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A gave myself a challenge this morning. I tried to get a good clean jazz tone from this toy. I was surprised at how close I came, although it was still a little boxy through it's own speakers, the sound through headphones was excellent.
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04-06-2022 08:34 PM
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Roland Microcube for the win.
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Hilarous. I wonder if the insides of these little toy amps differ between brands. That's a Marshall, but mine is Fender made in Korea, and I am thinking it's just a difference case. I opened mine up, and is a full on decent circuit in there, with an opamp preamp, and a power chip to drive the speakers. Mine has 2 speakers, just like a Fender Twin
Originally Posted by Jabberwocky
btw. at low volumes, and close miked, yes you can lose the boxiness, and through headphones, mine sounded really nice, like in that video.
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I used to play a little Roland Cube 30 in a small band. Very nice little amp it was. I am looking closely the micro cube, so thanks for the suggestion. Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
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Portable power supplies that will run an amp for several hours exist. You charge them up in advance and then run your amp from them. Somewhere around $150 and 6lbs. There's a thread on this forum where people recommended specific models.
If I were faced with the problem of needing to play on battery, I'd consider using my Little Jazz and buying one of these power supplies. Ordinary plug, plugs right in. Can't exceed the wattage, but you can buy one that has enough power. Total weight, 21 lbs or so. Two things to carry, but, on the other hand, the power supply may be useful in other ways.
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Any Class D amp and a power station. Don't settle for a cheapo battery amp. Use your regular amp with a lithium-ion power station. A Class D amp will run for hours on one, as you charge your cell phone and power your pedals while playing. My Beaudens weighs 4.6 lb and will power my Class D amps for much longer than I care to play. I bought it mostly for power when (not if, down here in Texas) the power dies. It was a good investment. The Little Jazz weighs 14.8 lb, so the total is under 20 pounds with cables and everything. And I can use the power supply for other things when I'm not playing. I would not recommend a battery powered amp. At all.
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I tried a lithium-ion power station, horrible hum even with humbuckers. Both inside and outside, I was using a Quilter micropro. I really wanted it to work but it didn't.
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Here's one I am looking closely at as well. I like the features, time to see if I like the sound. I will have to try it myself though because youtube videos never seem to try for a proper clean jazzy sound.
The Nux Mighty Lite BT Mighty Lite BT - NUX
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i use a little Roland thing which is similar but has a mic input, stereo chorus and a pretty good distortion tone (all of which of course are essential for background jazz gigs) Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
The clean tone isn’t bad at all but it sometimes gets a bit crunchy when you gun it; I like it as sound reinforcement for an archtop. It’s not bad for outdoors gigs.
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Agree—that thing sounds so good and is so loud I take it to practice with my band mates, with batteries—don’t even plug it in. (Everyone’s playing acoustic.) Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
I think you could probably gig with it, in a small club, but there are other choices for that.
Nice set of features too.
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To be clear, the Beaudens uses a lithium iron phosphate battery, not lithium ion. LiFePo4 batteries are used in electric vehicles, and seem to be superior in many ways to Li-ion batteries. The Beauden wasn't available when I put together my battery-cum-inverter system (also with a LiFePo4 battery) for powering my Bud outdoors. If I were doing it today, I would definitely buy the Beaudens. The price and weight is about the same as my cobbled-together system, and more practical. Originally Posted by sgosnell
And by the way, I have used my system to power both a Bud and a Lunchbox Jr. at the same time (I know, the Jr. has a dedicated battery, but since I had the inverter anyway, I used that), with no hum. An Eastman with a Lollar Charlie Christian was plugged into the Bud, as well as my vocal mic, and an Eastman PG2 with a floating Kent Armstrong) was plugged into the Jr.
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Interesting. I've not experienced anything like that through the one I've used. I guess some have better shielding around their inverters than others. Originally Posted by fep
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I get a buzz with mine when using a single coil pickup. With humbuckers, it is pretty acceptable. Originally Posted by fep
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I used mine once at a jam session that included a couple of other guitars, bass, and hand percussion. It couldn't keep up and I wound using another amp that was there. I've also used it to accompany un-mic'ed singers and acoustic guitar in small spaces, and it has been fine for that. So I'd say it's gigable, but only within pretty narrow parameters. Originally Posted by Doctor Jeff
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I recommend the Vox Mini5 Rhythm.
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Yeah, as loud as the Microcube is, I don't think it can hack any but the smallest gigs.
Works great at the park or front porch, though. Mine lives in my classroom now, so I can rock out during lunch.
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I’ve been using this one (Roland Mobile Cube). Nice clean sound, great battery life too. Works great with guitar, acoustic, and steel guitar (even sounds good with pedal steel). Came to my attention because several Hawaiian steel players use this for small combo work.
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Today's teachers are much cooler than in my day. Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
Back then teachers would go to the teacher lounge to smoke and read Time magazine. I can't think of any of my HS teachers "rocking out".
Our music teacher and band director was a big band fanatic. He only reluctantly agreed to have an electric guitar in the jazz band.
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I won't swear I'm right about the following:
DV Mark LJ has a notation on the cabinet that says 80 watts. I believe this refers to it's power draw, like an 80 watt lightbulb. The output power is 45 watts at 8 ohms, so I don't think the 80 watts refers to that. And, I didn't see anything suggesting that the LJ is a Class D amp, which, as I understand it, uses far less power.
So, using the LJ for an hour would seem to take 80 watt hours.
When you buy a battery based power supply, it comes with a watt-hour rating. Sometimes 150, but for a little more money, around 300. I didn't check past that.
If I understand this, which I might not, 150 watt-hour battery would run the LJ for not quite two hours.
But, maybe that's at full power? What does the LJ use when you're laying out? Same watt-hours, or less?
So, if you want, say, 3.5 hours, how big a power supply?
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ZT Lunchbox Junior with the battery pack. Or a Roland Micro Cube.
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Looking at Roland Micro Cube in local store web sites, I am getting out of stock, superceded, and backorder (maybe). Have Roland stopped making them?
Anyway, hope to try out a Nux today.
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The LJ needs 80W for full power, I expect, but Class D amps draw very little current while idling. I would think the 80W is the maximum it would ever draw, and usually far less. If the volume is only turned up halfway, it should never approach that. A tube amp, OTOH, draws a lot of power even with nothing plugged into it, and even with the standby switch off. All that does is cut power to the output transformer, everything else is powered normally. I think Class D is the way of the future, for many reasons.
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Apparently the Roland Microcube is no longer made. Also, I hear what people are saying about running bigger amps on batteries via an inverter etc, but I am after something tiny.
So I went and tried the little Nux.I got to sit in the back of a store and try it with a Epi 335 Dot plugged in.Stores are always noisy, but I found I could get a clean sound and it is very cheap, so I took a punt and bought it.
Getting nice sounds from it at home...
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The bane of the Parisian metro: "musicians" running from wagon to wagon hauling an amp or PA on one of those 2-wheeled chariots, powered what looked to be car battery/ies (and expecting to be paid for rendered hearing damage services Originally Posted by sgosnell
). I never got up close to look if they used inverters or battery-powered amps.
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