Boss Katana

[JerEvil]

My GDEC bit the dust. Marshall Code, Katana and Yamaha were the main choices for small practice amp.
Looks like Katana in landslide.

I played mine again last night. I still feel the same about it. I would pay $350 again tomorrow for it and then some. Hell, Iv'e paid more for boutique pedals. One of my old band mates came over last night and I demoed it for him. He was like "Get the fuck out, how much?"

I could see using this Boss in a place I didn't want to drag my $6K rig to. Or if I wanted something light weight and easy. Or for a backup to my main rig. Or gig with it all the time. Most people would never notice the damn difference anyway. OR... if I wanted to jam out in my pickup truck...

I almost felt shame playing the expensive stuff out for a 30 minute set. As an original metal band that's all we get around here.

Anyway. Carry on.

Fixed that for ya!

 

[Marshall Freak]

I'm curious if anyone has done any comparison to the Yamaha THR10X? Seems its sorta similar. The Yamaha obviously falls short on a lot of things that the Boss can do, but how about the sound in general? Does it blow it away or are they close??

I have the THR10X. It sounds great. But the Katana blows it out. My 2 cents.

The 5 inch speaker? Or plugged into a cabinet? Or both? I like my little thr10x a lot for home practice.

Actually never plugged it into a larger cab. I got some great vh1 tones out of the Yamaha on its own with the built in speaker. How do you slave it out to a bigger cab? Thru the Headphone out jack?
I would like to give it a whirl actually.

Sorry, after you said katana sounds better than the yamaha, I meant does the 5 inch speaker in the boss, sound better tan the Yamaha with its 2.5 inch speakers? Or were you meaning the Katana plugged into a speaker cabinet sounds better than the Yamaha?

 

[Marshall Freak]

Late to the party here, and I didn't read the entire thread so forgive me if I'm being redundant. I've had the 100w 1x12 combo for several months now (bought it on Halloween) and it's a total winner.
For the price of a booteek pedal, it's a total no-brainer. I bought it simply to have another practice amp that I was hoping would do double duty for use at jam sessions. Mission accomplished...this thing can hang with a band without even breaking a sweat. I've had no fear of using it as a back up to my live rig ever since...I haven't needed to use it in that manner but I wasn't concerned either.
The kicker for me is the feel and dynamic response...I like it even better than my old Axe-Fx in that regard. All for less money than I would blow on a single night out.
I'm not about conduct an amp sell-off, but this thing is too much fun not to own. If you can't make it sound great, the problem is in your mirror.

How is the speaker in that combo? Did you compare it to head/cab when you bought it, or did you order it from somewhere?

 

[Mailman1971]

I'm curious if anyone has done any comparison to the Yamaha THR10X? Seems its sorta similar. The Yamaha obviously falls short on a lot of things that the Boss can do, but how about the sound in general? Does it blow it away or are they close??

I have the THR10X. It sounds great. But the Katana blows it out. My 2 cents.

The 5 inch speaker? Or plugged into a cabinet? Or both? I like my little thr10x a lot for home practice.

Actually never plugged it into a larger cab. I got some great vh1 tones out of the Yamaha on its own with the built in speaker. How do you slave it out to a bigger cab? Thru the Headphone out jack?
I would like to give it a whirl actually.

Sorry, after you said katana sounds better than the yamaha, I meant does the 5 inch speaker in the boss, sound better tan the Yamaha with its 2.5 inch speakers? Or were you meaning the Katana plugged into a speaker cabinet sounds better than the Yamaha?

Oh my bad. Never played the Katana with the internal speaker.
But this weekend I am gonna try the Yamaha first time thru a cab and also try the little speaker in the Katana.

 

[Jeff Hilligan]

blah blah blah.....really gonna say this amp isn't all that if the 5 inch speaker doesn't sound good?

Just love it for what it is!

 

[MrDowntown]

Any Katana owners have a comparison, or prior experience with a Pod HD500? That's the last non-vavlve piece of gear I bought. i know the Boss isn't a modeler...just curious how they compare sound wise. I imagine the boss sounds quite a bit better than the HD.

