorant to the magic of 9 volts being the standard on most of these small amps but I don't know that there is any benifit. The power source is a big deal. The speaker moves around alot of air, I can feel it pushing through the switch cut outs.. Thats not a complaint just a fact, speaker moves a lot of air, and I would say in a fair quick manner which is good for tone which this has. Also the "amp modeling" reminds me of the Danelectro Daddy O' which also isn't bad but thats what it reminds me of. The effects are decent, for what I do, only the reverb and or some tremolo.. AND they are on 2 seperate controls, you can actually blend.. pretty handy.. the tuning tone is well thought out giving one the option of tuning on the money or flat/sharp, simple idea but for someone like me that plays in open tunings its a nice touch.

Great sounding little amp that sounds or can sound bigger than it looks. The cavity and speaker design must have been formulated.. It is no overstatement as others below have pointed out that this cube is a gooding sounding amp, even has bounce and swirl, its no tube amp, but I have have and still have many and this can nail an old relic with a tube rectifier and it almost sounds like it gets some sag. Reverb surprised me right away and the tremelo is not too far off from an old fender.. kinda. Very usable however mixed with a smidgen of reverb, I have to admit it is a big little bang for the buck. The distortion has wide variety from one end to the other. But make no mistake, this is a little amp, a cheap amp, but well made, well thought out and each guitar I own (many) actually sound like a different guitar with the personality I'm use to with a high end amp. Noise is according to pick-ups and surroundings but with no 1/4 inch stuck in it, its very quiet at volume.

Well made .. not thrill with adapter that comes with it but I don't use, and it could be I'm being petty. Its a great box, doesn't look or feel like a toy, which includes controlls.

Glad I got this amp instaed of pig but I'm also glad you can dial in the pig sound which I always found great for some things not so great for others, this amps covers all guitars of mine and material as well as a dobro with pup. Its about the size of a heavy duty car battery but weight is not an issue. Check it out, its one little package you'll be glad to show off..

The features on this amp are easily found in this forum as well as the Roland site.

First off I want to say that this is simply the best portable guitar amp in the world. Pignose was the standard but the Micro Cube makes the Pignose into a novelty item in comparison.

Features that could improve this already impressive amp would in some cases make it a different product with a different price point but so what?manufactures are always looking for more shelf space and why could there not be a Micro Cube ?Deluxe?

Here it goes:

2 channels with each channel containing ANY of the sounds that are already present in the one channel version. Foot switch able.

Built in MP3 player with a USB port to input practice/play along songs. Controls (Volume, song selection) would be right on the top with the rest of the controls.

A ?TAP? feature that many delay?s have which allows you to set the delay time to the beat of the song.

An upgraded tuner that shows the note and left and right arrows.

Change the power switch so that it is on the top and not so easily turned off nor so hard to find.

As the features for this ?First edition? Micro Cube does have nice features I would give it a 10 already. I just hope Roland can see that this amp has a lot a room to grow.

One feature that really is nice is that it is powered by 6 AA batteries. This amp does NOT eat the batteries. Put some Alkaline in it and they will last like the Eveready Bunny. If I played good enough I would set this amp up on the street and make some money.

This amp sound very good. Since I am not a professional player I really do not need a large amp. I used to think (and rightly so) that you needed a 10-20-30 watt amp to get a nice sound. This amp makes that a thing of the past. This amp is a tone monster and considering how small the speaker is this is a killer amp.

I use all of the amp models since they are all very good. I have never owned any of these amps so I do not know if they sound like the models that they are supposed to sound like?but they all sound fantastic.

I use the delay and Reverb only (set and forget) and have left the modulation stuff alone since I am a recovering knob-turner who needs to keep his hands on the guitar more.

The only sound that this amp will have a hard time with is low notes from a high volume humbucker. It does low notes pretty well at low volumes but understandably cannot do what an 8-10-12 inch speaker can do.

