Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Categories
- 248.2K All Categories
- 22 >> Start Here <<
- 12 New Members
- 8 FAQs
- 88.9K Gear
- 40.5K Guitar
- 3.5K Acoustics
- 1.3K Bass
- 15.1K Amps
- 17.6K FX
- 359 Digital & Modelling
- 785 Other Instruments
- 8.5K Making & Modding
- 432 Gear Reviews
- 108 Guitar Reviews
- 74 Amp Reviews
- 119 FX Reviews
- 90 Other Reviews
- 756 Made in the UK
- 988 Theory
- 1.9K Technique
- 2.2K Live
- 3.2K Studio & Recording
- 2.2K Making Music
- 232 Events
- 15 Guitar Show 2018
- 867 Plug My Stuff
- 108.2K Classifieds
- 42.3K Guitars £
- 2.9K Acoustics £
- 146 LH Guitars £
- 925 Basses £
- 11K Parts £
- 18.8K Amps £
- 35K FX £
- 2.9K Studio & Rec £
- 6.3K Misc £
- 472 Personnel
- 56.2K Chat
- 37.5K Off Topic
- 1.2K Tributes
- 6.8K Music
In this Discussion
Become a Subscriber!
Subscribe to our Patreon, and get image uploads with no ads on the site!
SS Practice amps - cube convert!
Today i spent about 3 hrs trying various practice amps. To start with I had my heart set on a Marshall CFX30 and was also keen on the orange crush range. I didn't really want the fenders and definitely didn't want a cube...mainly based on looks.
So i tried and found the following:
- Marshall: absolute arse in every way. Felt very flimsy and sounded horrible. With the treble rolled all the way off it had a high shrill character to the sound that was pain full to listen to. The headphone sound was better, more lowend but not great.
Verdict: 1/10
- Orange: much better than Marshall, but nothing to right home about, and the headphone sound wasn't great. Still suffered from being very bright, and i couldn't take the treble knob past 1 but at that level it was ok.No effects on this model.
Verdict: 5/10
Peavey Rage: cheapest of the bunch, nice clean and overdrive sounds. Had nice function around voicings, switch between modern, vintage and stack, which had an overall eq shift. No effects on this, just 2 channels.
Verdict: 7/10
Fender Mustang: nice clean tone, better than the rest. The amp models, not sure if accurate, but at least gives some nice versatility on overall tone. The OD tones were ok, but i wouldn't use them. Headphone tone was ok at best. It has a bunch of effects too.
Verdict: 7/10
Laney LX35: Surprisingly good for the price. The cleans are very nice and the distortion can get very heavy indeed with out the the highend shrill. Also has an overall tone change the the XTR switch. The headphone wasn't great but could live with it. It had no effects, but has an external speaker jack, which could be useful.
Verdict: 8/10
Roland Cube: Fuck me! In every single way better than the rest. The improvement in the sound is so much that i cant use the other amps to compare against it. Firstly with the Eq set to 12 o'clock, it sounded warm, clear and just perfect. The cleans are beautiful and OD channel is great. Admittedly i settled one of the amp models, which i probably wont change, but it sounds so good i don't need to change it. The headphones sound amazing, again cant compare to the others. The one thing that bugged my was the footswitch, but then i did a little research and found there is a 6 button footswitch available as well (GA-FC).
To be honest i didn't go to try the cube to buy it, i just wanted to see what the hype was about before i bought the laney...but oh my!...was i surprised!
Needless to say, Verdict:...well cant really do it justice with a rating out of ten compared to the others...if I was to give a rating out of 10, then it would be a 10...with the other scores halved at least.
For reference my criteria was purely an amp that sounds good with or without headphones, effects not a requirement, but if so, i wanted some kind of footswitch. I don't plug mu amps into my computer and I'm not into the whole downloading software etc so, some of the other amps functionality in this department were ignored.
Finally, this has been written over the bus trip home so all grammatical and spelling errors should be put down to the bumps on the road!
