Hi All,
Getting ot the point where I need to make a couple of potential choices, and as I thought it would make an interesting discussion, I thought I'd open a thread... do I...
1. Double down with Katana. I have a K50 and it has all the FX I'd ever need built in, but to get the very most i'd need to upgrade to a K100 or K100 Artist (or K100 head and a cab, all same difference) and buy the full foot controller and an expression pedal - big investment.
or...
2. Go down the route of a valve amp and some pedals, big change of tack and as mostly a home player some potential disadvantages, but obviously more giggable and leads to having a pedal board for events like the TFB jams.
I guess I can't be the only player making these kinds of choices, hence this thread, so what are everyone's thoughts?
You are the dreamer, and the dream...
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My current setup - Blackstar HT 50 plus cab in 4cm with Boss GT 100 is a bit of a pain to lug around to rehearsals and is suited in the cupboard in between use. I currently prefer the multi effects to individual pedals as I'm a vocalist as well as guitarist and being able to change amp channels and effects with a single button press gets rid of tap dancing mistakes. Pedals are great but less practical for me and I don't miss having sold them.
I'm thinking of selling my amp/cab and just using multi effects, possibly switching to a Helix. But another part of me thinks that the Victory preamp pedals look really interesting and one of those plus a power amp all on a single pedal board with multi effects could be the way forward...
I would happily gig a Helix or any other modelling setup. In fact, I regular gigged a BOSS rack unit (GT Pro??) about 10 years ago, straight into the return of a Marshall DSL combo. I quite like the idea of the new power cab to go with my Helix, and that should give me everything I could possibly need for gigging and home use.
But....
I like amps. I like pedals. I like the simplicity sometimes of a guitar straight into an amp, maybe with a pedal or two. I often find that with the Helix I can spend an hour or three just fiddling with sounds whereas when I plug into my Blackstar HT-5 I have a clean sound, a dirty sound and that's about it. I like that sometimes.
I don't think I would get rid of the Helix - I love it - but equally I don't think I would want to own JUST the Helix. My own view is that I like more than one guitar and I also like more than one amp. I see many people who have several guitars and always on the lookout for the next, but are happy with a single amp setup. Each to their own, but that's not me.
The head is great for home use with it's inbuilt speaker, just sit it on the side, hook up a laptop and noodle away.. rarely use the controller at home unless I want perform a song with patch changes obviously.
I bought the Katana head because of its home/live balance... no need for a bigger combo.. or using headphones with the HD500X; was looking at stuff like the Yamaha THR10 and stuff but the Kat head won, and is still winning
is it crazy how saying sentences backwards creates backwards sentences saying how crazy it is?
Scratch away!
As i understand it the Katana takes pedals reasonably well so you can experiment with different sounds and still have a pedalboard for tfb jams.
:]
I've got a Katana 100 but not got the foot control and expression pedal. I haven't used the effects much but with the controls I think I would start using them more. I have a few pedals but I just end up messing around with the knobs and not really playing anything. I do think I will go all out Katana, keep only a couple of pedals, an OD and a couple of modulations in the effects loop, and sell the rest. Being a home player for the foreseeable future, I have no need for a valve amp.
What expression pedal to get? Should I stick with Boss, such as an EV-30 or something else?
I have a couple of old Bespeco and Zoom expression pedals and none of them worked with the Katana, so I ended up with whatever the recommended Roland one was.
EDIT; just checked, it was the EV-5.
The best thing is the flexibility - I can plug the pedalboard into the big amp when I can, but plug into a small amp (THR10C in my case), and get almost the same sounds with headphones at 11 at night.
The Katana came out and seemed ideal but people where debating the blackstar core stuff too so I got one of each and decided the Katana 50 was for me (despite the lack of a looper that the blackstar had) and I returned the blackstar.
I soon came to realise the K50 needs the tone studio to get the sounds I needed which is annoying as it’s main selling point was it’s not a modeler you can use it like a normal amp (you can’t).
After months of faffing about I learnt that the K50 is great for very low volume stuff but lacks the balls and punch for higher volumes so............
i bought an Orange valve amp with built in attenuator and love it.
The K50 I’ll keep but I’m not using it anywhere near as often as I once was.