Roland Blues Cube Fan Club
- Thread starter fatherjones
- Start date
Congrats on your BC60-310 Chunk. I can give you a source for the control knobs but they go for $6 each which means you'd be dumping more into them than the amp cost you.
http://www.fullcompass.com/product/432646.
A workable alternative is some gold acrylic paint. The stuff I used is made by Folk Art and can be purchased online or at a Hobby Lobby among other art supply stores as well I'm sure. The color is #660 Pure Gold.
http://shop.hobbylobby.com/products/metallic-pure-gold-folkart-acrylic-paint-97683/
I believe Tony already provided you with the link to Tubes and More where you can find a similar grill cloth material. It's the oxblood. It's not exact but quite close and looks even better IMHO.
Good luck with that amp. They are well worth what you spent for yours.
schenkadere
Friend of Leo's
Desperate times call for desperate measures. I have been trying to sell my near mint BC-60 for a month now. I have it listed on Craigslist, Reverb and eBay and the only offers I received have been international which I won't do. Have these amps fallen out of grace? I have it for local pick up but I live in the NYC tri-state area and I am not asking a lot. I'm baffled. Maybe the new models have taken away some of the interest? I thought it would be gone in days. It's super clean and even has all the brass knob caps. I don't get it!
They're still pretty much a niche market amp brother. Compare how often there's a post about one on here compared to say a Princeton or a Deluxe Reverb and you'll see what I mean.
With the new ones selling for $600 and up I doubt they're competing with yours if you have it priced to sell. It's just gonna take time 'til the right buyer comes along.
Edit: FWIW there's one in mint condition on an Ebay auction ending tomorrow. The current bid is $217.50 + $55 shipping. Not a bad deal at that price.
I agree with Paul above, but the thought occurred that it might be the fickle finger of fate. Perhaps providence is indicating that the price you're likely to realise for the amp is sufficiently low as to make it not worth your while selling it and that you should continue to appreciate its excellence at least for a while longer.
Jefe
Tele-Afflicted
I just looked up your ad - IMO, you're asking too much. For that price, people would rather buy a tube amp.
I can't see the price from here, but that's the stupid attitude some people seem to have that somehow a tube amp is the "real thing" and that anything else is not. I am here to say that that is bloody arrant nonsense and that a great-sounding amp is a great-sounding amp, whatever is inside it. But truth and belief are often far removed from each other and against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain.
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stax
Tele-Afflicted
I saw the add and you would be lucky to sell it for that over here at the moment despite the great condition, seems like the Roland JC’s go for good money but not so much the BC’s which suited me when I got my BC 3x10, I wish mine was a bit lighter or rather I’d waited for a 1x12 to come up as sometimes I have to leave it at home but no other regrets.
schenkadere
Friend of Leo's
I'm asking 389.00. I thought that was reasonable considering the condition and what I've seen them listed for. Oh well, I do have a best offer option.
I'm gonna step out and take a risk here and say there are no tube amps in that price range, in that kind of condition, that are better than a BC 60.
You're talking about amps like a Deluxe Reverb of a Vibrolux Reverb and they both run far more than $389. Unfortunately some will buy a crappy tube amp for less than $400 just because it has tubes.
Well your competition BC60 on Ebay went for $330 plus $55 shipping with about a dozen different bidders so you're in the ball park at $389. There's another 1x12 listed at $449 OBO and a 3x10 at $650 so you're now the low cost option.
The local pickup thing is limiting your marketplace but you've got watchers so be patient and it will sell.
If anything I believe the reintroduction by Roland is causing the prices of the originals to rise somewhat. A year or so ago $250 was closer to what they were going for. Now I feel really blessed to have gotten mine the way I did.
Item number: 231575773732
Item Title:
1990's ROLAND BC-60 BLUES CUBE 1x12 60W GUITAR COMBO AMPLIFIER - NO RESERVE!
Winning bid: US $330.00
While any item is worth only what someone is prepared to pay for it, I don't think that's at all outrageous. i've mentioned before how I paid a moderately steep price for my BC-60 1x12, on the basis that it was in mint condition and seemed likely to become a sought-after classic in time. That hasn't happened yet, it appears, and as luck would have it I later bought a 3x10 for little more than half what I paid for the 1x12.
However, I'm of the mind that if what I really want costs a bit more than some people think it should, so be it. A few quid or bucks here and there won't make a lot of difference down the line, and I'll own something that gives me much pleasure. OK, maybe if I'd waited I could have bought another for less, but then I wouldn't have possessed and enjoyed it until later.
Of course, buying specifically with a view to turning a profit is a different matter and not what I'm describing here.
Jefe
Tele-Afflicted
When I looked up the ad on craigslist yesterday, it was listed at $450. At $389, maybe someone will bite. People on craigslist are looking to get something for nothing. If you're patient and can wait it out for a few months, the right buyer will probably come along.
