Katana!!!

[Rock Bodom]

Forget the "I tried it at GC for a few minutes", or "clips aren't doing it for me", or "I don't want to look like a lemming".

Buy the head, spend the evening with it. Tell me in the morning if you'd kick her out of bed.

This cheap floozy is a keeper for me.

 

[Kapo_Polenton]

It's the Friedman Be-100 overdrive pedal hysteria all over again..

Still don't get the allure of this one. It just sounds like a bees in a box sort of pedal to me..

 

[braintheory]

It's the Friedman Be-100 overdrive pedal hysteria all over again..

Still don't get the allure of this one. It just sounds like a bees in a box sort of pedal to me..

I was also quite disappointed with the BE overdrive pedal. They probably just sell so well and have great resale value because of the Friedman name on them. I tried though the new KHDK Dark Blood distortion pedal and that absolutely destroyed the BE pedal! It was definitely the best distortion pedal I've ever tried, but still not 100% sure if I'd have use for one or not. Still curious about Friedmans upcoming tube driven fuzz and overdrive pedals though

 

[jlb32]

I have no interest or anything to say about it, I just didn't think there were enough threads here yet...

Sheesh... the hype is off the charts (and not only just here - GAB is all aflutter too...

Steve

It's because it's cheap. People like cheap shit. I played one and literally though it wasn't any better than a Peavey Bandit.

Same as I was thinking but to me the Peavey Bandits sound much better. The BOSS isn't a bad amp but I don't get the hype either. Plenty of good cheap amps out there.

 

[Shask]

Same as I was thinking but to me the Peavey Bandits sound much better. The BOSS isn't a bad amp but I don't get the hype either. Plenty of good cheap amps out there.

You can hook them up to the computer and dial in a bunch of stuff you can't get to with just the amp itself. It sounds much better when you dial it in.

 

[Chris6870]

I'm interested to see how long the buzz lasts.

 

[JerEvil]

Forget the "I tried it at GC for a few minutes", or "clips aren't doing it for me", or "I don't want to look like a lemming".

Buy the head, spend the evening with it. Tell me in the morning if you'd kick her out of bed.

This cheap floozy is a keeper for me.

Yeah man I am stoked to get it home and do a proper run through.

 

[jlb32]

I'm interested to see how long the buzz lasts.

+1. They seem to be decent amps but overall the one I played didn't hold a candle to my old Peavey Red Stripe. I spent about an hour with one and it wasn't a bad by any means but at the same time it didn't blow my mind like the hype it's getting online.

I know they have many options, including online options, but while the tone was good for the price I just feel there are better in that price range. Doesn't mean the BOSS Katana isn't a good buy. Just means I personally won't be buying one and selling my Bandit. I felt my Bandit, even old, was miles ahead of this BOSS overall tonally.

 

[JerEvil]

I don't know. I am obviously a bit biased as I just got one, but for $349 you get:

• a LOUD 100 watt solid state amp and variable wattage control
• Effects Loop
• Most any effect boss has brought to market
• Midi
• solid computer editor (Kemper still doesn't have one of these)
• folks already beta'ing iOS editors

Now is any of this revolutionary? Of course not!!! But seeing how late in the game Boss is to the modeling party and with the crash and burn on the Waza amp, this was a really smart product for them to put out. I can tell you, I like more Katana clips PRE-PURCHASE than I ever heard from the Amplifire and the Katana won't even load IR's or actually model any amps.

I really wanted to hate this little piece of garbage, especially based on the initial recordings/vids I had seen. A few friends of mine who's ears I trust made some recommendations and honesty, I initially thought they were nuts.

Time will tell if those o us who bought them were duped but it seems really promising so far.

As far as the Bandit goes... I had a Silver Striped version that I used for years. Recorded and toured with it. Great amp but for all the Katana offers, there's no WAY I'd take a Bandit over the Boss.

 

[Chris6870]

I'm interested to see how long the buzz lasts.

+1. They seem to be decent amps but overall the one I played didn't hold a candle to my old Peavey Red Stripe. I spent about an hour with one and it wasn't a bad by any means but at the same time it didn't blow my mind like the hype it's getting online.

