Boss katana mk 2

[Gary W]

Hi Friends, just a mention of this little amp I’ve just had a week or so. There’s a fair bit of hype about it, and I was skeptical but took the plunge. I’m finding it to be excellent in my little home studio. It’s fairly easy to dial in a range of satisfying tones at low volumes. I have a Fender Blues Jnr, which is great of course, but this is a really useful complement to that. It also takes pedals well – although the most useful and commonly needed effects are built in and are of good quality in the main. There are lots of detailed reviews on YT.

I’ve attached a little sample of the sound I got from it this afternoon with my Tele, it’s just mic’d up (picture attached). There’s a little trem pedal in front of it (Mooer Trelicopter) but the rest is the Katana.

I think it’s my new best friend;-)
Gary

Gary

[Anonymous]

Nice sounding amp Gary. Looking forward to hearing more audio/video samples.
👍

[sunjamr]

So many people are buying those, I now feel deficient. I’ve heard nothing but good about them.

Sunjamr Steve

[Gary W]

Yes, it’s much better than I expected – plus it’s very, very well priced. 😊
Gary

Gary

[Peter A]

Hi Gary,
I was looking at those and considering… did you get the 50W or 100W version ?
There are a lot of amp choices out there – I am undecided between this type of ‘modelling-amp’ which is digital and solid state, versus a good old tube amp that doesn’t have all the bells and whistles. In between, there are hybrid amps, like the VOX AV series for instance, that have tubes in the chain and pure analog circuitry.
I have also seen the reviews of this new Katana-II, and they are all positive.
Can you explain more about the comparison to your Fender Blues Jr. ?

Peter

[Gary W]

Hi Peter,
I got the 50 watt version.

I’d say the main differences to the FBJ are as follows:

1. It’s easy to get clean or crunchy lead tones at quite low volumes. I find the FBJ is at its best a little louder than this – where the sparkle of the tubes can be appreciated. This is a big one for me.

2. I have accumulated a collection of pedals to use with the FBJ, and some of these are great & work well. But it’s often a bit of a faff to set them up, deal with power supply noise, find another patch cable, fiddle with multiple dials etc. I’m just a home hobbyist player & don’t find all of that sufficiently satisfying sometimes. With the Katana – the built in effects are simple to use & it’s easy to get a pleasing effect.

3. if I use the software in my mac, I can edit & tweak tones, store them (on my mac) or load & store them on the katana as presets. so it’s a one button press to get say – a perfect lead tone or a nice warm clean tone, as needed. plus, some prominent reviewers on line offer free ‘patches’ for downloading – patches that they have put together to emulate certain sounds you’d be familiar with (like say John Mayer’s ‘slow dancing in a burning room’ sound. I like this feature a lot.

4. The katana has a headphone socket which doubles as a direct out for sending to an interface for recording. I use both these. The headphone socket enable silent practice of course. The FBJ has neither of these. If you get the 100 w version of the katana, there’s also an effects loop.

5. The katana is about half the price of the FBJ.

6. they are a good complement to each other I find. I use an ABY pedal to play them both at the same time & the two sounds together can sound great (i’ve experimented sending a loop to one and playing some lead through the other too).

These are my main observations so far. Hope this helps you decide😊
best wishes
Gary

Gary

[Author]

Posts