Roland MOBILE-AC Portable Battery Powered Acoustic Guitar Amplifier

This little thing is a BEAST of an amp for lap steel guitar. It's voiced remarkably well for Hawaiian lap steel.Bobby Ingano is a Hawaiian Lap Steel Master from Hawaii, and he currently tours with Taj Mahal as his steel player and backup electric guitar player.Bobby tours the world with a Roland Mobile Cube for his Rickenbacher Frypan Lap Steel, and a Roland Micro Cube for his stratocaster. Both are powered by 6 AA batteries, and all he does is have them both mic'd with an SM57.Don't knock it till you've tried it. In addition to being very portable, the benefit of gigging with a battery powered amp is that you don't have to plug into the wall. Very many bars, restaurants, venues, etc have dirty power that can introduce noise into your guitar amp. Being Battery powered means you are a completely self sufficient little ecosphere. You can get consistent results, sound, and tone in every playing situation. If the little amp isn't loud enough, then you're likely playing in a band situation where someone can mic your amp with an SM57.IMO, one of the best tones for lap steel guitar, and very serviceable tone for electric and acoustic guitar.

I use this for ukulele and vocal performing in small to medium venues. It is great that it is battery powered (I also have an AC adapter). I have a mic stand setup with mic, iPad holder, uke holder; I can hang this little amp from another holder, and then I have a self-contained performing rig. The sound is OK. It is loud enough to fill a large sized meeting room, but it is not powerful enough to fill a gym or auditorium. In a group, it is good for reinforcing the sound. Our performance group uses many of these at one time, and together they raise the volume of the entire group. It has three inputs that I use: vocal, instrument and aux. It's kind of old technology (no Bluetooth), but it works great. It's so small that on an overseas trip, I put it in my check-in luggage.Negatives: the mic input is 1/4 inch, not XLR, so remember to bring the right cable! The vocal volume knob has gotten tweaked on mine so it doesn't go low any more. This amp has lived a hard life, so that is acceptable.

First of all, you should know that what I'm playing through this is somewhat unusual. I make chiptunes and other small-electronic-device-based music. I got this several weeks ago and had been using it at home to get a sense for what my live sets would sound like (composing exclusively with headphones isn't a good way to get a sense of how the music will sound in performance), and also hoping to use it for busking.Very happy with it as a practice amp, but it is just a little tricky to keep it from overdriving and distorting when plugging a device into the electric guitar input. That's no surprise, though, because of the old "plugging an amp into another amp" issue. You just need to watch out for it, and reduce the output volume of your device so it won't overdrive the Mobile Cube. The other option is to plug your device into the stereo RCA ins, but then you can't use the nice FX that are built into the Cube.Finally had a chance to take it out for some street performing with some other musician friends this past weekend, and it performed nicely. Good volume level, good quality sound for outdoors. One of the guys in the group had some songs on his Game Boy that were chiptune covers of pop songs, and he was able to plug a mic into the separate mic input to amplify his vocals. Really nice feature!If you take it out for street performing, make sure to have a spare set of batteries. I'd estimate 4-6 hours on one set, depending on how loud you're running it. Haven't tried it with rechargables yet. The way it shows that it's running low on power is good, too. Instead of just cutting out, it becomes apparent that you can't get it louder than about 40-50% volume, even with the volume knob pinned at 100%. When that happens you can finish the song you're playing and then change the batteries, which is easy to do (no unscrewing of the battery cover or anything time consuming like that).It doesn't take up much space for the power and features that it packs in, which is nice as music equipment can quickly pile up and fill entire rooms in your house if you aren't careful. If you're a hobbyist musician, I'm sure you know what I mean.It does seem a little expensive, but the build-quality is such that I think it will probably last for many many years, and probably also get alot of use by my son who is about to enter his teenage years. It's light enough that I will for sure take it to the beach to plug in my iPod when the occasion arises, so it has that going for it as well.

Love my Roland very portable, mini cube battery powered amp! I also like the fact that I have the option of getting power using AC current or plugging it into a wall outlet, using a separately purchased voltage adapter, when I’m at home or indoors. Lastly, it may be small but it has a surprisingly big sound for its size! Quite awesome! AAA++!!