Roland Cube Lite

The Roland Cube Lite is a small 10 watt stereo practice amp designed to fit almost anywhere.

It is made to look like a home stereo speaker to compliment your living room. The connections and knobs are all hidden near the back of the amp so that you can put this on a bookshelf or entertainment system without anyone noticing that you have a guitar amp sitting there.

The casing is plastic and there is a soft mesh screen over the speakers. Everything on the amp itself is well-built and comfortable. The knobs are nice and weighted and allow you to control Drive, Volume, Bass, Treble, Chorus, and Reverb.

The power source is a "wall wart" of sorts. It takes up a bit of space but gets the job done.

UTILIZATION

In use, the Cube Lite is a dream.

The knobs feel wonderful in your hands when you turn them. This is something that impressed me about the amp because most small practice amps have weak and loose knobs. These feel like you are dialing in a sound on a professional amp or analog synthesizer!

There is one 1/4 inch input for your guitar, a special 1/8 inch input for an iPod, and an 1/8 inch output for headphones. The iPod connection is interesting because it allows your amp to communicate (to an extent, it sends and receives a stereo and microphone signal)with an app called "Roland Cube Jam." With this you can slow down audio files and play them back through your amp to help you learn. It also allows you to use the speaker for normal audio playback on your portable music device. The cable for this connection is included with the Cube Lite, though mine broke after some moderate abuse.


SOUNDS

I use mine with a Godin Multiac guitar and the results are fantastic.

The amp is equipped with 3 COSM (Composite object sound modelling) modes that you can cycle through at the click of a button. Which you are using is indicated by a led light above the button. These modes are JC Clean, Crunch, and Extreme.

These sound much like the name implies. Clean, Crunch, and Heavy Distortion. They are all super impressive considering the tiny amp. They sound so good I have used them in many recordings in favor of my more expensive guitar rigs. You CAN'T get a better sound from another practice amp, I promise. The sound is perhaps the greatest feature.

The loudness perception offered by this amp is equally impressive. As long as you aren't playing with a drummer or guitarist with a half-stack amp, you should have no problems hearing yourself. It's more than enough for practice in your living room.

OVERALL OPINION

This is a perfect practice amp. You get a fantastic sound for the price.

I purchased it for use in music lessons I teach in a small studio and it never made it to a lesson- I loved it so much I kept it at home.

I do wish there was a better way to output the sound to my audio interface such as 1/4 inch stereo outputs, but Roland never marketed it to do this so I can't really complain.

The unit is small, light, and powerful. If something happened to mine I would replace it with another Cube Lite right away.

10 W transistor. See sellers descriptions for details (!)

UTILIZATION

Very easy to use. I do not have an iphone so not tested the associated options.

SOUNDS

The sound quality is pretty good for the size of the device, with still low somewhat limited. The volume is more than enough to play with other guitarists in a room. I am very surprised by the quality of the crunch by increasing the gain on the jazz chorus. Really neat, well-defined, rather warm. This possibility does not exist on other cubes Roland so great initiative. The intermediate overdrive is rather less interesting (in my opinion, but suddenly it does not matter thanks to JC crunch channel), and the extreme is very good. The headphone output allows you to send the sound to a console or another amp, with a good record. The chorus is excellent (very good sound projection), to a point where the fact of not being able to combine with the reverb (also good) is not really a problem.

OVERALL OPINION

Lightweight, easy to put in his suitcase. Against by not designed to operate with batteries, damage to mobile use. It also lacks a small tuner function.

Additional info: I plugged my lamp booster Vox flat 4 between my guitar and the cube lite. Well, it is excellent, you can get a made it even better: gain volume (without saturating), low gain, gain sound terrain. So the cube lite very tolerant treatment of its upstream and in particular that of the flat 4! So I ride my overall rating to excellent. It even opens up prospects for more than two oxen, with cube lite + booster that fit in a small backpack.