Only months after finding and falling in love with the Elektron Digitakt I am stoked on a new piece of gear that will be integral to my music career on the road - the Roland AC-33 streetmusic amp.
As I have written in the past I am a really demanding customer. Most of the products I come across are junk - they promise way too much, deliver way too little and leave out the most obvious features or workflow optimizations despite their potential to deliver. It feels like mockery a lot of the times, to be honest. I can't stand the state of products today, generally speaking.
All the more reason I was so amazed when I finally decided on an amplifier for busking with my lady on the streets of Europe beginning this coming spring. We got the hint about the Roland amp from a few good friends and I was able to get one barely used for half the price.
Tried it out today and man, am I stoked!
It runs on 12 Volt DC power or 6 AA batteries with shocking volume, clarity and rich sound. The amp features several inputs, aux ins and outs, Roland's famous stereo chorus as well as really useable reverb and ambience dials. The amp is lightweight, it's tiny in relation to its sound and I'm just so happy I freakin' committed.
Oh yeah, it also has some basic but totally useful looping capabilities on-board. I jammed the barebones of like three totally awesome tracks on the spot just because the looper is so awesome and inspiring. Really wish I would have never sold my big loop station back when I was still starting out and thinking I could never learn all the required skills - but here it is in my life again, in a smaller variety built into an amplifier I dig!
My girl and I will be trying the amp out together next week, pairing both a preamp'ed acoustic guitar and a Ukulele with two mics to see if that is workable or too demanding for the amp. Since it has line outs we can always add another active speaker to the rig to make it more powerful but we really want to just amp our natural volume a little and not build a freakin' PA system in the street. Since researching busking I have found many people recommending to not go overboard with volume as to not annoy the locals or the self-appointed authorities.
Played the amp for a few hours today and wow - I think guitar is finally finding its way back into my life. To say that I feel inspired is a huge understatement. Hey Roland, thanks a ton for making this awesome amp! And of course major thanks to the dude who ditched his early guitar career to make this amp available to us for so little.
What an amazing turn of events this year has been, be excited for the first busking adventures starting in spring 2020 which I will definitely write about, maybe even film about ;) It will be AWESOME <3
reverb.com
roland.com
interstatemusic.com
Thanks for stopping by <3