Don't shoot the messenger guys, just trying to be honest here. Most people out there are morons, and those morons ignorantly believe that an amp HAS to have tubes to sound good.
That wasn't really aimed at you Jefe but in anticipation of the guy who was gonna post that he'd never pay over $150 for any SS amp. The same guy who buys MIM Teles for $200 and won't ever play a guitar with Squier on the headstock. Sad bunch those types but I knew what you were getting at.
There is another 1x12 listed on Ebay for $449 that isn't schenkadere's and one just sold on auction yesterday for $330 + $55 shipping so the buyer is paying $385 net. On that basis he's in the ballpark at $389. The local pickup only is limiting potential buyers but the right one will come along eventually. You're right.
I love my 15w Tweaker but to say it's better than my BC 60 only because it has tubes? Nah, different maybe but not necessarily better. If I run 'em as a pair I'll put them up against most anything. They blend extremely well and if I was running out to do a quick gig I'd be just as likely to play the BC 60 as I would the Tweaker. It's nice to have that choice.
old guitar player
Tele-Afflicted
I had a BC-30 many many years ago. It was a decent amp for what it did but not enough clean headroom for me. I really don't think it was putting out 30 watts. I sold it to a guy who really had to have one. They are not so common around here on the used market anymore.
Even a 30w analog SS amp isn't the equivalent of a 30w tube amp. With the Blues Cubes I'd say the ratio is about 2:1 so the 30w model is about the same as a 12-15w tube amp and and my 60w about the same as a 25-30w tube amp.
The 30w Blues Cube is a little lightweight for gigging but my 60w holds it's own very well. One of the best and least expensive ways to increase the volume in a BC60 is to jumper the effects loop. Unfortunately the same trick won't work in the BC30 because it lacks an effects loop.
The other thing that can be done to increase overall volume and clean headroom is to replace the stock speaker with one that has greater sensitivity and therefore more volume. Just swapping a stock speaker with 97db-98db sensitivity to one with 101db-102db will result in a very noticeable difference in volume.
The third avenue to try is to simply run a clean boost pedal in the signal chain to boost the input signal from lower output single coil pickups. The combination of these three allows my BC 60 to even keep up with 50w-60w tube amps and even the 30w should be very giggable at smaller venues by doing the second two.
Hmm - I don't know about that one. It might work up to a point, but boosting the signal runs the risk of overdriving the the front end and thereby generating unwanted distortion, and there goes your clean headroom. It's the same as turning the gain up, which simply increases the sensitivity of the pre-amp. That's what clean boost pedals are designed to do, in fact - generate distortion by overdriving the pre-amp valves in that kind of amp. Indeed, it seems to me that the two "crunch" settings on channel 1 of the BC-60 serve the same purpose.
Of course, you could always stick a boost in the loop - as it happens the TM60 has a built-in footswitchable clean boost up to 9dB to do that job - but there's a limit to how much signal you can feed into the power stage (or any other stage of an amp) before it cries "Enough!" and starts to clip.
Well it's like salt. It must be used judiciously or you'll spoil the meal.
If you can use a hotter wound pickup and still run clean you can also boost the output of a vintage wound lower output single coil and run clean too. The reason I like doing it is that all of my Teles have a treble bleed so I don't need to run the volume wide open to preserve my tone.
If I set the boost pedal up for it then I can run clean with the volume pulled back and just roll up the guitar volume for some grittier tone. Or I can just run full up on the volume and boost it a bit with the pedal. It works. You can trust me.
Now about that beach front property in Colorado I was pitching you on just recently. Let's talk about that some more. The price is outrageously good and it's only a short commute to the ocean.
Well it's like salt. It must be used judiciously or you'll spoil the meal.
If you can use a hotter wound pickup and still run clean you can also boost the output of a vintage wound lower output single coil and run clean too. The reason I like doing it is that all of my Teles have a treble bleed so I don't need to run the volume wide open to preserve my tone.
If I set the boost pedal up for it then I can run clean with the volume pulled back and just roll up the guitar volume for some grittier tone. Or I can just run full up on the volume and boost it a bit with the pedal. It works. You can trust me.
Now about that beach front property in Colorado I was pitching you on just recently. Let's talk about that some more. The price is outrageously good and it's only a short commute to the ocean.
Come on, even I know the coast of Colorado is usually ice-bound this time of year...I take your points absolutely; I was just making one of my own, which doesn't conflict. But I still reckon you can achieve the same thing with the crunch settings. Still, you know what you like to hear and who am I to question that?
One thing I will say, though, is that I tend to remove the treble bleeds from my guitars, because usually the component values were ill-chosen and overdid the effect with the volume backed off. Sucked all the guts out of the sound. In one or two guitars they've got it right, so I've left those alone. In the majority I can't be arsed to experiment with different cap/resistor values, so I just clip 'em altogether and have done with it. Sounds fine for my needs.
