Blues Cube users - how you getting on?

TimmyO

Interested to hear

ta
tim 

ennspek

Very well thanks! 

koss59

Still the best home amp I've ever had.

Wazmeister

Still the best home amp I've had x 2

chromatuna

Do these replies imply that it's not an ideal gigging amp then? 

I am am not being facetious just interested to know if people are gigging with them

I too am interested in these and would like to think that SS amps have come of age but that's a lot of £££s for a home amp. Bottom line is I need to try one 

capo4th

I saw the Coral gigging with two in a small venue about 8 weeks ago sounded great.

Wazmeister

chromatuna said:

Do these replies imply that it's not an ideal gigging amp then? 

I am am not being facetious just interested to know if people are gigging with them

I too am interested in these and would like to think that SS amps have come of age but that's a lot of £££s for a home amp. Bottom line is I need to try one 

I personally think that these are dirt cheap; my BC sits alongside £4500 worth of Carr Rambler and Lazy J !! 

koss59

I'd happily gig with mine if I had to but I have a Carr Rambler also and it's just not a fair fight.

goldfinger

I'm also interested in hearing how people are getting on. I've got a thr10 and a fender mustang III so I've got the modelling stuff covered but I feel the need for something tweed covered and bluesy. Does this satisfy the need for tubes or are you left with a feeling of "well yeah that's almost like a tube amp"?

stratman3142

So far so good but I've only had my Blues Cube Artist 1x12 for a week. I was pleased with the amp sounds at home and I finally got round to using it with my pedal board at home yesterday. It definitely seems to 'take pedals well' (to use the old cliché).

I've got a dep gig next weekend so I'll get chance to try it live then. Right now I'm feeling confident that I'll be OK to sell my Hotrod Deluxe III (which is too heavy for me) and my V40 head (because I was missing the convenience of combo).

I'm hoping I've finally found an amp combines an acceptable weight with an acceptable sound, in combo format.

goldfinger

stratman3142 said:

So far so good but I've only had my Blues Cube Artist 1x12 for a week. I was pleased with the amp sounds at home and I finally got round to using it with my pedal board at home yesterday. It definitely seems to 'take pedals well' (to use the old cliché).

I've got a dep gig next weekend so I'll get chance to try it live then. Right now I'm feeling confident that I'll be OK to sell my Hotrod Deluxe III (which is too heavy for me) and my V40 head (because I was missing the convenience of combo).

I'm hoping I've finally found an amp combines an acceptable weight with an acceptable sound, in combo format.

I don't have the gigging concerns. I'm purely looking for something to use in the house so I would love to hear what you thought about a hot rod deluxe at home. 

stratman3142

goldfinger said:

stratman3142 said:

So far so good but I've only had my Blues Cube Artist 1x12 for a week. I was pleased with the amp sounds at home and I finally got round to using it with my pedal board at home yesterday. It definitely seems to 'take pedals well' (to use the old cliché).

I've got a dep gig next weekend so I'll get chance to try it live then. Right now I'm feeling confident that I'll be OK to sell my Hotrod Deluxe III (which is too heavy for me) and my V40 head (because I was missing the convenience of combo).

I'm hoping I've finally found an amp combines an acceptable weight with an acceptable sound, in combo format.

I don't have the gigging concerns. I'm purely looking for something to use in the house so I would love to hear what you thought about a hot rod deluxe at home. 

At home the Blues Cube is much more practicable than my Hotrod which goes from nothing to way too loud with a slight nudge of the volume pot. At least with the Blues Cube there are lower output settings and I'm mainly using the 0.5W setting. At sensible home volume I prefer the Blues Cube.

I did briefly compare the amps cranked up in in the front room and the Blues Cube (on the higher out setting) seems to have at least the same clean headroom as the Hotrod. There's a certain sweet crunchiness about the Hotrod clean sound when it's pushed, especially since I installed a Celestion V type speaker. The Blues Cube pure clean is different, but good in a different way. Maybe I still need to play around with mixing in some crunch with the dual channel option. The Blues Cube pure clean certainly passes my threshold for an acceptable sound at home. So it's good for me for home use but I still need to see how it handles live use.

goldfinger

Thanks for that. You know I knew as much but there is always that feeling of "I should just get the bigger one". Even though gumtree and eBay are full of listings for deluxes saying its just too loud for me.

Ive got a little tubemiester 5 and I think the tone is noticeably better than the thr10 when it starts to break up but the little speaker in the Tubemeister just quits out way too quickly so I'm looking for something with a 12in speaker an that will work with the he ever increasing number of pedals I keep buying. 

stratman3142

I used my Blues Cube Artist 1 x 12 at an open air dep gig today.

I just used it on the clean channel with my pedal board which includes a Maxon OD9 (Tube Screamer) and an Angry Charlie (v2)  for the drives. I'll need to rethink my set up and probably get into the 4CM, if I'm going to use the Crunch channel on the amp for live gigs.

We didn't get a sound check and, when we launched into the first song, it was way louder than I expected. I had to quickly knock it back to the 45 Watt setting, where it stayed for the rest of the gig.

Anyway the clean channel with my pedal board sounded bloody brilliant. Obviously sound varies depending on the venue but at this open air gig I've never been so happy with my sound. The basic clean had loads of clarity and cut with a nice warmth. On the 45watt setting it had a sweet clean sound with the right smidgen of hair. The drive pedals have never sounded better.

We were mic'd but the sound man said there wasn't much of the backline in the PA and none of my amp in the foldback. He came over to chat because he said he remembered me from last year's event as the guitarist who set the right levels between rhythm and lead. The amp was easily loud enough to match the level of the drums on stage at this gig on the 45 Watt setting.

Based on this first live open air gig with it, I preferred the Blues Cube sound to my Hotrod Deluxe 3, which I've used with the stock speaker, a Celestion V30 and a Celestion V type. I also preferred the sound to my Victory V40 head, which I've used with Marshall 1912 cabs loaded with Celestion V30s and also Celestion V Types. I mention the speakers because, for me, that's a big part of the sound. The Blues Cube stock speaker combined with the amp definitely works. Visually it looks a bit like my big magnet Celestions. By that I mean V30 or a V type, but not the stock Hotrod Deluxe 3 speaker which I didn't like. 

I'm extremely pleased with the Blues Cube right now, but I have a love hate relationship with all my amps. I'll get chance to see how it does at an indoor pub gig later this month.

monquixote

Great write up

TimmyO

Nice

chromatuna

Thanks Stratman 

TimmyO

Really nicely recorded vid here - great sounds

Lev

Amp sounds great, although there really doesn't appear to be a big difference with the EJ tone capsule. Possibly need to be in the room to really pick up the difference. I really think I may buy the Blues Cube Stage, I tried it a few months back and was very impressed - it's just a great sounding amp with lots of cool features regardless of whether it's tube, solid state or modelling.

fretfinder

koss59 said:

I'd happily gig with mine if I had to but I have a Carr Rambler also and it's just not a fair fight.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Cube had higher clean headroom than the Rambler.

koss59

I'm still amazed you're struggling with yours for clean headroom. I did the biggest outdoor gig I've ever done 2 weeks ago with it and didn't have any of it in my monitor still!
I agree that it's not the loudest amp in the world but I've still not had it half way up on a gig yet. Mine certainly doesn't get dirty until way after half way on the dial, where abouts does yours get dirty?