It looks to be constructed in a way that will stand up to use and some abuse. The inside circuitry looks clean and all loose wires are secured from bouncing around.

I have never contacted Roland for customer service so I do not know if it will be good or bad. I would think it is good but now-a-days there are big name companies that provide service that makes me wonder how they are still in business.

The best technical support is to build a good and reliable product and this amp appears to be just that.

I mostly play my Fender American made Telecaster installed with Fender Texas Tone custom Shop pickups and a 4-way pickup selector. I also play my Gretch Korean made Les Paul copy with Seymour Duncan JB/bridge and Jazz/neck wired for coil tapping and paralleling. I have been playing Blues and Rock off and on now for 30 years as a hobby.

If this amp were ever lost to theft or destruction I would get another as soon as I could (we are talking hours). If Roland went out of business I would grab up a couple of extras ASAP.

Try this amp out if you are looking for a really nice tone both for clean and distored and you want it to be at a low volume and/or portable.

2005, I needed an amp to practice at home without annoying the neighbours. I play blues, learning jazz and blues based rock.

Has just the right amount of power for it's purpose.

Play Les Paul Classic, Clapton Strat, Tele. Suits the style great. I have to say I was amazed when i turned it on and plugged it in. Much more depth than I expected and fills a small roome to a nice level for home practice. The variety is good, only use one or two of the amp models, but they do it for me! Fantastice!

I expect so!

Never used it. 12 month warranty.

Been playing a while, have a fender blues junior and marshall 30dfx, this is the defacto for home practice unless I know my neighbours are away!

Love the quality of tone for such a small unit. Go out and buy one, it is money well spent! Just cannot criticise for size and cost.

This is a new 2005 amp. Very versatile. I play blues, rock and whatever fits my fancy at the moment. I wish it had two channels but for the money...what the hell. You can read the features in the other reviews. I can't believe the power this little unit has.

I was looking for small amp I could bring to work and practice with. (I work nights and this isn't a problem) It's a great job. I found good reviews on this site and Harmony's forums. The price was right at $125. delivered from Zzound. Everyone here at work and anyone I've shown it too wants one.

I have a American Standard Tele, A mini Strat (Squire), Stellar Mercury 004 (with lots of work done to it) and a couple others I have tried with this amp.

It can be a bit to set up with the archtop hollow body but it truly sounds great with all the guitars. The clean channel sounds excellent with the Tele and the little Strat. a little muddy (maybe not the word I'm looking for) with the archtop. I'm still experimenting with settings but most of the time I'm running the guitar volume full bore and adjusting the volume on the amp.

Distortion is great with all the guitars.

Can't really say on reliability, only had it a couple weeks.

Don't know

Overall I think it's one of my best buys. I've been playing a long time. If lost or stolen, I'd get another. I love it's size, It's sound, the fact that it will run on batteries. There's nothing to hate. I compared it to Pignose. They aren't in the same ball park. 2 channels would be nice.

Do you know what year the amp was made in?
2005

Is the amp versatile enough for you and the styles of music you play?
It's Just awesome for what it is! Sweeeet!

What are those styles?
Blues and Old Rock

How many channels? Does it have channel switching? Effects loops?
One Channel no waiting!

Headphone jack?
Yes a HeadPhone Jack/Lineout Combo

What features do you wish it had? Why? Are there features you never use?
A better Chorus (IMO) and power button on top would be nice.

Where do you use this amp? Does it have enough power for you?
In Home use mainly to jam with CD backings and halfway up is more then enough power. Some outside porch playing is fun now too!

Feel free to enter any other features (stereo, tube or solid state, etc.).
Battery power.. nice feature for taking it along anywhere, built like a tank the size of a battery. Sweeeet!

