Roland Micro Bass Cube RX - Amp Review

[@snoopyjc]

I did a mod on mine - added a switch to either disable or enable the speakers when you plug into the output jack. Used it for a coffee house gig and ran the bass thru the PA and used this as a monitor.

[@MatthewQuilliamMusic]

That would be very interesting to achieve. Glad you can get full use out of it

[@martinheath5947]

If you have any tips on how this was achieved I'd love to know 🙏 Thanks

[@RockerProf]

Great review. So informative. I own one of these and really love it. I just got 1.5V rechargeable batteries for it- so no more buying batteries. I just charge them before I need the amp, and no worries about running out of juice. Did not know about the chromatic tuner option. Thanks for that and for the explanation in your comment.

[@martinheath5947]

Nice feature of this small amp is the compressor to make it "feel" like it's pumping with extra energy. If you turn it off there's still some compression going on. Great little piece of kit, it sits on top of another small combo amp as part of my small gig bass rig (also battery powered) using the other amp's line out to the P.A. mixer. A Zoom MS-60B pedal controls and splits my bass signal into both amps. Sounds great!

[@erichoward5433]

I’ve had mine since it was released in 2008.

[@BrianBirch-bz6ji]

Good review. Thanks. I've had one of these Roland Micro Bass Cube RXs for years and I stopped using it pretty soon after buying it new. I love all the effects and stuff and the FlipTop sound with the Compressor on is excellent. I think its trying to emulate an Ampeg Portaflex and does it really well. But... and its a BIG but... it distorts like crazy after its been on for 10 or 15 minutes making it unusable. Its interesting though because I seen and read reviews that say "don't buy this amp" and I've seen and read reviews that say its excellent. So what's going on?

[@MatthewQuilliamMusic]

Very strange to hear you got distortion after a few minutes. Seems like you may have sadly bought a bad example maybe? It seems to distort the louder you have the gain, but for normal practice a quieter level should suffice

[@MisterRlGHT]

Many jazz guitarists love this amp (tho nobody cares much for the drum modules).

[@kevindabramo1944]

I've been curious about this amp, so thanks for the thorough review. Just wondering if it would be possible to run a mic through the aux in and have mic and bass going simultaneously?

[@MatthewQuilliamMusic]

If you had the right cable/adaptor then it might be possible, but there’s no independent volume controls for the AUX so you would be relying on a weak balance of the two

[@kevindabramo1944]

I found a solution that seems to ok for using bass and a mic with this amp. I run my bass through a Sansamp preamp pedal then into the aux in. The mic then goes into the main input. It sounds decent enough if you don't push it too hard.

[@victotronics]

Another discontinued small bass amp: GK Backline 112. Bigger than your Roland but I play actual gigs with it. Pick it up used.

[@MatthewQuilliamMusic]

Thanks for the tip!

[@marcusjenkins]

I was kind of thinking about one, but then Roland stopped that kind of thing - they're probably making a lot more money on the guitar side with their Katana amps. For what it's worth I have a TC Electronic 2x8" combo which is great for portability but discontinued and also a small (very) TC electronic class D head with a very small Phil Jones speaker which works really well for the sound, but no effects (Zoom pedal?). But, yeah, all a lot more spendy and a bit bigger than what Roland used to make.

[@ohara4703]

While this amp is discontinued, they released the Dual Cube Bass LX with basically the same features under their Boss brand.

[@marcusjenkins]

@@ohara4703 Great, I didn't know that! But €315 in Thomann 😬. I know it's comparing apples and oranges a bit, but you can get a Hartke 12" + tweeter 75W combo for that and use the change to buy something like a Zoom pedal which has every bell and whistle you could think of. The Hartke doesn't run on batteries, but I am a total fanboy of Hartke HD 12" sound.

[@ohara4703]

@@marcusjenkins I agree, it's to expensive and a Zoom B1four for example is cheap and sounds great. I think the main selling point is that it runs on batteries.

[@althejazzman]

@marcusjenkins I have a TC Electronic 2x10 combo with the built in 750W class D amp. It's incredible. Such an even frequency response, and the built in tuner, compression, overdrive, parametric EQ, and presets are all I need. The only improvement I sometimes make is to run a bigger external cabinet for some low end extension.

[@jaex9617]

Matthew, I have one of these great little amps myself. I was unaware of the chromatic tuning feature and still don't know how it works. Can you explain? Thanks 🙏🏼

[@MatthewQuilliamMusic]

Apologies if I wasn’t clear. If you use the chromatic feature, the tuner will automatically click on to which string it is you are trying to tune. This is opposed to the other setting where you adjust the central dial to select the note. This is advantageous for unique special tunings or quite tuning but I usually use the non chromatic option for more precise tuning. You can toggle between the two by either pressing or press and holding on the tuner button. Hope that helps