 

[rupe]

Late to the party here, and I didn't read the entire thread so forgive me if I'm being redundant. I've had the 100w 1x12 combo for several months now (bought it on Halloween) and it's a total winner.
For the price of a booteek pedal, it's a total no-brainer. I bought it simply to have another practice amp that I was hoping would do double duty for use at jam sessions. Mission accomplished...this thing can hang with a band without even breaking a sweat. I've had no fear of using it as a back up to my live rig ever since...I haven't needed to use it in that manner but I wasn't concerned either.
The kicker for me is the feel and dynamic response...I like it even better than my old Axe-Fx in that regard. All for less money than I would blow on a single night out.
I'm not about conduct an amp sell-off, but this thing is too much fun not to own. If you can't make it sound great, the problem is in your mirror.

How is the speaker in that combo? Did you compare it to head/cab when you bought it, or did you order it from somewhere?

The speaker is actually good. I bought a Scumback at the same time to replace it, but haven't felt the need. It was supposedly voiced for this amp...seems to do a good job.
I haven't tried it through any of my cabinets yet (no speaker out) but I plan to wire up a jack so I can do that.

 

[cecilbag]

Any Katana owners have a comparison, or prior experience with a Pod HD500? That's the last non-vavlve piece of gear I bought. i know the Boss isn't a modeler...just curious how they compare sound wise. I imagine the boss sounds quite a bit better than the HD.

I would say it's much more authentic sounding and feels way better. But take that with a grain of salt because I've always disliked the line 6 stuff I've tried other than the spider valve. I liked that as a practice amp.

 

[Marshall Freak]

blah blah blah.....really gonna say this amp isn't all that if the 5 inch speaker doesn't sound good?

Just love it for what it is!

I was just asking for comparison sake since I have a Yamaha, how that speaker compared. Wasn't a make or break question, just curious.

 

[Gsxrbusa]

My GDEC bit the dust. Marshall Code, Katana and Yamaha were the main choices for small practice amp.
Looks like Katana in landslide.

I played mine again last night. I still feel the same about it. I would pay $350 again tomorrow for it and then some. Hell, Iv'e paid more for boutique pedals. One of my old band mates came over last night and I demoed it for him. He was like "Get the fuck out, how much?"

I could see using this Boss in a place I didn't want to drag my $6K rig to. Or if I wanted something light weight and easy. Or for a backup to my main rig. Or gig with it all the time. Most people would never notice the damn difference anyway. OR... if I wanted to jam out in my pickup truck...

I almost felt shame playing the expensive stuff out for a 30 minute set. As an original metal band that's all we get around here.

Anyway. Carry on.

Fixed that for ya!

 

[Gsxrbusa]

I made a grandpa's guitar clip. I normally don't play acoustic and I suck at it but whatever. The Katana has an acoustic channel. Not an acoustic sim from what I understand, it's more a channel for your acoustic guitar. This is a cheaper Ibanez.

 

[crankyrayhanky]

That is nice

 

[milfwah]

This is a clip of my Katana on the left side and my 1983 JCM800 4104
on the right side. The 4104 is played into a Hotplate used as a load then into my computer using Reaper.
I used one of those new Celestion created Greenback 4x12 IRs. In this way I was able to run the JCM800 with the master volume @6
and the preamp volume @6. Treb5 Bass5 mid7 pres5.

The katana I ran the line out into the SAME computer interface's input and even left the speaker IR engaged
in spite of the Katana's line out being speaker compensated. there is no added reverb or any
processing of either guitar channel. Both tracked guitars are dry other than the amps and IRs.If you have a good speaker system you'll find the two sides to be remarkably
matched sound wise. Almost scary that this $300 amp can do this with this ease
https://soundcloud.com/user-545114536/awsome-with-katana-100c-on-right-and-marahsll-4104-on-left

 

[Beandust]

OK so I got mine today!! I can't seem to smooth it out. It's a mean sombitch! Its fn loud! I think the 50 watt setting is louder than any 50 watt ss I remember. Do I need to go to the edit software? I am running into a Mesa cab with v30s. And it's fun as he'll to play but it's a tad thrashy and the lows and mids I can't quite settle on. So far my favorite tone is the crunch channel with the distortion mod and a tad of verb and delay.. it sounds better than the brown and lead channels running it this way....any friendly advice would be greatly appreciated

 

[Beandust]

Any Katana owners have a comparison, or prior experience with a Pod HD500? That's the last non-vavlve piece of gear I bought. i know the Boss isn't a modeler...just curious how they compare sound wise. I imagine the boss sounds quite a bit better than the HD.

