The Steel Guitar Forum

OK -- so, I'm getting all excited about the possibility of using the Roland Microcube as a monitor for playing my Stringmaster with another cat who plays acoustic/sings. Normally, I plug direct into his PA, and I sort of hear myself, but not that well. It's OK, but I want a) more tonal control, and b) a better way to monitor myself.

I'm thinking this little amp would let me monitor myself, and also, just run a line to his PA, so I can easily give him a signal, too. Yeah!

But, according to this, I can't:

<I>The MICRO CUBE provides a REC OUT/PHONES jack for output of its signal to an external amplification system, a recorder, or headphones. The REC OUT/PHONES jack provides COSM-based speaker modeling, allowing you to achieve a great guitar sound without the need to mic a loud guitar speaker.

* When a 1/4" phone plug is inserted in the REC OUT/PHONES jack, the sound from the MICRO CUBE's built-in speaker is muted.</I>

Huh? Arrrrrggggggghhhh... muting the speaker by running a line-out totally nixes what I was hoping to do. Yeah, I could mic it, and that's fine, but now I need to fool with a mic AND stand, when all I really wanted was to run a 1/4" cable to his board and really keep it S-I-M-P-L-E. Arrrrrrggggghhhhh...

I do have one hope, though... To anyone who has one of these -- if you plug the cable into the jack, but only partially, will it keep the speaker on AND send the signal out of the REC OUT/PHONES jack? I know that sometimes this will work.

If so, this little puppy should work for my applications perfectly.

Thanks!
TJW

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Todd James Weger/RD/RTD
1956 Fender Stringmaster T-8 (C6, A6, B11); 1960 Fender Stringmaster D-8 (C6, B11/A6); Chandler RH-4 Koa semi-hollow lapsteel (open G); Regal resonator (open D or G)

Hey Todd,
Bad news....
As soon as you insert the plug, it hits the switch and turns the speaker off.
BUT!!!
Chances are, the output is just the speaker signal knocked down with a resistor....
which means...
You could probably do away with the switching jack and replace with a regular 1/4 jack and it will do exactly what you want.
Any entry level tech should be able to do this in 15 minutes or less.
You could even mount a little toggle switch to turn the speaker on and off to keep the original functionality of the switching jack.

Jay

Hey Todd,
Can't you just split your output signal? A morley or some other a/b-a&b box is a good way, (I think even radio shack might have a mono female split to two mono females), one out to the pa and one to the roland? Seems to me you'll have the same amount of control . . .

Hey Joel - that might could work (signal splitter)! I don't get the benifit of sending him an enhanced tone, but it would work.

OTOH, Jay -- I'm thinking that your idea would work, too. I'd have to get someone to reconfigure it for me, but I like the option of having it on or not.

Thanks guys!
TJW

Todd,
Morleys are great for AB switching, but in A+B mode they tend to degrade the signal. Most signal splitters do the same. The best signal splitting device I know of is a Boss RV5. It has stereo ins and outs and there is no discernable signal degradation, unwanted noise or cross-talk. An added plus is the fact that it has some nice reverbs.


RA

...... many options for you there are!

To Preserve the Roland Tone:

A) Just put a SM57 in front of it, and mic it to the PA. Then you're set. Works fine. I do that when I don't have monitors.

B) For many of the gigs we play the PA is provided. I just line-out of the Roland MC. (and yes the spkr cuts out)

I just used the Roland MC yesterday again at an outdoor gig. It's been my main amp for the Stringmaster for the last 4 gigs! I take the line-out and plug into a 1/4" PA input, or a DI. Then just listen to the monitors. It's incredible. Works great, BUT you have to have good monitors. Since we mic everything thru the board anyway, this all works out for us.

IF I want the monitor capability you describe, I carry my AER Compact 60 instead - it has XLR feed to the PA and also monitor via the amp. You might check into these kinds of amps... the Crate Taxi, or the Roland acoustic amp (AER wannabe) for this sort of function as well.

OR

If you like (or can stand) the tone of the PA channel for your steel:

A) just take an 'insert/send' line out of the board and plug into the Roland. Or take a monitor send out - if the board has more than one monitor send buss.

B) 'y' your guitar to the amp, and the PA. This is like taking a 'mult' for a signal OUT of a patch bay to different inputs. Should work fine. You can't simultaneously 'y' more than one thing in to an amp - that's what mixers are for, but you can 'y' out!

cheers,
Chris www.book-em-danno.com

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Chris Kennison


<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by seldomfed on 16 September 2005 at 01:37 PM.]</p></FONT><font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by seldomfed on 16 September 2005 at 01:45 PM.]</p></FONT>

Hey Chris and Rick -- thanks for the added thots!

I think what I'll end up doing is just mic'ing it. I already have a Yamaha DG Stomp that I bought a while back, and it does GREAT sounding amp models. I've used it on gigs with this guy, and it always sounds great. The problem is no monitor situation, which is my whole dilemma.

I think I'm going to pick up on of these babies anyway, and stick a mic in front of it. For the convenient battery option alone, it's worth $125, to me. The Cube 30 is appealing to me, too, but again -- REC OUT mode kills the internal speaker, and the 60 watter is way more than I would ever need.

By the way, Chris, I love your website. I hadn't been there for some time. I see you now have an upright bass. Yeah! Who does the graphic work on your site Very nice. I like the layout, colors, vibe. You guys should fly out to play Hukilau next year!

Thanks again for all the advice, guys.

TJW

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Todd James Weger/RD/RTD
1956 Fender Stringmaster T-8 (C6, A6, B11); 1960 Fender Stringmaster D-8 (C6, B11/A6); Chandler RH-4 Koa semi-hollow lapsteel (open G); Regal resonator (open D or G)
<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Todd Weger on 17 September 2005 at 08:57 AM.]</p></FONT><font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Todd Weger on 17 September 2005 at 09:00 AM.]</p></FONT>