Went over to Promenade Music, in Morecambe this morning, my first visit there, since the lockdown.
I've recently joined a classic rock band and realised straightaway, that my Roland Blues Cube Hot is a tad small for the situation.
I wanted a solid state, 2x12 combo, so I went over to check out the ubiquitous Katana 100 and Fender's Champion 100xl.
I've heard a lot of very nasty and nice things, said about the Katana but I decided to try it out for myself.
It's a fairly low cost amp but Fender's Champion 100xl is cheap as chips.
The shop guy set them both up and I A/B'd them, going back and forth a number of times.
Build wise, there's no doubt the Katana 2x12 combo has a more solid feel and has metal jack inputs, the Champion's are plastic.
Infact the Boss was weightier than I'd imagined, which is a good thing, as I had the preconception that it may be a bit flimsy.
Basically I want the amp for 3 main sounds: AC/DC style overdrive, Clean and a heavy overdrive, bordering on Metal.
The Fender did a very nice clean and a decent Metal tone but the crunch and heavy crunch settings, I didn't like at all.
The Katana is a more involved amp, with lots of easily accessible, knob operated, amp sounds and effects.
And I managed, after a fair bit of knob twiddling, to get the sounds I was after.
The amp testing room at Prom is quite small, so I asked if I could face the amps down the shop and crank them up.
Yes I could and I found that the Boss didn't sound as nice, far off, it seemed to loose some of it's body.
This concerned me and I went completely off track and tried a Marshall DSL40CR, valve combo.
No, I really didn't like that either.
So I went back to the Katana, with the distance testing and fiddled with the EQ.
Turned out that by increasing the bass knob, I got the sound I was after.
So I coughed up the readies for the amp and a GA-FC footswitch and brought them home.
Now all I need is the cover and I'm set.
Comments
Something to do with working the power stage, over the pre amp stage.
So far I've found as long as you have the Master above 9 o'clock, it sounds good.
We're lucky in the North West, having Prom, Sound Affects and Frets.