-
Hmm... Now you got me all worried. I will need to ask this:
Has anyone here actually used the Cube 40 in a band situation?
Hope to get a reply here otherwise I will create a new thread..
-
03-07-2012 08:19 PM
-
Don't you worry Aniss, it will probably be enough but there are so many factors that matter in that department. Amp placemente is one of them, putting the amp in a chair helps a lot on that (I even like tilting them more). The size of the cabinet can matter even more than the power, I notice that with the jazzmaster ultralight, it has lots of power but that cabinet is very small. I also like to use a booster, that helps a lot with PAFs.
Unfortonately I do play a lot in sextet / septet situations where there's no PA or monitors and your amp has to do all the job. I know a Cube 80 can do it, I guess a 40 colud do it specially with some boost before the amp. It's not easy to keep up with drums and horns in those situations. But it's aleays hard to achieve good balance and dynamics in these situations, I wish I always played with a PA and monitors and had a roadie to carrie a Twin
-
Just a followup: Bought the generic foot switch / sustain pedel. It works fine with the looper. No probs at all. And it cost me only like 11 bucks. That means you guys in the states can get them for 4-5 bucks. So no need to invest in an overpriced Roland/Boss switch
Thanks for calming me down there. The thing is I am currently looking for people to play with and it seems the 1st thing everybody ask is "tienes equipo?". Well it's a poor country and most folks don't have a proper amp which off course is a problem when playing with others. So here having an amp is apparently more important than being able to play hehe
Originally Posted by jorgemg1984
Last edited by aniss1001; 03-08-2012 at 06:49 PM.
-
i played even a big hotel-diner with 400 guests and we had 2 sax-player one horn player, drummer, bass-player, piano/keys, a singer and me. and i was just playing with the cube 30x, so i wouldn' worry.
-
Indeed, somebody just gave me a Roland cube 60 and I used it on a gig last night, it held up nicely in a quartet setting. The volume was less than half way up. Originally Posted by jorgemg1984
-
Aniss has got a cube 40 .......... Originally Posted by hans halmackenreuter
I'd also love to know if a 40 can give enough clean volume .......
(i know the old 60 and new 80 cubes are loud enough but I want a smaller
amp ......... cheap)
Anyone else gigged with a 40 ?
-
Originally Posted by aniss1001
Ok! Got the answers to my questions elsewhere. Just sharing them in case someone else is interested..
1) You can use any generic sustain pedal / momentary switch to control the looper. As long as the polarity matches.
2) It is NOT possible to get sound via the Cube speaker and the headphone jack at the same time. This requieres modding the amp. It should be a fairly easy mod though. The instructions would be these (see pic also):
"You need to jump these pins 3.7 and 2.6 from that "Jalco" jack. I would do it with an external switch and an in-line volume control. That way you would have the option to use it or not and control its volume."
I would be happy just with the switch
Hello I want to try this, do you think it will damage the amp?
-
I gigged with my 40XL last night at a reunion gig with my old band. Started off with a load of standards and then played some of our old material which is breakbeat influenced jazz. The line up was double bass, piano, sax, guitar and vocals. Its had to really be cranked.---but it held its own.
-
I don't own it, but a guy told me "switch doctor," makes a switch that will cover ALL the functions for a 40xl.
-
Oh, they are $129.00, includes all cables.
-
Just brought this puppy home. Nothing to add here that hasn't been said a million times about these amps (which is why I bought it)- loving the JC channel paired with my CV Tele, about the most affordable 'respectable' jazz setup you can get!
-
Indeed. Love my 80x.
-
Congrats, Alex! Happy NAD. May you get many years of enjoyment from it.
Love my 80XL, too. Traded my Cube 30 for it (plus some cash) a couple of months ago, and I haven't been playing much of anything but ever since. Not necessarily my Number One amp yet (with my others looking on jealously), but still, the Cube is just so right in areas that matter. I always and only play thru the JC Clean channel and simply think of it as a one channel amp. Ha! Seriously happy with the Cube.
-
I agree Alex, and congrats. I've had an 80XL for about 2 years. I play it very often when practicing using the clean JC channel almost exclusively with a hint of reverb and delay most of the time to give a little space. I love it it for jazz. I've only played out with it once, and it performed very well in a gym with a keyboard player and a trumpet. But I mostly play in a small room in my house. I love the tones and will occasionally use the modeling options for fun, and I like them, too. I bought the footswitch and will often employ the looper which I find very useful.
Like Barry, I also have an Express 5:50, and I am blown away by the tones, the textures, and the brightness of that amp and what tubes do for some of the things I like to play. But I don't need all of that for most of the stuff I do. The Cube is more than adequate for that.Last edited by zigzag; 09-22-2013 at 08:22 AM.
