Roland U.S.

Product Spotlight: Cube 60 Guitar Amp

Streamlining With The Cube-60

by Paul McCombs

Like most musicians playing in Sunday worship services, I am not a “paid professional.” A successful contemporary worship musician should, in my opinion, be driven by a heart for worship and a desire to return more than was originally given.

I’m very blessed to have the opportunity to play lead guitar for the contemporary worship band for Cypress Creek Christian Church in Spring, Texas. Cypress Creek meets in a 900-seat multi-function building that also serves as a meeting place for many community organizations. This, as you can imagine, presents a host of Sunday morning audio challenges for the sound engineer and to the band.

The contemporary worship service is immediately followed by a traditional worship service, so we have to address inherent logistical challenges every week. Specifically, how to completely clear the stage of drums, keyboards, guitars, bass, mics, etc., and then rearrange it for the traditional service … all within a 10–15 minute timeframe. One of the things we did to facilitate a fast exit was to build a rolling drum platform that holds the entire kit and related mics. We also use in-ear monitors and wireless mics.

The simplification of my guitar hardware was also necessary. At Cypress Creek, as in many churches, stage space is tight, so my amp rig has to be small and my onstage volume has to be limited. The Roland Cube 60 seems “made to order” for my needs. My Cube 60 sits on a short stool with its back to the congregation, facing me. My whole rig sits on a low furniture dolly and fits compactly under my music stand.

I also needed to rethink my pedal requirements. With so much sonic flexibility built into the Cube, I was able to reduce my pedals to just BOSS FS-5Us for channel and effects switching, and a volume/wah. That's all I need for 99% of my live worship service playing. When the service ends, I just place the pedals on the dolly and roll the entire rig off stage and into storage … that means greatly reduced setup and breakdown time.

I Velcro’d a DI box to the back of the Cube, and it sends audio directly to the console and multi-track recording equipment. Turning the Cube toward me and going direct to the console helps keep my guitar out of the stage mics, which is advantageous for multitrack editing and mixing.

I also installed an APS computer backup battery on the dolly to power the Cube, wah, and my laptop, on which I store scanned images of our music lead sheets. The simplicity of the Cube's knob layout and having it at arms length means that I can easily make adjustments on the fly. The wide variety of amp simulators in the Cube 60 is such a great tool for use in weekly contemporary worship.

Our music director, Stephanie Hickman, is a prolific songwriter, composing scripture-based songs as needed to ensure that our worship music complements the weekly sermon. The Cube 60 provides a wide variety of expressions from which I can choose to help bring her original compositions to life.

The Cube 60’s sonic flexibility and reliability allow me to concentrate on my worship service playing, and not my hardware. And did I mention it sounds like a million bucks?

Blessings!
Paul McCombs

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Bio: Paul McCombs has been playing CCM in the Houston area since 1975, and is a huge fan of Roland amps and Carvin guitars.

Email: Paul@stonesoupmusic.org
Stone Soup Website: www.stonesoupmusic.org
Church Website: www.cypresscreekdoc.org