Roland cube 30 or 60? need help!

[vejiita]

i know there are a few roland cube 30/60 owners.

i need a good.. lightweight amp to play with at home and for some
gigs. how are cube amps for that john petrucci tone? and can you switch
between clean and distorted with a footswitch?

thanx in advance

[felipe82]

The 60 has a lot of power (it's very loud). I'm not a very big fan of the distortions (they sound kinda muddy) but they're still quite usable. The clean channel is great (JC clean emulation).

The effects are pretty much useless, except maybe for the reverb. Nevertheless, it's only U$300.

You can plug up to three footswitches in it, one for clean/distorted, other one for FX's on/off (chorus OR flanger OR tremolo OR phaser) and the last one is for reverb OR delay on/off. It has to be a Boss FS-5U switch tough, and they're not included.

I highly recommend you to go to a store and try one, maybe you can get a good sound out of it, and again, for 300 bucks it's worth a shot.

[Roland]

Don't know what the prices over there are, but I'd say a 30. If you're me, living in an apartment where you can't always play as loud and often as you want, 60 is an excessive overkill. With the 30, you get all you need, with a "great bang for your buck"-ratio.

[hexa-db]

I bought a Cube 30 with the idea of keeping it downstairs (ie - out of my little studio) to mess around with quietly. I decided on it because I wanted something I could play quietly and get reasonable sounds out of and maybe get some different tones from my Pod when recording. I also wanted to be able to play with just guitar & amp - without having to power up my pod, mixer, power amp etc (which invariably leads to the PC switching on and me getting distracted..)

In the end I found that it was too loud for what I wanted! If I lower the gain it's fine but with the gain turned up the volume jumps from inaudible to 'a-bit-too-loud'. Although I do like playing very quietly (just loud enough to be heard over the sound of the guitar strings). I also found that it's not great for recording because the sound from the line/headphone out isn't too good (I think there's another thread here about it)

It can make some nice sounds but I'm not too keen on the Roland high gain metal type sounds. The Acoustic setting doesn't really sound much like an acoustic but it is quite a nice sound for clean strumming.

I'd definitely try them out though. I tried the Cube 15 and Cube 30 in the store and the 15 sounded too thin and small (but looking back probably would have suited me better).

[Edit]
Also - I think the 30 has a footswitch input with a stereo jack plug, one part controlling the FX on/off and one to switch between clean & distortion channels. It does work with a standard footswitch with a mono lead but only for one function (can't remember which). If you want me to check, drop me a PM.

[VanWyck]

Cube 15 and 30 owner here. I've used the 30 jamming with another guitarist who was using a POD XT Pro. He was envious of some of the tones. I use the classic, clean and brit combo settings, occasionally the high gain. I'm not too crazy about the high gain, but people that I've played for have given good feedback. The efx are good (IMHO - better than mentioned above), but there is (very) limited control over the parameters. You may need a cube 60 if you need to play louder than a drummer. There is a footswitch available to toggle between clean (jc120) and the other amp sims.

[nott^^]

Roland 15 owner and 30 user here. The distortion channel is pretty muddy, and it really doesn't have much gain. The fx... are pretty much useless, unless you want to play with chorus throughout all the song :P (just a minor example). They're excellent bang for the buck products, imho. Just that.

[Azrael]

Distortion muddy....agreed
But not much gain? WTF? No problem on the metal or rectified amp.

[Rab]

I always been a peavy and a marshall user and never heard of the cube series before until one day i was at steve's music store and i heard a guy playing on the Cube60 with R-fier modulation. It blew me away the clarity and almost accurate R-fier emulation.
So you guest it right, i went and i bought one.
The 60 is one hell of a loud and powerful amp. 65 watt of pure muscle in a small enclosed box. a bomb....put it only on volume 2 and you'll found out.
Very versatile amp with the onboard effects that i found useful enough and not to mention the 7 amp emulation including the stunning acoustic emulation.I loved the emulation so much that also bought the BOSS GS10 multy effect, usb to pc interface machine.
Cabinet out, 2 footswitch out, recording out and a tuner out.
to tell you the truth im hooked to that small little devil that smokes all the line6 combo amps out there with his accurate amp and preamp emulations.

To go back to your original Q, buying a 60 if you are gigging in a club or practicing with a live band. warning: amp is hellishly loud.
cube 30 will be great for home or an appt practice, not as loud...

note: Roland and Boss came a long way at amp emulation. They didn't nailed it yet but on the right course..to damn close.

You can hear the Boss gs10 emulation and effects which is the same as the cube60 on my Demo Album RISE that is entirely done in my home studio on my JEM7DBK, Prestige 1570 with evo pickups, Boss GS10, Boss DR880 drum machine and Cakewalk recording software http://www.soundclick.com/pro/view/0...=main&songid=0

Enjoy and i hope you like my small review of the amp. I should get paid by BOSS and ROLAND. lol

Regards

[Progdude]

I use the 60 and I love it! Great practice amp or even better to gig with! I dont think the dirt is that muddy, just keep the bass low. But I really like it. Its the best SS amp IMO!