Has anyone tried this amp with a bass guitar? I'm looking around for an amp I can use for busking, playing bass and singing, and which would be portable enough to fly with. So I'm thinking of getting the street cube rather than the Bass microcube or the larger EX, which wouldn't fit in carry-on. Any feedback would be appreciated.
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First of all, if one or both of you are referring to the new Roland Cube Street EX model, the one with switchable 50W/25W/10W power,
Roland - CUBE Street EX | Battery-Powered Stereo Amplifier
Roland - CUBE Street EX | Amplificatore stereo a batterie
then no, I've never tried that.
Now, if either or both had in mind the older (but still in production? no idea) Cube Street with 2.5W+2.5W power,
Roland - CUBE Street | Battery-Powered Stereo Amplifier
https://www.roland.com/it/products/cube_street/
yes I do have experience with that on bass. It was borrowed from a friend and my imperative was to give it back with no mechanical damage to the drivers. However, I also needed it to make me audible. What to do?
Besides having a sucky tone, I had the misfortune of being placed very close to a gas-fueled generator that a food stall used. So audible I was, but barely, through all the noise. Oh well, at least the Cube was as good as new when I returned it.
EDIT - It didn't occur to me at the time, since I was looking for a quick setup for load/unload - but I could have used a preamp pedal (or an EQ pedal which I don't have) to filter out all bass,* and chosen a less distorted Cube preset. This would have allowed me to have a clean sound without the speakers farting out, but I doubt I would have gotten more volume out of the thing. In fact, the distorted emulation probably contribute to what little perceived volume I had beyond the fact that it was the less bassy one available.
*(having an active bass, which I also don't - apart from the temporarily-nonoperational ABG - would have gotten me there too)
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Yep i wanted di know EX 50watt roland cube Street,i used micro cube rx for bass but no sufficient power for the Street for me
Use the mic input and a equaliser pedal that will give you fuller bass tone. Although I don't know if the speakers are powerful enough to crumble out the with time...i am using for it some months now and still ok (I don't use it in full volume).
The regular Cube Street is almost a complete waste of time with bass. I did a gig in which I daisy chained the inputs of a pair of Cube Streets together and the amount of bass they were able to produce before breaking up was barely more than my Tacoma Thunderchief. They do produce useful volume for vocals and guitar.
The Cube Street EX is no powerhouse, but I would expect it to be much better than the regular Cube Street since it has 10 times the power. The amp is advertised as 50W max, but would be advisable to temper expectations as the real power is more likely around 12.5W RMS total and the speakers are optimized more for portability and midrange clarity rather than loud bass.
Also keep in mind that even if the speakers did handle bass, it takes more power to make the speaker work hard enough to physically produce bass frequencies at any significantvolume. So even if you upgraded speakers it would likely drain the battery faster.
There's no free lunch.
A cheap, light, tiny, and loud busking solution for bass doesn't exist yet.
If you only needed cheap that would he easy. Couple car batteries, any combo you like, inverter, etc. But none of that is light or tiny.
Want light, tiny and loud enough? You can believe that sucker won't be cheap.
This topic comes up here about once a month. Still no cheap solutions.
There's no free lunch.
A cheap, light, tiny, and loud busking solution for bass doesn't exist yet.
If you only needed cheap that would he easy. Couple car batteries, any combo you like, inverter, etc. But none of that is light or tiny.
Want light, tiny and loud enough? You can believe that sucker won't be cheap.
This topic comes up here about once a month. Still no cheap solutions.
You'd think that with the leaps forward in battery tech lately, there'd be something that would have enough power for BASS at reasonable levels, that lasted a cuppla hours....
Agreed. As I said, what I settled for in order to be audible that one time was playing singer-songwriter tunes with fuzz bass...
After that post from last summer we further discussed the matter here
PA system for busking
and here
PA system for busking
That was a pretty good thread for reference. @brianrost reported real world experience in posts #47 and #50 and recommended an F-deck to control fart out in the low end from over excursion of the speakers.
I also mentioned in post #49, there is a common mod to get more bass which involves replacing the stock speakers with 4 ohm Jensen Mod 8-20. I have not used an EX or done the mod myself so I can't comment on how well it works, but there are several threads you can read. I searched Google using "cube street ex jensen mod" and found several relevant threads and a video that shows the stock woofers are rated at 15W...it's stamped on the back of the drivers.
Another informative review can be found in post #6 of the following thread...also post #9 comments on a small improvement in bass and mid response after the Jensen Mod mod.
Roland Street Cube vs EX - Gearslutz