Headphones with a Boss Katana sounded KAK

skunkwerx

I thought I’d put this here just in case it helps anyone else. 

Today I took delivery of a pair of Audio Technica ATH-m50x closed back headphones. (My first foray into using this style of headphones and also with using headphones with an amp for guitar playing). 

I also bought a Blackstar Tone link, which was about £20 (this isnt relevant but I’ll add it anyway). 

I generally like the sound of the Katana I have. A Mk1 (original version) 100 2x12 combo. Sure its not the best but its ok. 

I wanted a pair of headphones so I could play late and also play along to my tunes easily at the same time. 

To start off I plugged the headphones straight into the Phones/rec socket on the back and turned everything on and played. 

It sounded awful. By awful I mean, clean was not so bad (I’m a clean or all the gain metal type, no inbetween crunch or breakup at all), but the distortion tones were abysmal. 

It was pure fizz. A can o bee’s or wasps. Maybe both. I wouldnt call it tinny, but it really was fizzy and nasty to my ears. I thought I’d wasted my money as it totally wasnt enjoyable. 

I plugged the headphones into my Blackstar 10 series one combo and it sounded better. 

Not the headphones then. 

Now, I didnt expect it to sound great from the get go, using headphones with these amps, but the Katana pissed me off some with its antics. 

So I did some reading and really the only options to try playing with are two settings on the Katana which have to be accessed via the Boss Tone Studio. 

Plugged the amp into the laptop and opened tone studio. My amp only has firmware version 2 and Boss last released version 4 lol.. but this still worked.

Under a system tab I could open a selection of other tabs (stuff like Cab sim, Line out air feel, global Eq). 

Its the Cab Sim and Line out air feel you can mess with. 

Both of those options map to the Headphone/rec socket, the Line out socket and the Usb socket on the back of your Katana.  

They only change the tone from those 3 outputs, ie have no effect if you are just plugged in and playing through your amp speaker as normal. 

For each option you have 3 settings. 

Line out air feel:
Live 
Rec
Blend

Cab Sim: 
Vintage
Modern
Deep

Mine was already set by default to Line out air feel = live and Cab sim = modern. 

The line out air feel was the issue. 

Live is supposed to simulate the amp ‘in the room’ basically.
Rec is close miked or straight to a recording platform. 

Blend is a mix of the two. 

I changed from Live to Rec and the difference was drastic.

 Much closer to how the amp usually sounds through the speakers (contrary to Boss description of these options). Live sounded nothing like how the amp actually sounds, at all. At least through headphones, to me. 

I tried blend and it was ok, but introduced the Wasps and fizz again. So back to Rec. 

At first I wasnt sure Rec sounded that great either but it was certainly the best of the three options. It sounds bassier, fuller less fizzy. My guitar is dark sounding and the headphones arent bass heavy but do have an emphasis on bass. 

After playing for a while I got accustomed to the headphone sound. Sure, its not ever going to be that great, but using the Rec setting certainly made it much better and basically fine for the purposes needed. 

It sounds ok now.

I played a few metallica riffs over and over switching between the Line air out feels, and also changing my amp settings to better get a tone suitable for my headphones. 

I then did the same but started changing the Cab sim settings. 

I liked Vintage but for what I play, Modern was the best (and the default anyway). I’d prefer the Modern cab setting to have a lil less low end thumpyness but its ok I guess, could maybe dial it out but its not overbearing. 

Deep I dont really know what that did tbh lol. 

Once changed, those settings are global, whether you select one of your presets, or dial in a tone from the panel. You can’t assign a specific line air out or cab sim to a certain channel (at least not on version 2 firmware). Maybe you can on version 4.. But I’m scared to update it incase it fucks things up lol. 

Bit of a shame as I liked the Vintage cab sim on my clean tones, but much preferred modern on the driven tones. Though tbh on the clean tones there wasnt a whole heap in it. 

A quick note about the blackstar tonelink: 

The katana has an Aux in (like a lot of amps) on the back, so you could just plug your phone in via a 3.5mm aux cable. But the Tone Link is a little wireless bluetooth box that plugs in to it via its 3.5mm double barrel jack (or cable whichever you use as both are included). 

Its a receiver only, so you connect your device to it and stream audio to it. 

The upside is, can use it in anything that has an aux socket that you want to make wireless. It has an in built battery thats rechargeable and is a small lil thing too. Just connect whatever device you have that has bluetooth. 

Not exactly a problem plugging my phone in via a cable but I thought I’d give it a go see if it worked. It does. Lol. Now I know. 

classvibepluskatana

Better of just getting a different pair of headphones. Don't get one with a microphone.
Reddit has some recommendations, like Superlux HD-330 or Audio Technica ATH-M20X for more high-end. Others were Sony or Seinnheiser. I go Roland RH-5 and they're fine (I'm not an audio buff, I just want to practice).

Catthan

i’ve had similar issues with silent recording through HPs.
 i’d suggest some verb, maybe a quick slap back and change your eq to smth that works for the cans, ie cutting between 1-3K and above 5k