I bought this little gem a month or so ago from Musiciansfriend.com and have not passed a day yet of playing through it. It just sounds Sweeeeet! The Reverb and delay I use but the Chorus I do not, it has a bit to much depth for me personally. I really like the sound of the black face and the JC, the acoustic is workable and the rest are there for some purpose I have yet to decide on.. I like old rock and blues so this might be the reason. The other features are nice effects/toys..but I do not use them. I play Fenders and numerous copy's of LP's through it and they all sound good. Even the OE-30 I bought sounds lush comming through it. I run a bad monkey(check this out awesome tube like overdrive for around 40 bucks) and old DOD Ice Box Chorus (Under rated Chorus IMO) through it and the sounds through a headset just sound awesome for such a little amp. Through the speaker it has a very good sound, which compares to anything in it's size out there IMHO. Loud enough? you bet it is! In a home cranked halfway up, just jamming with a CD will be all the volume you will ever need . The design is excellent and well thought out. Think of a car battery and you have the size right and the strength it seems to have. All controls are on the top back side making it easy to point it at your audience and jam away..Although the power button is located on the back and can get cumbersome at times trying to locate it without looking. The AC cord is usually plugged in for mine but I have tried the battery option and jammed all nite. Either way this amp is pretty quiet till your past the 5 mark on gain and volume at which point some noise does come through but just slightly. The Line out to record to computer/4 track etc is not the best there is.. loses something which I can't figure out yet..Mic'ed is fine though so no biggie to me as I already had that setup. You could not go wrong getting this as a first or extra amp.. Roland is making an excellent product here that should last a lifetime. Its just plain Sweeeeeet!

Can you depend on it? Would you use it on a gig without a backup?
It's not for gigging (well, maybe mic'ed or run it through something with more power) but I would depend on it.. it's very solid!

Has the amp ever broken down? Because of neglect of regular servicing (as in tubes), or just plain neglect?

Only a few months old.. to new to tell, but it's a Roland!

If you've dealt with the company, how helpful/friendly were they?

Have not dealt with them.. NO Opinion.

How long have you been playing? What other gear do you own?
I been playing on and off for 30 plus years. Hobby not pro.. many fenders and LP copies.. a 335 copy etc etc

If it were stolen or lost, would you buy it again or get something else?
I would replace this in a minute.

what do you love about it? What do you hate?
Size and weight with the battery backup is a major plus. Only thing I hate about it, was not getting one sooner.

Did you compare it to other products? Which ones? Why did you choose this one?
Compared to pocket rockets etc.. this is small enough for me and has the option of not using headphones.

Anything you wish it had?
Would like to add... GET one if your thinking portable or if you want a great amp with features for house jaming..it's all there in one nice Sweeeeeet little box
Anything else you'd like to share?

I bought a Roland Microcube a while ago and I am crazy about it.
I intended to use it for traveling and stuff, but it has become one of my best liked practice amps. And it's portable too!

Guess what? I even started a yohoo user group about this little devil, check: http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/Roland_Microcube/

Suitable for all styles: from jazz, blues to metal. Tanx to the COSM modeling you can choose your sound. I play one week only bluesy stuff, but maybe the next week I will only rip metal riffs. With this little devil, that's no problem!
Keep in mind that it is a 5 inch speaker, so you want gig in a stadium with it.

It's a BOSS!

No problem encountered.

Fine fine fine!
For versatile bedroom rockers like me, it is a excellent product. For the money (109 euro) it is worth every cent. It has really surprised me. 10+

Features are pretty well covered ..losts of bang for the buck.
You can pretty much nail any sound with this little guy
Mostly used for practice, need to dig out my multi track and try it for recording ;should be cool.
Speaker out would be nice, if a Smokey can drive a cab this sure could.

The sounds are VERY authentic, sounds best thru phones, bass notes are a bit farty on the clean models. Effects are limited by single knobs, but usable.

Seems well made, could be used as pre amp to gig thru the PA

Good web site, picked up the manual there.

Cool concept, very usefull, nice intro to modeling; a bit better speaker would help , but hey, it's cheep and cheerful.