Boss has unveiled the next evolution in its Cube series of practice amps, the Dual Cube LX for electric guitar and Dual Cube Bass LX for bass.
The Dual Cube LX is built to be perfectly at home on your desktop but is really the sort of amp you can take anywhere, requiring eight AA batteries or an AC adaptor to power it. Harnessing the power of digital technology, the Dual Cube LX series offers players a wide array of sounds and all manner of modern connectivity options.
Housing a pair of 4” drivers in a compact combo that weighs under seven and a half pounds, the Dual Cube LX is described by Boss as “a desktop powerhouse” offering 10-watts, and eight guitar amp models that cover all the main tone groups.
There’s an Acoustic Sim, JC Clean, US Combo, Brit Combo, Hi-Gain Stack, Metal Stack, Extreme, a Mic preamp for using the amp as a vocal PA, and a Stereo In amp type for incorporating amp modeling units and pedalboards. The spatial signal processing is designed to endow the amp with a voice that belies its size.
The amp types are selected via rotary dial, with each amp including three user programmable memories so you can save and recall your favorite sounds, with a total of 27 memory slots available.
There is a lot going on with the Dual Cube LX but the front panel looks welcoming enough. After selecting amp type, there are dials for Gain, Volume, Bass, Middle and Treble.
The seven onboard effects are shared across two dials. The Effects dial controls chorus, flanger, phaser, tremolo and Heavy Octave effects, while delay and reverb are nested on the adjacent dial, with a button on-hand for setting tap tempo.
There is an onboard looper – though this requires a footswitch, sold separately – a headphones output for silent practice, a mic volume mini dial and a master volume control.
But Boss is encouraging players to look beyond the front panel when dialing in sounds, offering deep edits made easy via the Dual Cube LX Editor app (smartphone/Mac/PC).
These amps might be ideal for practice but with the USB outputs they make handy tools for livestreaming or recording, while the stereo line output is equipped with mic’d cab emulation so you can send the signal direct to the PA when performing live.
You can hook up to two control footswitches, and there is of course Bluetooth for streaming audio, and an aux-in for external audio sources.
The Dual Cube Bass LX offers a similar set of features from a slightly larger 2x5” format.
Bassists have five amps to choose from, with options comprising Rock, Modern, Vintage, Flat and Super Flat, and there are five onboard effects, with chorus, flanger and T-Wah housed on the Effects dial, and delay and reverb offered similarly to its guitar amp sibling. Again, there are three memory slots per amp type.
The Dual Cube Bass LX is equipped with a rhythm engine that offers three variations on nine different rhythms, ranging from a metronome to rock, jazz, metal and Latin drum grooves.
Altogether there are 91 rhythms when using the Dual Cube LX Editor app. The Dual Cube Bass LX has a balanced stereo XLR output, and if you have a EV-1-WL Wireless MIDI expression pedal to hand you can ditch the cables and control the onboard wah remotely.
The Dual Cube LX is priced $299, while the Dual Cube Bass LX is priced $359. Both are expected to ship September. See Boss for more details.
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