Roland Cube 40XL 40w Compact Guitar Amp

After watching the Chappers & The Captain review of practice amps recently, I thought I'd try a few out as I was in the market for one.

I tried a Line 6 spider and the Fender mustang, but was totally sold on the Cube after about 5 minutes of playing.

The Looper is a great little tool, good for putting down a riff or 2, then layering a solo over.

But my favourite is the low-octaver. Bloody brilliant :)

Go try one out if you doubt me. you won't be sorry.

Great little amp. Rugged, well built and functionally very good. Particularly like the 80 second loop. Not sure if it is a gigging amp yet - maybe small venues or with a good PA. No speaker extension output or efx send rec so a little bit restricted. Played live with it once and was disappointed with its power until I discovered the squeeze button was on - makes a helluva difference switching it off! Good value especially if a footswitch is included in price!

Great amp. I got this to replace a little old Marshall combo thing I had that never really fit my needs. For an amp of this size the volume it can go to is very loud, while still maintaining sound quality. The amp models and effects are great. I mainly use the Recifier model, and as I own a dual rec, i can tell you, it's not a bad approximation for a little amy.

The effects controls allow you to have delay, reverb and one of the other effects going at the same time, which is great, and you can store your settings on the solo chanel.

You really need footswitches to unlock the potential of all the channels and effects on this amp - at least for jamming. You will probably want more than the one Andertons are nicely throwing in free. The amp can take 6 FS5Us or 3 FS6.

Controls easy to understand and use. Great that it's all knobs, no Line6 style computer displays.

Negatives: only 2. No specific cab line out like the Cube 80 has, acustic sim has slight background hum.

I am amazed at how good this is for this price.

This amp is flawed by a constant and annoying hissing/white noise that Roland describe as a 'characteristic' of the amp. The range of sounds available on the amp is great, it's built well and looks good but because of the hissing/white noise I've found it useless for recording and annoying to play at home.

The service from Andertons was first class.

The Good:

Very sturdy construction, this amp is built to last and would certainly survive a life on the road.

Produces a lot of volume from a very compact enclosure.

Nice controls and logical layout make it easy to set up with no tedious menus to scroll through.

Very tight, vibrant and punchy sound with very useable amp simulations.

Sounds good with an acoustic guitar which many electric guitar amps don't.

Not so good:

A bit noisy but it does have a noise-gate. Not a problem for gigging but maybe not so good for recording.

Effects are a bit limited and only one at a time.

I would prefer one clean reverb option rather than the two clangy built-in mechanical spring or plate emulations.

The "Power Squeezer" doesn't seem (to me) to bring any real advantage to playing quietly.

Conclusion:

A Very well made, versatile, easy to use and great sounding amp that suits a wide range of musical styles and situations and that I'm sure would last for many years; and it's a bargain at the price.

Visited store to compare the cube to Marshall MG30, Fender mustang II and the line 6 SPIDER 4.

All 4 had obvious merits, Marshall - sounded like a Marshall, Fender good Fender tones, Line 6 a good digital amp, Roland - well to my ears it covered all of the others without any obvious allegiances to any one brand, it also has a more traditional amp layout rather than deep editing features which may eventually become obsolete. It's also built like a brick outhouse - perfect for the knocks it's bound to get from my son while he learns to play.

For me it was about the sound but the features are great - 80 seconds of looping means my son isn't bored of preactising yet.

I felt the roland cube40xl is potentially a lifelong practise tool.

great guitar amp for home practising. would recomend it to every one who wants to get great sound quality and loud very heavy metal sound.

brilliant. the range of sounds available for such a low price, are phenominal. buy this now !

This is my second Amp after Epiphone Studio 10S, so i was very excited about overall sound quality and power even more after watching 'Ultimate Practice Amp Shootout' video witch is awsome and helped me solve dilema Vox or Roland. I was Expecting:

Descent clean channel - i was surprised it's better than i thought

Drive channel (Lead) - that's why i chose Roland on top of Vox Valvetronix, for heavy playing is perfect

Good bottom - its amzing how good it is

Loudness - it's enough to jam along percussion

Descent built in effects - they are ok, to get most of them you need set of footswiches and you have to spend same price as you spent on amp, or you can get effect processor for that and it will do more, +nice Amp models, -lack of presets, +Looper, +Power squeezer

