Boss Katana 100 gig report

p90fool

Cheers @welshboyo ;, sorry about the camera mic clipping! 
I will hopefully get a chance to do a quick video of the Katana this week, though only at home volume. 

vasselmeyer

@p90fool I see what you mean about constantly riding the volume control. I never grew up with valve amps so never learned this technique at all. I've gone completely the other way and have a floor switcher which brings in a preset combination of channels, effects and levels with one push. That's a lovely demo of how you use your amp as an instrument in itself.

darthed1981

I think what this thread proves is that the Katana can very nearly fill the very specific needs that p90fool has, remember the 50 costs £170!  The 100, if it floats your boat, is £220 or so.  Pennies in comparison to many valve amps.

So for the ten thumbed noise polluters like me, it will be all the amp you ever need.  Only GAS will make you feel you need more for a lot of us.

That is a staggeringly strong endorsement IMHO.

sweepy

One thing that sold the Katana to me was to set it on Brown sound and control it with the volume control on the guitar  like a good old fashioned single channel amp. Using this approach even made the fella in PMT look twice as he’d never had chance to try the Katana out and was mightily impressed by the dynamics and tone albeit with a PRS

darthed1981

sweepy said:

One thing that sold the Katana to me was to set it on Brown sound and control it with the volume control on the guitar  like a good old fashioned single channel amp. Using this approach even made the fella in PMT look twice as he’d never had chance to try the Katana out and was mightily impressed by the dynamics and tone albeit with a PRS

In my local PMT they seemed rather cynical about the Katana, and push Blackstar hard.  Not sure if that is the honest opinion of the guys in the store, or a result of their commercial relationship.

Plectrum

darthed1981 said:

sweepy said:

One thing that sold the Katana to me was to set it on Brown sound and control it with the volume control on the guitar  like a good old fashioned single channel amp. Using this approach even made the fella in PMT look twice as he’d never had chance to try the Katana out and was mightily impressed by the dynamics and tone albeit with a PRS

In my local PMT they seemed rather cynical about the Katana, and push Blackstar hard.  Not sure if that is the honest opinion of the guys in the store, or a result of their commercial relationship.

PMT have form for pushing Blackstar over other amps.

p90fool

Well here's a quick phone clip of my Katana at quiet-ish home volume, excuse the cold arthritic fingers, I just got in off my motorbike.

Unsurprisingly, it just sounds like any old Strat through any old amp, it's not going to set the world on fire but it's warm but with plenty of bite, and the only thing digital-sounding about it is the phone mic being overloaded. It's fun to play too, feeling totally natural.

Obviously that's just one sound among a massive variety available, but it's a serviceable default setting for just getting some work done in a variety of styles for rehearsing or in front of the laptop. I have various boosts and modulation stuff available in the floor controller, but as a generic "make a guitar noise here" patch it's fine.

If it stayed exactly like that at gig volume I'd be very happy for the price, next stop is to plug it into a Classic Lead 80 loaded cab.

midlifecrisis

aww, says its unavailable

darthed1981

Plectrum said:

darthed1981 said:

sweepy said:

One thing that sold the Katana to me was to set it on Brown sound and control it with the volume control on the guitar  like a good old fashioned single channel amp. Using this approach even made the fella in PMT look twice as he’d never had chance to try the Katana out and was mightily impressed by the dynamics and tone albeit with a PRS

In my local PMT they seemed rather cynical about the Katana, and push Blackstar hard.  Not sure if that is the honest opinion of the guys in the store, or a result of their commercial relationship.

PMT have form for pushing Blackstar over other amps.

Well the Northampton store is literally plastered with Blackstar ads - so I assume a strong commercial relationship exists.

p90fool

midlifecrisis said:

aww, says its unavailable

Arse. 
Not sure what happened there, I'll sort it tomorrow. 

Maxx77

Got mine this weekend.
Tried yesterday with the band. Loved it. Brown channel, cleans very well with guitar volume.
Lacks a little bass but from what i read, via tone studio can get around.
Speaker needs to be break also, the usual, but for the first taste, a great buy

p90fool

Ok, try this one, just a quick phone vid 



I'm just noodling about with the looper of a Zoom G3 in the FX loop of my Katana, Brown channel with the gain set very low.

Haha I've just actually listened to that properly, you can't beat trying to follow a badly played in loop you can't quite hear properly *blush*

AdamHarkusBlog

I have a BIG problem with the amount (or lack of) punch in a live scenario...

I'm going to experiment with boosting the low-mids with the parametic EQ.

Honest opinion?  I really want to love the katana, It's light, small, super-versatile and a fabulous home practice amp,  but as soon as the drummer and bassist pipe up, my tone is dissappearing with the MID maxed and not even that much gain.

clarkefan

The gig thing is puzzling. The huge Katana thread on TGP is full of people saying how great the amp works live (well, at least,it was, I stopped dipping into it months ago). Weird how perceptions can be so different.

mr-mac

See for a one box solution.  If there is a good combo out there that would do the trick (s/h even better) if choose right one could cut a slot and i stall a digitech gsp1101 in the combo case and 4 cable it internally.  Then you have a Single unit with valves or an SS that makes a great pedal platform) and have your efx, choice of amps preamp or modelling and even have a cab model IR capable XLR out that could go to pa if it needs a tiny bit of reinforcement for roudy gig.

any amp that has room to cut a slot (maybe on top rear) to house gsp would do.  Then you take amp and if you want the control 2 board and that's it

monquixote

clarkefan said:

The gig thing is puzzling. The huge Katana thread on TGP is full of people saying how great the amp works live (well, at least,it was, I stopped dipping into it months ago). Weird how perceptions can be so different.

A huge percentage of people on US forums play in church I imagine that's quite different from the classic rock in pubs bias we have here.

clarkefan

A very good point.

p90fool

That's where I'm going wrong! 

Maxx77

2 gigs, not in a bar, but in a controlled environment. line out to mixer. electronic drum.
no problem being heard, but it was difficult to hear my self.