-
Yup! The JC Clean most of the time with a touch of reverb and a slight hint of delay. I also play around with the Fender models for a little variety. Originally Posted by zigzag
Yup #2! I found yesterday that I can approximate the Clean setting on Channel 1 with the Contour off with the power at 5w (all knobs set at 10-11 with reverb at 9) with the Channel 2 Blues setting with the power at 50w. So I am able to get the tone I love at bedroom levels MUCH louder if need be. Originally Posted by zigzag
-
So now I'm GASing for the 80-watter...jeez, shouldn't a new amp buy me at least one day of GAS-immunity? Still haven't quite dialed in a tone I'm completely happy with- new to jazz and not used to having to fiddle with my guitars tone and volume controls! A little too much pick attack comes through if I turn the mids up, but it gets a little muddy if I don't. Still looking for that bell-like, vibraphone-ish sound I'm hearing in my head (and have heard from others with a similar setup). Also unsure about whether or not to get the expression pedal later. I'm probably going to be sticking with the JC channel exclusively, and if I'm only using the pedal to control the looper, I could buy a loop pedal for the same price.
-
Man, there can't be that much difference between the two! The Cube is a great amp at any wattage.
-
The 12" really does help round out the tone in the 80w models.
-
Mostly kidding about the 80-watter, though a contour knob might be nice. Something funny is going on with my Cube though, which might warrant a new thread or a visit to a tech-oriented site. Thought I'd ask here first though. Basically, I'm getting some weird fizzy sounds. Not your typical amp hum, more like a bad version of the decay on the spring reverb channel, or an 'ocean waves' sound on a white noise machine. Really artificial-sounding, like it's a digital-something-or-other gone wrong as opposed to a grounding issue or loose connection. This only happens when I'm playing, or even when I lightly pat the strings. The noise comes through at the same volume whether I'm doing this or strumming loudly. Dead silent when I'm not playing. Seems independent of my EQ and effects settings, though I haven't checked on whether it affects the non-JC channels (don't use them). Roland has a PDF on these sorts of problems that basically boils down to 'don't plug in by your TV, use a surge protector (why didn't they put a ground wire in this thing?), and, failing that, take it to a tech'. Anyone have advice or experience with this?
-
Interesting thread, as I was going to post about the two 40xls that I had just recently bought and returned. I wanted to try out a 40xl at my local GC store, but they had no Roland cubes of any kind, so I took the plunge and ordered one used online from them, pristine condition with the sticker still on the grill.
Against my better judgement, I was really hoping 40 watts might have the power to use in big band and a small combo group...I really need a light amp as I'm getting old and feeble, but still leave the house 2 or 3 times every week to play.
The first amp was making some buzzy noises while I played, that reminded me of the snares on the bottom of a snare drum that vibrate when a snare is exposed to sympathetic vibrations...this sound seemed to be coming faintly from the speaker while I played clean. At idle the amp was dead quiet. I thought the voice coil on the speaker was damaged, so I returned it for a refund and ordered another one in pristine condition.....
The second amp sounded exactly like the first, so I realized it was the nature of the amp to make this sound. I was going to give it my best shot at trying to see what I could do to make it work for me and tweak things until they cleaned up, as these Roland cubes have such a great reputation.
As it turned out, the amp on JC clean was not loud enough to use with the big band. I really wanted to love this amp, but the more I tweaked it for clean sounds, the more I realized that the amp had a noise gate or limiter that you could hear engaging and disengaging when you started and stopped playing. I don't need a noise gate for jazz, and Roland really should mention that it is part of the amp circuitry, but they don't. You have no control over the threshold or being able to turn it on or off.
In the end, the coloration from the buzzy/fizzy noise was totally unacceptable for stage use, so I returned the second amp also. I can only assume that the 80xl is the same, as they are the same line of amps. I am more than disappointed, but have come to accept that this amp is really designed and marketed to metalhead guitarists.
-
Even though I have noticed this fizz problem in the note decay that you describe in my 80XL in the past, I just recently tried to reproduce it in every model, including JC Clean, cranked and volume at 10 o'clock, and with every effect- separately and all at once. Couldn't do it, clean as a whistle, quiet as a mouse.
Last edited by zigzag; 09-24-2013 at 09:50 PM.
-
I was using those two 40xls in real playing situations over the course of 3 weeks, not the living room. The buzzy snare sound was evident to all of the dozen or more musicians I play with weekly, and they admitted it was annoying. It was most pronounced when the volume of the amp was set for the loudest level I would need, but when I had to roll the guitar volume back for a quieter tune, the noise was terribly noticeable. I made sure I was using properly grounded power that was free of RF interference in all locations I used it.
I did a lot of online research and found it was a somewhat common problem for folks using it for clean guitar sounds. I was surprised, since Cubes gets so many raves for jazz....even though I have noticed that they are seldom used by performing jazz guitarists in groups of all skill levels in youtube videos.
Furthermore, online testimony from users who contacted Roland about the problem always get the same response about no amp is totally quiet and the environment is the main source of amp noise. Nobody has been able to get a tech to cure it. One tech blames it on the fact that the power amp section of the amp is always running at 100% gain, and the volume control is in the preamp...I thought that's how all amps worked...maybe not...Last edited by cosmic gumbo; 09-24-2013 at 07:28 PM.
-
I wonder if they've solved the problem with the new 40GX?
-
Maybe it's an XL thing. Never noticed it with the X. The only thing I've noticed with the X is with higher gain you can hear what sounds like a noise gate closing. Staying on the JC Clean, I've never had that issue.
Reply With Quote
A Quilter Superblock US in Canada
Today, 01:08 PM in For Sale