Gleaming the Cube

giggsy

Picked up a Roland Cube 40XL yesterday from the Toms sale. Went in there looking to get the 15 for an amazing price of under R800, but the best salesman in the building convinced me otherwise (the salesman was Roland... although I did get some good service from some of the other guys). Its just got so many features but the ones which swung it for me was the built-in looper (I need it now as StephenG is getting my Boss) and the great distortion tones.

Just wanted to check if you other Cube owners out there have any tips or tricks that you have learnt or some of your favourite settings.

PS: Was goint to call the topic "Gleaming The Cube" but not sure how many people here would have got the reference 8)

Warren

Giggsy wrote:
PS: Was goint to call the topic "Gleaming The Cube" but not sure how many people here would have got the reference 8)

Well, me, for one. ?

The best thing to do with obscure references is just go with them...aaait.

Squonk

? "Gleaming the Cube" would have been a good topic.

I just recently got the the Cube 30x, and I am still a noob with the amp. Being more an acoustic player, I still have a lot to learn.

I personally dont like the Flanger, Phaser, Chorus FX on the Amp, the Delay and Tremelo are a bit closer to the Boss Stomp Boxes, but there is so much to tweak, hopefully you will give me some advice.

I love the JC Clean Channel, My Peavey T-60 sounds good, would still like to try a some more conventional guitars through the amp, LP, strat and Tele etc.

The Amp Sims are pretty cool, still tweaking a lot to get a decent sound though, Enjoy the Black Panel quite a bit. When the need for Killswitch Engage comes upon me, the R-Fier (Mesa Boogie Sim) is pretty hectic.

It will be interesting to see how it takes pedals, I know you have some, so please post results.

My Takamine sounds pretty awesome through the Clean Channel

Good Stuff

Squonk

Another Good thing Giggsy is the Power Squeezer, this dampens the sound and brings it down to about 2 watts but still with the dynamics of a loud volume, excellent for sleeping babies etc.

giggsy

Warren wrote: The best thing to do with obscure references is just go with them...aaait.

Changed! ?

Squonk wrote: It will be interesting to see how it takes pedals, I know you have some, so please post results.

Haven't even got there yet! Just spent the evening playing around with the onboard stuff but will definitely let you know

Sean

Warren wrote:
Giggsy wrote:
PS: Was goint to call the topic "Gleaming The Cube" but not sure how many people here would have got the reference 8)
Well, me, for one. ?

The best thing to do with obscure references is just go with them...aaait.

giggsy

Squonk wrote: Another Good thing Giggsy is the Power Squeezer, this dampens the sound and brings it down to about 2 watts but still with the dynamics of a loud volume, excellent for sleeping babies etc.

Yeah, forgot about that feature - did come in handy last night! One of the reasons why I went in looking for a smaller amp was the fact that I hardly ever get the chance these days to add much volume - the Power Squeezer still gives me the tone at a decent volume

strataxe

Squonk wrote: ? "Gleaming the Cube" would have been a good topic.

I just recently got the the Cube 30x, and I am still a noob with the amp. Being more an acoustic player, I still have a lot to learn.

Got mine 5 years ago. Love it, spend most time on the classic stack, but now and then on the Brit Combo...

Jack-Flash-Jr

He's just a sk8er boy ?

giggsy

Just a quickie - this would work as a footswitch for the looper/effects etc, right? http://www.ebay.com/itm/Hosa-Guitar-Amp-Pedal-FSC-385-Dual-Footswitch-latching-/140600996504?pt=Guitar_Accessories&hash=item20bc78f298

giggsy

Found some nice settings for the 40 here - http://www.soundsderhelden.de/download/SDH-CUBE-40XL.pdf or go to http://www.soundsderhelden.de/soundsderhelden.html to check out other Roland amps and Boss pedals (fixed the link)

Squonk

Thanks Giggsy 8)

deefstes

Congrats on securing one of the most awesome affordable amps known to mankind. I have the Cube 80X and I'm loving every moment with it.

You'll probably find soon enough that the looper is fairly restricted in terms of its maximum duration. I've encountered a few cases where I'd have liked a longer looper but it's perfect for your average tempo 12 bar blues ?

I'm not sure which amp modelings the Cube 40XL has but on my 80X I tend to mostly gravitate towards the Black Panel, Brit Combo and Classic Stack. But I probably spend 80% of my time on the amp using the JC Clean channel.

As regards the effect, I use the Tremolo and Plate Reverb most. I'm also not mad about the Flanger, Phaser and Chorus but that's the great thing about the Cube amps; Now I know which effects I should rather buy pedals of - I could have wasted money buying a Flanger pedal only to find out that I end up rarely using it.

I'd be honest that I'm not mad about the tone I'm getting from my Martin acoustic and my Takamine nylon but that's not what the amp was meant for anyway.

For a foot switch I walked into Mantech Electronics and bought myself a non-latching foot switch and a TRS jack, went home and soldered the jack onto the cable and Bob's your uncle. Works like a charm and it set me back the princely sum of 84 ronts.

deefstes

Oh, and excellent thread title by the way ?

giggsy

Thanks deefstes!

And whereabouts is the Mantech shop - I know they're also online?

I saw this on Gumtree though - bit pricey - but would Line6 and Roland products be compatible? I somehow doubt it http://johannesburg.gumtree.co.za/c-Stuff-for-Sale-musical-instruments-guitar-pedal-W0QQAdIdZ319981578

deefstes

Giggsy wrote: Thanks deefstes!

And whereabouts is the Mantech shop - I know they're also online?

Yeah, I've never bought anything online from them. Our company often makes purchases from them so I just piggy backed.

This is where they are:
Clicky -> http://www.mantech.co.za/jhb.asp.htm

The part number for the foot switch I bought is B196013
Clicky -> http://www.mantech.co.za/ProductInfo.aspx?Item=72M3345

I see it's even cheaper than I remember, R55.56 (but that might exclude VAT, can't remember).

giggsy

Awesome, thanks!

deefstes

I'm not sure if anyone here would find this handy but I thought I'd post it anyway, just in case. It's a template I made for myself of the Cube 80X control panel. I can use this to mark off the settings for a specific tone if I want to remember it for later. Obviously the layout will be slightly different for the other Cubes but it may be useful nonetheless. Otherwise it might inspire you to make your own ?

I've also arranged it three on an A4 page with some space for notes and a similar image of the guitar so I can jot down the positions of the volume/tone knobs. PDF file to be found at clickety --> http://www.box.net/shared/f63n48ppteikgljzozyp

giggsy

Yeah, very cool - thanks man!

Attila

I got this off the web some time ago but I could never work out M? represented may be you can help out,

Strangely enough on the edit screen everything lines up great, if anyone wants these settings I wil happily send you a MSword doc,

Cube 30 Settings

Jazz
JCC-R Black Gain M? Volume Bass Middle Treble Phaser Rev
Panel ¼ ½ ¼ ½ ¾ ¼ ½ ¾

Rock
JCC-R Tweed Gain M? Volume Bass Middle Treble Phaser Rev
¼+2 ¼± ¼+2 ½ ½+3 ½+2 ½+2 ¾

Country
JCC-R Brit Gain M? Volume Bass Middle Treble Phaser Rev
¼+3 ¼-2 ¼+3 ½+1 ½-2 ¾ ½+3 ¾

Acoustic
JCC Acoustic Gain M? Volume Bass Middle Treble Phaser Rev
½ ¼ ¾ ½ ¼ ¼ ¾