Roland MicroCube Combo

Like a Roland multi-pedal with a speaker

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

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

Roland are fine where I am (Toronto Canada).

Good value vs price does what I need it to.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Never dealt with em

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Just buy it.

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

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

So far, so good.

See previous.

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

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

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

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

Ain't had call to use them

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.