I know they have many options, including online options, but while the tone was good for the price I just feel there are better in that price range. Doesn't mean the BOSS Katana isn't a good buy. Just means I personally won't be buying one and selling my Bandit. I felt my Bandit, even old, was miles ahead of this BOSS overall tonally.

I bought the50 watt combo to replace my Vyper VIP2, but after a side by side, I kept the Peavey. Maybe the head would fare better than the combo.

 

[LanierP]

I tried the 2x12 combo. It wasn't bad, but the Katana speakers and the wide open back panel don't replicate the sound that the head and a 4x12 deliver. I bought the head and footswitch open box on Reverb for 300$. It has really impressed me. Great back up amp for sure. Footswitch is really cool. Brown sound channel with gain at about 60%, presence set at about 11oclock, volume at 60% and master at 60%, 100 watt mode, hard not to like the sound.

 

[PBGas]

One of the retailers up here actually got one of the WAZA head and 212 cabs in. $5100 Can!

YIKES!

 

[JerEvil]

I tried the 2x12 combo. It wasn't bad, but the Katana speakers and the wide open back panel don't replicate the sound that the head and a 4x12 deliver. I bought the head and footswitch open box on Reverb for 300$. It has really impressed me. Great back up amp for sure. Footswitch is really cool. Brown sound channel with gain at about 60%, presence set at about 11oclock, volume at 60% and master at 60%, 100 watt mode, hard not to like the sound.

Nice! I was thinking about grabbing the footswitch but will likely use my Source Audio SoleMan for controlling it. I'll have to try these settings through my K100 loaded 4x12. I find those speakers to be excellent with every modeler/digital amp I have owned.

One of the retailers up here actually got one of the WAZA head and 212 cabs in. $5100 Can!

YIKES!

Yeah that pricing is just insanely dumb. Not sure what they were thinking and I hope someone no longer works for Roland/Boss after that.

 

[thiswaythatway]

 

[guitarobert]

It's the Friedman Be-100 overdrive pedal hysteria all over again..

Still don't get the allure of this one. It just sounds like a bees in a box sort of pedal to me..

I was also quite disappointed with the BE overdrive pedal. They probably just sell so well and have great resale value because of the Friedman name on them. I tried though the new KHDK Dark Blood distortion pedal and that absolutely destroyed the BE pedal! It was definitely the best distortion pedal I've ever tried, but still not 100% sure if I'd have use for one or not. Still curious about Friedmans upcoming tube driven fuzz and overdrive pedals though

Did you guys try turning down the internal trim pot gain on it? Just got a BE-OD and had read up on this ahead of time. Sure enough, the gain is set ridiculously high stock. In my opinion it's almost unusable out of the box. But I turned the internal trim pot way down from the default 12:00 to around 8:00. I think the pedal is phenomenal with this very minor adjustment! Goes from really nice low gain all the way up through the heavies. And there is a lot of tonal range adjustment available using the tight/bass/presence controls. Cleans up well too when the guitar volume is rolled back. You guys should give this pedal another try if you haven't done this! Rivals the gain channels on my tube amps.

Back on topic.. I'm interested in a Katana partially because it could be a good clean platform for pedals like this.

 

[braintheory]

It's the Friedman Be-100 overdrive pedal hysteria all over again..

Still don't get the allure of this one. It just sounds like a bees in a box sort of pedal to me..

I was also quite disappointed with the BE overdrive pedal. They probably just sell so well and have great resale value because of the Friedman name on them. I tried though the new KHDK Dark Blood distortion pedal and that absolutely destroyed the BE pedal! It was definitely the best distortion pedal I've ever tried, but still not 100% sure if I'd have use for one or not. Still curious about Friedmans upcoming tube driven fuzz and overdrive pedals though

Did you guys try turning down the internal trim pot gain on it? Just got a BE-OD and had read up on this ahead of time. Sure enough, the gain is set ridiculously high stock. In my opinion it's almost unusable out of the box. But I turned the internal trim pot way down from the default 12:00 to around 8:00. I think the pedal is phenomenal with this very minor adjustment! Goes from really nice low gain all the way up through the heavies. And there is a lot of tonal range adjustment available using the tight/bass/presence controls. Cleans up well too when the guitar volume is rolled back. You guys should give this pedal another try if you haven't done this! Rivals the gain channels on my tube amps.

