When it comes to compact bass amplifiers, the Roland Cube-30 Bass is in a class all its own. This powerful and lightweight amp combines a 30-watt/10-inch 2-way speaker with DSP modeling to crank out a range of popular bass amp sounds. There's also onboard compression, 3-band EQ and digital effects-making the Cube-30 Bass an incredible value.
Featured review by:
lost_it_again, on june 27, 2005 3 of 3 people found this review helpful
Price paid: $ 366
Features: This amp features:
- 30 watts of power
- 3 band eq
- 7 amp models
- Chorus
- Flanger
- T-wah
- Delay
- Reverb
- Compressor
- 7 amp models
- Gain control
- Output jack for recording or headphones
- effects loop.
As you can see this amp is pretty well equiped. I find it difficult to get the sound I want with this, and I don't mean that in a bad way, every chanel and nob seems to present hundreds of possible combinations and every one sounds great, it's so hard to decide. I use this amp at home and for practice, it's got enough power to have my ears hurting and have the neighbours complaining, but at practice it cuts through a 100watt guitar amp quite easily and isn't drowned out by the drums. If you max the thing out at full volume it's good for small to medium sized gigs. // 10
Sound: I had to go out and buy this amp because my previous 15watt amp wasn't capable of handling the sound of my downtuned tanglewood five string with out over driving and turning to muddy sludge. This amp handles it pretty well, the onboard compressor helps aswell if the lows are too rumbly or the highs make you want to kill people then a touch of compression will sort it out, it's easy to go nuts with the thing and crank the compression up to ten so it sounds dull you just have to mess with it a bit untill it sounds right. As I said before the variety of tones that you can pull out of this thing are endless, if you get bored with the sound then one twist of a nob is all it takes to get something new and fresh sounding. One thing you need to watch with all the effects channels is because if you have them up too high it can make your playing sound all teched out and dubed, but then again some people like that. // 8
Reliability & Durability: I'd gig without a back up any day. In the course of a day it's been knocked over by mistake afew times and nothings loose so I guess it scores kind of high in that area. I can't realy imagine this thing breaking down, it just seems too solid to have any harm done to it. // 8
Impression: I play metalcore and a kind of low key death metal with my band, so I need something that allows the clicks that happen between the strings and the top fret to ring out so it can be heard over the roar of guitars in drop Cb, I also like to slap alot so I need something that will give a good slap tone that resonates nicely under without the lows becoming to sludgy when they ring out and turn harmonic, normal conditions it's ok for that but a quick twist of the mid way nob in the downward direction sorted that out so that it was perfect for my needs. In my spare time I play funk, it's perfect in the top end frequencies, sometimes it seems a bit to choppy though on high end slaps so this is where the compressor does it's thing. I couldn't have possibly imagined getting this good a deal for 200 quid, I played this thing and thought it was birlliant and then I was told the price and I had to ask the guy again cause I thought I was mishearing him (maybe because of this things volume) if it were lost there would be no other option for me than another one of these. // 10
Reviewed by:
unregistered, on july 06, 2005 3 of 3 people found this review helpful
Price paid: $ 301.95
Purchased from: Chamberlin Music
Features: The t-wah is good for when you want a funky sound or just pissing around. Flanger and chorus are good sometimes. I never really liked reverb but it does sound good on this amp and the delay is brilliant. The only thing that would make this amp better would be an overdrive effect. You can get an overdriven sound if you wack up the gain to full but it just isnt as good as a pedal. // 8
Sound: Excellent sound. A couple of my mates have Marshall 25 watt Mark 2 bass amps and while they sound good this amp is f--king phenomenal. It has a presence that the marshal amps lack. // 10
Reliability & Durability: Haven't had it long but it is built like a brick shithouse. I cannot imagine it going wrong for any reason other than it was from the top of the eiffel tower. And then it would probably still work. // 10
Impression: I don't think I could live without it now. If it were stolen I would hunt down the bastard and kill him slowly, or go and get a 100 watt Cube. // 10
Reviewed by:
mouldysandwich, on august 20, 2007 0 of 0 people found this review helpful
Price paid: $ 274.5
Purchased from: Music Matters Lisburn
Features: The Roland Cube-30 features a 30 watt solid state speaker, a 3 band equalizer, Recording/Headphone/External Speaker out, Auxiliary in and an Effects loop. The effects are Compression, Chorus/Flanger/T-Wah and Delay/Reverb. The Cube-30 has 7 amp models and a Shape button which emphasises the tone on each model allowing for large variations in the sound, and so large variations in the styles of music it can be used for. It can cover funk with warm, clear low and mid range sounds and anything to grunge with huge low end bass sound. This amp does not have any specific distortion settings, only having a gain knob which only allows limited distortion and doesn’t offer much variety in tone. This is quite a let down as you need a pedal to really get the sound you want. The other effects are good enough, but maybe not having the variety you would get from a pedal. // 9
Sound: I use this amp for practicing on my own and with mates with a cheapy Stagg bass with both P and J style pickups. Even with this bass it produces a good variety and quality of tone thanks to its different modes and equalizer. On it's own it produces all the sound quality I need, just fiddle with a few of the settings and you can make most sounds that you’d need. I can use it for all the styles I play (funk, rock, alternative) unless it requires distortion: as I mentioned before the lack of distortion modes means that you really need to use a pedal to get any sort decent tone. However when playing with friends and you have an acoustic drum kit and guitars playing at the same time the amp gets easily drowned out and you have to have to crank up the gain and volume up to hear it, leading to unwanted noise and feedback. This results in it being a lot harder to get the clean tones you want at high volume, I wouldn’t say it would be suitable for anything more than a small gig. // 7
Reliability & Durability: I have had no technical problems with this amp in 8 months and I don’t think I ever will, as I haven’t had any problems with Roland amps before. The only flaw I could possibly point out is that the wooden casing (plastic coated) is made of very weak wood (a cheap grade of MDF or something). In one situation the amp fell on my bass guitar and the amp ended worse off, with a large chunk taken out of wood. I’m not sure it would stand up to a lot of punishment getting knocked about, but I consider this quite a minor flaw. // 8
Impression: Overall I must say I am very fond of this amp. My decision to get it was based purely on reviews from UG and from liking my Roland guitar amp so much and I don’t really regret it. It doesn’t matter to me so much that it loses quality at high volumes as we have two 160 watt speakers I can use if I really need some volume. I often use it for my electric guitar as well so I get a lot of use out of it and I’m glad it doesn’t give me any problems. If I were to lose it, I would probably get the Cube-100 if I had the money. If not I would be happy enough to get this one again, it is good value for money and very easy to use. Great for practicing and learning. // 9
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