I would say it's much more authentic sounding and feels way better. But take that with a grain of salt because I've always disliked the line 6 stuff I've tried other than the spider valve. I liked that as a practice amp.

 

[Beandust]

The boss isn't digital sounding like the podhd500x I had, I had the spider valve and like it a tad better (100watthead) but it was digital and a tad sterile. The Katana is definitely not digital. A little rough on the tone stack, at least for me. Just got it today. Saying I can use it instead of a BE100 and be just as happy is a fucking LIE!!! It's a cool piece of gear but a master volume channel switching moded modern plexi it is not and shouldn't be mentioned anywhere in the same paragraph.

 

[Shask]

OK so I got mine today!! I can't seem to smooth it out. It's a mean sombitch! Its fn loud! I think the 50 watt setting is louder than any 50 watt ss I remember. Do I need to go to the edit software? I am running into a Mesa cab with v30s. And it's fun as he'll to play but it's a tad thrashy and the lows and mids I can't quite settle on. So far my favorite tone is the crunch channel with the distortion mod and a tad of verb and delay.. it sounds better than the brown and lead channels running it this way....any friendly advice would be greatly appreciated

I find the highs can be a bit much sometimes. One of my cabs sounded better than the other in this regard. I have been keeping the presence about 2 and the treble about noon. I have only had it a few days though, so I have a lot of tweaking to do.

It does help to put the parametric EQ in and tweak it. I like to scoop the mids some, and still working on the highs. I am going to play with putting a notch filter around 3000-4000 hz next time I mess around with it.

 

[Beandust]

OK so I got mine today!! I can't seem to smooth it out. It's a mean sombitch! Its fn loud! I think the 50 watt setting is louder than any 50 watt ss I remember. Do I need to go to the edit software? I am running into a Mesa cab with v30s. And it's fun as he'll to play but it's a tad thrashy and the lows and mids I can't quite settle on. So far my favorite tone is the crunch channel with the distortion mod and a tad of verb and delay.. it sounds better than the brown and lead channels running it this way....any friendly advice would be greatly appreciated

I find the highs can be a bit much sometimes. One of my cabs sounded better than the other in this regard. I have been keeping the presence about 2 and the treble about noon. I have only had it a few days though, so I have a lot of tweaking to do.

It does help to put the parametric EQ in and tweak it. I like to scoop the mids some, and still working on the highs. I am going to play with putting a notch filter around 3000-4000 hz next time I mess around with it.

Thanks. I will try that

 

[atrox]

The boss isn't digital sounding like the podhd500x I had, I had the spider valve and like it a tad better (100watthead) but it was digital and a tad sterile. The Katana is definitely not digital. A little rough on the tone stack, at least for me. Just got it today. Saying I can use it instead of a BE100 and be just as happy is a fucking LIE!!! It's a cool piece of gear but a master volume channel switching moded modern plexi it is not and shouldn't be mentioned anywhere in the same paragraph.

Cool. So i'm lying? Sure, it's not nearly as dynamic as my BE, but if my BE was down or unavailable and all i had is my Katana, i'd have zero issues gigging that fucker. I got it to sound extremely close to my Friedman. Yes... missing the dynamics that makes the Friedman so glorious, but the tone was very close at gigging volumes. Add the ParaEQ in the FX slot and you can get pretty much any tone you want out of it.

Will it replace my BE? Hell no. The Boss sits in my basement hooked up to my computer for recording, but i'm sure happy as hell that i can always use that as a backup.

I do actually prefer the tone of Katana over my DSL100.

Also, the Katana sounds better at band volumes. IMO... waaaaay better

 

[Beandust]

Not sure where your reading my post where I put I* was in reference to you?????????? That meant me!!!! Last time I checked that is what I* means... maybe your paranoid or figured it was some hidden message on your account? Sorry, I was talking about me and MY BE100 not yours.wtf dude. I'll try the equipment in the edit