Roland Cube Street

jefcon1 · 12-01-2010, 09:34 AM

Anyone have experience with one of these? I'm giving it some thought mainly for acoustic finger-style in our small church. But the stereo inputs are intriguing because I could use it to monitor my mini-studio late night. The amp models wouldn't be bad either for practice. I also admit to loving stereo chorus.

Stratopastor · 12-02-2010, 12:16 AM

Jeff, lots of people love stereo chorus and still go on to lead happy and productive lives. I love it on my little Yamaha VA10 (discontinued, similar spec to the Cube Street I think; would do everything you said above; bargain if you can find one).

jefcon1 · 12-02-2010, 12:27 PM

My love for stereo chorus has led me to the depths, where I was offered an Cube Street new in the box for $160 and I bought it. I'm a weak man. It's in the trunk of my car waiting for me to get off work.

Stratopastor · 12-03-2010, 05:01 AM

Enjoy! and it doesn't matter if you're weak, cos they don't weigh very much.

jefcon1 · 12-03-2010, 10:03 AM

What a great little tool/toy. I spent a few hours with the amp last night, just with my fat-strat. Together, those two are the ultimate Swiss army knife of guitar sounds. I was most captivated my the JC Clean with some chorus and a little echo. The amp has great voicing to do a mini JC-120. Once I tried that model for a few songs I had to make myself check out the other amp models.

The Black Panel (Twin Reverb) did not sound like a Fender twin as much as other modelers I've heard (GP100), but it is still a great model. I thought it sounded like a very clean champ with more headroom. The Eq needs to be tweaked going from the other models to this one. I had to boost mids to get it satisfactory. I think Roland over shot the Twin's mid-scoop buy about 3 notches. I own a Twin so I'm probably more critical about this model than the rest.

The Brit Combo (AC30) is sweet. Nice smooth gain and crunch. It reacted well to all five pickup positions which is pretty impressive for a modeler.

Classic Stack (Marshall) is another win. Allmann Brother's to early Van Halen with lots of classic rock in between. I'm not kidding either. I had the tone rolled off on my neck pickup playing Jessica and was able to switch to the bridge and go into Ain't Talkin' Bout Love. So - if I ever need to do that again....

R-Stack (Boogie). I won't be using this one a lot. It had great high gain crunch from the bridge pickup. Considering the 5 watt amp and 6" speakers, it sounds pretty awesome. But it's not really my comfort zone. I would classify this as a strictly for practice model. When else would you need a 5 watt Pantera sound? ( I'll probably end up using it everyday.)

Acoustic Simulator (Boss AC3). Using the middle pickup it gave that thin bodied, rubbery piezo Ovation sound that I've never been very fond of. Why is this the sound that all acoustic simulators seem to go after? Oh yeah, because it's not a freaking acoustic! I found some joy with it doing some finger picking though. Adding chorus and reverb and tweeking the EQ did wonders for this model. I'm curious about plugging the piezo output of my Taylor into it, or would that be like Baked Alaska in a microwave?

The effects are very well executed, with a few exceptions. The extreme settings for each effect except the phaser are almost unusable. I think it was lame for Roland to give so little parameter control and then waste part of it with silliness. They could have done 4 well thought out push buttons like the Dimension C and it would have been fine. Extreme settings aside, the effects sound great. I am all over the chorus. It has a nice analog-like vibrato to it and the stereo spread is captivating. The Flanger and Phaser are also very nice, which I wasn't expecting. The phaser even gets a good leslie sound going at the extreme. The Tremolo, I had trouble finding a happy point with. It has great warmth, but the depth is just a little less subtle than I like.

I also plugged straight into the Mic/Line channel to get an idea of what the amp really sounds like. I was very happy with the sound and response. It's not a twin,but it's better than the clean channel of my old Marshall. Great headroom and only 5 watts. It should make a great clean slate for either my pedal board or my GP100 modeler. And in stereo!

I still need to try it with my acoustic, my GP100, BR600, vocals and on batteries. So far, it was definitely worth the price of admission.

**thesteve** · 12-03-2010, 10:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jefcon1

Acoustic Simulator (Boss AC3). Using the middle pickup it gave that thin bodied, rubbery piezo Ovation sound that I've never been very fond of. Why is this the sound that all acoustic simulators seem to go after? Oh yeah, because it's not a freaking acoustic! I found some joy with it doing some finger picking though. Adding chorus and reverb and tweeking the EQ did wonders for this model. I'm curious about plugging the piezo output of my Taylor into it, or would that be like Baked Alaska in a microwave?

My worship leader broke a string on his acoustic this past Sunday and decided to pull out his electric guitar. His sound with the electric straight into the system sounded more like an acoustic guitar than the sound of his guitar through the Boss AC-whatever pedal he had.

jefcon1 · 12-07-2010, 09:18 AM

I did our Christmas Carol service Sunday night with just the Cube Street and a strat with very good results. I set the amp on top of the bass player's amp and was able to keep up with the bass, keyboard and a singing congregation in a gymnasium sized room. I didn't have much headroom left so that was definitely pushing the limit for the 5 watter, but it worked and it didn't distort. I wish it had a true line out. I love the chorus. I love the chorus. I love the chorus.

I love the chorus.

Stratopastor · 12-08-2010, 06:40 AM

Jeff, a simple line-out is really easy to pick off the speaker output(s), with negligible cost - 2 or 3 resistors and a jack socket. That gives you whatever's-coming-out-of-the-speakers, at line level, with the speakers still sounding and the line-level varying with the amp's master volume. If that's all you need I'll do you a sketch (unless of course you can work it out for yourself... forgive me). And that's do-able as a mono line out, or stereo on two mono jacks, or stereo on a stereo jack... I've added one to my Yamaha - single mono jack with the sum of both stereo channels (stereo FX are wasted on my church's setup).

jefcon1 · 12-08-2010, 07:31 AM

Andrew, That sounds like a very doable way to go about it. I was thinking of putting in a switch from the headphone jack that would manually toggle the speakers on and off. Then use the headphone jack as the line out. I saw a blog (tdpri I think) where someone did this to a Cube RX. But my preference would be for a true line-out that was not controlled by the amp's master volume.

Stereo effects are, sadly, wasted in our church's setup too. I don't want to give up the option of the stereo line-out though. Mustn't ...give ....up....hope...

In the meantime I won't be making any mods to it while it's still under warranty. I could always use my Roland GP-100 as the preamp/modeler, monitor it on stage with the Cube (in stereo) and send a mono line-out from the GP-100 to the board. That is a lot of extra stuff to carry so I would much prefer the line-out from the Cube.

Stratopastor · 12-08-2010, 01:13 PM

fair enough.... I forgot it was new. I'd wait too.

bertoreyno · 05-23-2012, 01:01 PM

hI:

i WOULD LOVE TO HAVE A SCHEMATIC ON HOW TO GET A LINE OUT OF MY ROLAND STREET , IF YOU DONT MIND , THANKS!! GOD BLESS!!

ROB

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stratopastor

Jeff, a simple line-out is really easy to pick off the speaker output(s), with negligible cost - 2 or 3 resistors and a jack socket. That gives you whatever's-coming-out-of-the-speakers, at line level, with the speakers still sounding and the line-level varying with the amp's master volume. If that's all you need I'll do you a sketch (unless of course you can work it out for yourself... forgive me). And that's do-able as a mono line out, or stereo on two mono jacks, or stereo on a stereo jack... I've added one to my Yamaha - single mono jack with the sum of both stereo channels (stereo FX are wasted on my church's setup).