'How To' Articles, Product Guides

CUBE Street EX – What can it do for me?

Contributed by David Jiang

During Frankfurt Musikmesse, Roland announced the CUBE street EX portable amplifier. This new version of the hugely popular CUBE street amplifier is perfectly at home in your bedroom, in a crowded street, as a portable PA, on stage as an angled fold back speaker or even as your main amplifier in small venues. Let’s have a look at the set up options for each of these situations.

Suggested setup in the bedroom for singer songwriters:

► Cube Street EX

► DC power supply

► XLR cable

► Microphone

► Jack Cable

► Instrument

► iOS device (iPhone or iPad)

► Headphones

The CUBE street EX is great as a home practice amp, just flick the output power switch to ECO mode for high energy but low volume 5 Watt performance. Plug your microphone into channel 1 and add a touch of Reverb, then Plug your guitar into channel 2 and dial up the tone you need and you’re good to go.

If you want to practice with backing tracks or record your performance then use the included TRRS cable and your iPhone or iPad along with the CUBE Jam app. It is also worth noting for late night practice you can plug headphones into the back of the unit to turn off the internal speakers

Suggested setup for solo – trio street performance:

► Cube Street EX

► 8 AA Batteries

► XLR cable

► Microphone

► Jack Cables for instruments

► Instruments

► MP3 player

For solo street performance, the CUBE Street EX works best at either NORMAL (25 watt) or MAX (50 watt) output power. You can connect up to 3 instruments or sacrifice two instrument channels for microphone inputs, giving you a variety of set up options. The i-CUBE link input doubles as a 3.5mm Line in so you can plug your MP3 player directly in and play along with backing tracks (this is also handy if you want to use the amp as a outdoor party PA).

Suggested setup for band street or FoH stage performance

► 2 x Cube Street EX

► 16 AA Batteries or 2 DC power supplies

► XLR cable

► Microphone

► Jack Cables for instruments

► Instruments

► Jack Cable to Stereo link Cube Streets

For band performance on the street or on stage you can expand this further by using a jack cable to Stereo Link two CUBE Street EX units together, giving you a 100 Watt Stereo PA system with a total of eight inputs. If you are using the amplifiers as your front of house PA, it is worth using the speaker mount on the side of the unit to raise the amps to ear level.

Suggested setup for on stage monitoring

► Cube Street EX

► DC Power supply

► Front of house mixer

► Jack cables to go between mixer and Cube Street

The super tough ABS plastic cabinet and angled design of the CUBE Street EX allows it to double as a on stage fold back monitor. You can set this up in two ways. If you don’t have a sound engineer on hand you can plug all of your mics and instruments into the CUBE Street EX and then run the Left and Right outputs to the front of house Mixer or direct to the front of house speakers. This way you can adjust your own levels and make use of the on-board effects and COSM amp modelling and effects. Alternatively, if your do have a live sound engineer on hand, you can take a feed from the front of house mixer into the third Channel (Line-in) of the Cube Street EX.

By no means are these the only way to set up the CUBE Street EX amplifiers but just a taste of what the CUBE Street EX can do for you.