Battery Powered Amp

Phillip Broste · Post by **Phillip Broste** » 25 Dec 2012 8:40 pm

Hi folks,

For the last few years I have been taking my steel to an annual jam out in the high desert near Los Angeles. It usually happens on a motel porch. Everyone is acoustic but me, and I usually have to beg borrow or steal power from one of the attendee's rooms with a fifty foot extension cord. Setting the steel up is hassle enough for everyone, so I'm keen to reduce my impact on the evening by investing in a battery-powered solution.

I've found a few options so far:

The Micro Cube Bass RX seems like it ought to be able to reproduce a nice full sound:
http://www.rolandus.com/products/details/940

I also find these THR amps from Yamaha to be interesting:
http://usa.yamaha.com/products/musical- ... uct_lineup

I wanted to check with you all and see if you had any experience with these, or maybe had another suggestion for me to check out. Thanks!

Stephen Cowell · Post by **Stephen Cowell** » 26 Dec 2012 3:32 am

Mobile Cube... Really nice sound from a small package, more than enough to keep up with an acoustic session. Try one, you'll see what I mean... it's the only one with stereo, too.

Bruce Derr · Post by **Bruce Derr** » 26 Dec 2012 7:59 am

I had an outdoor gig a few months ago, on a boat, actually. It was a duo with a friend on acoustic guitar and vocals. I bought a used Roland Cube Street. It sounds fine and is surprisingly loud. It has a microphone channel too. Very happy with it. Pricey when new, though.

Phillip Broste · Post by **Phillip Broste** » 30 Dec 2012 10:21 pm

Thanks guys! I'll add those to my consideration. I'm hoping to bring my steel into a guitar center to give some of these a try in person.

John Gould · Post by **John Gould** » 30 Dec 2012 10:54 pm

I've used a Roland Ba-330 With great results it runs on 8 AA batteries and sounds great but it's a pricey booger. I got 2 of them to do some out door things where there was no power available and it needed to be full sounding and a bit of volume. But I have played acoustic guitar and Steel out of them with great results. I've done some patio gigs playing acoustic and singing and just taken one and it's been fine. Also did a steel gig with tracks with one for a party and it performed great.

Dom Franco · Post by **Dom Franco** » 5 Jan 2013 8:51 pm

I have several battery powered amps. The original Micro cube is great, plenty loud enough in an acoustic setting. The Vox DA 5 is five watts and really loud with cool effects and tap tempo control for delay etc! And My big one is the Microcube Street it'sLoud, with several inputs including XLR for mic with seperate volume tone and effects on mic channel! It's a great outdoor amp. With a separate CD aux input for tracks, I can do small solo gigs with a light weight setup. I also have two danelectro honeytone amps I use in stereo cranked all the way up... awesome overdrive sound... and fun!
Dom