So i tried and found the following:
- Marshall: absolute arse in every way. Felt very flimsy and sounded horrible. With the treble rolled all the way off it had a high shrill character to the sound that was pain full to listen to. The headphone sound was better, more lowend but not great.
Verdict: 1/10
- Orange: much better than Marshall, but nothing to right home about, and the headphone sound wasn't great. Still suffered from being very bright, and i couldn't take the treble knob past 1 but at that level it was ok.No effects on this model.
Verdict: 5/10
Peavey Rage: cheapest of the bunch, nice clean and overdrive sounds. Had nice function around voicings, switch between modern, vintage and stack, which had an overall eq shift. No effects on this, just 2 channels.
Verdict: 7/10
Fender Mustang: nice clean tone, better than the rest. The amp models, not sure if accurate, but at least gives some nice versatility on overall tone. The OD tones were ok, but i wouldn't use them. Headphone tone was ok at best. It has a bunch of effects too.
Verdict: 7/10
Laney LX35: Surprisingly good for the price. The cleans are very nice and the distortion can get very heavy indeed with out the the highend shrill. Also has an overall tone change the the XTR switch. The headphone wasn't great but could live with it. It had no effects, but has an external speaker jack, which could be useful.
Verdict: 8/10
Roland Cube: Fuck me! In every single way better than the rest. The improvement in the sound is so much that i cant use the other amps to compare against it. Firstly with the Eq set to 12 o'clock, it sounded warm, clear and just perfect. The cleans are beautiful and OD channel is great. Admittedly i settled one of the amp models, which i probably wont change, but it sounds so good i don't need to change it. The headphones sound amazing, again cant compare to the others. The one thing that bugged my was the footswitch, but then i did a little research and found there is a 6 button footswitch available as well (GA-FC).
To be honest i didn't go to try the cube to buy it, i just wanted to see what the hype was about before i bought the laney...but oh my!...was i surprised!
Needless to say, Verdict:...well cant really do it justice with a rating out of ten compared to the others...if I was to give a rating out of 10, then it would be a 10...with the other scores halved at least.
For reference my criteria was purely an amp that sounds good with or without headphones, effects not a requirement, but if so, i wanted some kind of footswitch. I don't plug mu amps into my computer and I'm not into the whole downloading software etc so, some of the other amps functionality in this department were ignored.
Finally, this has been written over the bus trip home so all grammatical and spelling errors should be put down to the bumps on the road!
My fuzz demo's: https://www.instagram.com/sketchyfuzzies/
0
LOL 0
Wow! 2
Wisdom
LOL 0 Wow! 2 Wisdom Base theme by DesignModo & ported to Powered by Vanilla by Chris Ireland, modified by the "theFB" team.
Comments
Have a wisdom.
And I hope you enjoy your new job at Roland
*An Official Foo-Approved guitarist since Sept 2023.
If you can stand it, take a look a Chappers' mystery amp video on YouTube.
Feedback
Nice one and Cubes are great. I have the Microcube, the Cube 60 and Bass Cube 120XL. Was it the Micro Cube that you got or which model?
TIP:On the Acoustic Channel, and with an acoustic, take a line out to the PA and you have a great acoustic preamp & fx. 2 weeks ago I played a whole function with a Micro Cube lined out and just used the fx and models- it worked !!
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
@samzadgan - what amp model are you using for your distortion and what style or sound are you going for? The Tweed is good for break up stuff and crunches well with humbuckers but for more singy leads and thicker distortion, the Metal amp is better, but with both models, I don't have the gain beyond 12-1 o'clock.
I read through the manual today and saw that tweed = bassman...so tonight thats the first thing i will try out.
The kind of music i play is doom metal...which is really thick loose distortion/fuzz...some may call the tone muddy...but i like a bit mud!
The Dynamic should work well and it's pick sensitivity feature is great!
All the best with your new amp!
It's like a Swiss army knife of guitar gear. I wouldn't say it's perfect but what it has is adaptability and convenience in spades, and that casts all other reservations aside for me.
Feedback