Durability - WELL BUILD, looks and feels as it would survive a lot

I don't like one thing about that Amp witch is Recording out output doesnt work very well connected directly to sound card of my PC and there is no option to monitor sound on Amp speaker monitoring through PC headphones output is imposible because of lag, have to try with Adio interface like Cackewalk or Steinberg so far i'm recording it with dynamic Mic and i'm VERY HAPPY

IT IS VERY GOOD PIECE OF AMP FOR PRICE

VERY WELL BUILD AND VERY WELL SOUNDING

Great little amp, great value for money - a looper, amp modelling and FX all built in. And light enough for an old guy like me to carry around without setting off the tennis elbow! The sounds are good, amazing for the price & weight, but obviously not as good as the real thing, a slightly thin edge to some of the overdriven sounds. Being a lightweight cab with 10" speaker, it does rattle a bit when you start putting through any significant volume of low notes, but it is better than I would expect for that price and size.

The Roland footswitches are ridiculously expensive, but it is not really practical to use the looper without them. I have been searching the web for alternatives, there is quite a bit of discussion on various forums. I bought a Behringer AB200, which as well as switching between amps and guitars is described as being able to “operate guitar amp controls”. I think this may be possible, but will need a uniquely wired breakout lead which I will have to get wired up specially.

Instead I have purchased a pair Bespeco unlatched footswitches @ £15 each from Strings direct, recommended by a guitar tech friend which should work with a standard stereo jack to two mono breakout lead.

Bought the Roland Cube 40XL unheard, after trying out Fender Mustang 11 in local shop I wanted a practice amp, for home use, with built in effects, that was also loud enough for rehearsal with bass & drums. Selected the Cube, due to enthusiasm shown on the web, for example in the Andertons demo video, and because it was much simpler to use and intuitive than the Mustang, and I trusted the fact the effects were based on Boss pedals.

After a couple of weeks, delighted with it, and actually gigged with it last night! It has a great clean channel, and great spring reverb (there is choice between spring and plate) and so for a basic setup, and good tones, that is all that is needed. I play a 2000 Fender USA Texas Special Strat and so look for good clean blues tone. However, it also has all the efffects and amp modelling, so great for playing around to get those other sounds - esp like the Brit Combo setting - although I haven't really fully explored all the other features yet, like storing settings, using the looper, etc. The only thing I can say I dislike is that to get the most of out, it really needs footpedals - to use the looper, switch channel, turn efffect on/off - and they - the recommended Boss modelss - are £50+ a piece! It is a robust and well built but of kit, and looks great.

I bought this amp because I've never owned a modelling amp before; couple that with its portable size / weight and the result is the start of a beautiful relationship.

I've got a Fender 2x12, but I haven't turned it on since I bought this Cube. It's just too much trouble to turn it on, turn all my pedals on and fiddle with all their knobs etc when I can just flick this Cube on and have all the effects I need (for random bedroom playing at least).

The controls are all very easy to understand and well laid out. The effects all sound great, which was surprising in a way. I spent about £90 on a Line 6 chorus pedal about 2 years ago and the sound was truly abysmal (I'd like to point out that I did NOT buy that POS from Andertons). The built-in effects are all great, and the only benefit I can see to buying them in pedal form is that you might get more control over the sound that way, but for the times when I just want to sit and play with some chorus thrown on, this more than suffices.

The low-end this amp chucks out is truly gob-smacking. Turning the bass up and / or the volume past the 9-10 o'clock mark makes the whole thing (and the room) shake rather alarmingly.

The only thing I could possibly do to make this a better amp would be to run it into a 4x12. I would do terrible things for the opportunity to hear it through a 4x12.

Roland Cube 40 xl, arrived shortly after christmas. I'm forty three and mostly play clean chords and single note melodies, this amp does clean effortlessly. With chorus, flange, phaser and tremolo to flavour the basic sound - as well as seperate reverb and delay, it's easy to dial in a great tone.

My son is sixteen and soon had the Roland on meltdown using the Rectifier setting on the lead channel, amazing the amount of volume on this compact amp. The power squeezer function allows you to keep the heavy gain dynamic at lower volumes. The Roland 40 xl is incredibly versitile but best of all can be transported easily which was the deciding factor in my purchase. Looking for a portable amp with plenty of volume, and convincing tones as well as useable effects this is the amp for you.