Back on topic.. I'm interested in a Katana partially because it could be a good clean platform for pedals like this.

Yes I did. I tried turning it down all the way to see if it would sound more like an overdrive rather a distortion pedal, and use it to boost an already overdriven amp, but it didn't work well that way. Even with it all the way down it still sounded like a distortion not an od pedal since it still had that more aggressive/less smooth clipping and lack of transparency compared to an overdrive pedal (not that that's necessarily a bad thing). I thought it was better than most distortion pedals, but I was just hoping for more I guess. The KHDK Dark Blood on the other was a nice surprise! I may get one to see if it could rival the gain channel of any of my amps since that's the only distortion pedal I've tried that I think could have a chance of that

 

[guitarobert]

It's the Friedman Be-100 overdrive pedal hysteria all over again..

Still don't get the allure of this one. It just sounds like a bees in a box sort of pedal to me..

I was also quite disappointed with the BE overdrive pedal. They probably just sell so well and have great resale value because of the Friedman name on them. I tried though the new KHDK Dark Blood distortion pedal and that absolutely destroyed the BE pedal! It was definitely the best distortion pedal I've ever tried, but still not 100% sure if I'd have use for one or not. Still curious about Friedmans upcoming tube driven fuzz and overdrive pedals though

Did you guys try turning down the internal trim pot gain on it? Just got a BE-OD and had read up on this ahead of time. Sure enough, the gain is set ridiculously high stock. In my opinion it's almost unusable out of the box. But I turned the internal trim pot way down from the default 12:00 to around 8:00. I think the pedal is phenomenal with this very minor adjustment! Goes from really nice low gain all the way up through the heavies. And there is a lot of tonal range adjustment available using the tight/bass/presence controls. Cleans up well too when the guitar volume is rolled back. You guys should give this pedal another try if you haven't done this! Rivals the gain channels on my tube amps.

Back on topic.. I'm interested in a Katana partially because it could be a good clean platform for pedals like this.

Yes I did. I tried turning it down all the way to see if it would sound more like an overdrive rather a distortion pedal, and use it to boost an already overdriven amp, but it didn't work well that way. Even with it all the way down it still sounded like a distortion not an od pedal since it still had that more aggressive/less smooth clipping and lack of transparency compared to an overdrive pedal (not that that's necessarily a bad thing). I thought it was better than most distortion pedals, but I was just hoping for more I guess. The KHDK Dark Blood on the other was a nice surprise! I may get one to see if it could rival the gain channel of any of my amps since that's the only distortion pedal I've tried that I think could have a chance of that

We are on the same page then. I bought the BE-OD as a distortion pedal rather than as an overdrive. Saw people commenting that it is really more an AIAB distortion pedal and I completely agree. It doesn't work well for me as an overdrive either. It should have been named differently without "OD" in the name! Because it actually shines as a fantastic distortion pedal running into a very clean channel on an amp.

 

[cecilbag]

My only Peavey bandit is an old one. I would grab the katana every time when it comes to plug and play. I don't pretend it's anything other than it is, a practice amp. It sounds surprising good and I'm happy it's cheap. Would I take it over my SLO? No. Could I make it through a gig and not feel short changed on my tone? Yes. I think that's the niche it fills for me. A nice cheap amp that sounds good and feels good. I couldn't ask for more at the price point.

 

[Racerxrated]

For 350 there isn't anything that touches it for what it does and more importantly how it sounds. Used, maybe a Crate Stealth? But the Katana is new for 350...as someone else pointed out, these will pop up used for 100-150 within a year.

 

[moltenmetalburn]

Katana is not modelind per se. As far as I have gathered it is an fet preamp section with an IC based class A/B power amp.

The amp also has DSP for fx AND dsp for speaker/head interaction, preamp/poweramp sag ETC. the dsp is used to replicate the things tubes do that SS cannot/ does not.