Boss Katana - Anyone Tried?

sunvalleylaw said:
Sorry I keep reading this thread title and thinking of this:

Click to expand...

Similar for me, but instead of a ski it's the bike that I almost bought back in the day.

suzuki-gsx-750-s-katana-1982-3.jpg
 
gtrjunior said:
Most guitar speakers aren't made at 4 ohms
Click to expand...
It's a 2x12 cabinet, 2 8 ohm speakers wired in parallel, so a 4 ohm cabinet. I just need someone to rewire it for me in series, so it will be a 16 ohm cabinet. I'd rather have somebody do it that knows what they are doing instead of trying to do it myself. Knowing my luck/Murphy's Law, I'd frack something up :embarrassed:

Edit: I ended up buying the Katana 1x12" combo today at Sweetwaters, anyways. They offered it for $290 (street list is $329) and I bought the G-C-whateveritscalled pedal to go with it. They didn't have a pedal in stock, they are back-ordered.
 
Last edited:
Jbird said:
It's a 2x12 cabinet, 2 8 ohm speakers wired in parallel, so a 4 ohm cabinet. I just need someone to rewire it for me in series, so it will be a 16 ohm cabinet. I'd rather have somebody do it that knows what they are doing instead of trying to do it myself. Knowing my luck/Murphy's Law, I'd frack something up :embarrassed:

Edit: I ended up buying the Katana 1x12" combo today at Sweetwaters, anyways. They offered it for $290 (street list is $329) and I bought the G-C-whateveritscalled pedal to go with it. They didn't have a pedal in stock, they are back-ordered.
Click to expand...
Dude...it's super easy. Don't pay someone to do it.
https://static1.squarespace.com/sta...d5e627e4b0edf9e2e6a3e6/1440081447202/2x12.jpg
 
I know how the wires are supposed to go, but I've looked at it and have no idea how you move the connectors. They aren't soldered but look like they can be slid on and off...except they don't slide on and off. Do you have to un-crimp them or something? You gotta remember I've never done any of this stuff before.
 
After doing some yardwork, finally unboxed it and plugged in.

Very quiet compared to my tube amps, does the katana have a built-in noise gate?

I noticed the amp is very bright on any of the channels with gain. I had to turn the bass up and the prescence almost off to combat it. I've read under a bunch of the youtube videos that part of that brightness is the speaker, you have to break it in and it looses some of the brightness. The clean channel doesn't have the brightness though, it sounds best to my ears with the bass/mid/treble all set at 12 o'clock.

It's certainly not an amp for high gain, downtuned metal. But it will do classic metal/European power metal just fine, to my ears.
 
Jbird said:
After doing some yardwork, finally unboxed it and plugged in.

Very quiet compared to my tube amps, does the katana have a built-in noise gate?

I noticed the amp is very bright on any of the channels with gain. I had to turn the bass up and the prescence almost off to combat it. I've read under a bunch of the youtube videos that part of that brightness is the speaker, you have to break it in and it looses some of the brightness. The clean channel doesn't have the brightness though, it sounds best to my ears with the bass/mid/treble all set at 12 o'clock.

It's certainly not an amp for high gain, downtuned metal. But it will do classic metal/European power metal just fine, to my ears.
Click to expand...
What speaker comes in it, a Celestion 70/80?
 
gtrjunior said:
What speaker comes in it, a Celestion 70/80?
Click to expand...
No idea. The instruction booklet doesn't say, just that its a 12" speaker. The speaker itself just has the word Katana printed on it, plus the little logo. I'm sure someone else made the speaker though, just like my 2x12" Carvin cabinet with Carvin 'British' series 100w speakers. From what I've read, those Carvin speakers are the 100w Celestion guitar speakers.
 
HNAD

I've had some old amps, cabs that the spade connectors were really on there. Like time welds them on. No, you don't uncrimp them, just pull them off. Some are on there so bad, I'm afraid it's going to rip the connection off the speaker so, I hold that with one hand, put needle nose pliers on the spade clip, wiggle it back and forth and pull it off.
 
Anyone here that has bought a Katana, have you hooked it up to the internet yet and messed around with downloading more presets and effects pedals?

There isn't anything in the included instruction booklet on how to do all that stuff. I was wondering how intuitive it is, and does the site have a tutorial or some such?
 
Jbird said:
Anyone here that has bought a Katana, have you hooked it up to the internet yet and messed around with downloading more presets and effects pedals?

There isn't anything in the included instruction booklet on how to do all that stuff. I was wondering how intuitive it is, and does the site have a tutorial or some such?
Click to expand...

Yes. It completely open as the amp up to a whole new world of possibilities. You can access the noise gate function that you were asking about earlier. Also, you can tweak the order of the effects that you want them to be in.

But the best part about it is unlocking the sneaky amps feature. I replaced the clean channel on my katana 100 with a Roland JC clean.

I believe it also has a mesa boogie amp as well as Soldano. I could be wrong about this soldano though.

By the way, pitbull audio is selling them for $99. I sent them an offer on Reverb for 85 and they excepted.
 
And yes, it is pretty intuitive to download tone studio. You have to download the actual driver first but the directions are pretty self-explanatory on the boss website
 
I really didn't think that I needed the GA – FC but I finally bit the bullet last week and ordered one through pitbull audio through reverb.com for $85 shipped. I think that's a pretty good deal.

Anyway, it completely opened up the amp. It only took a few minutes to figure out exactly how the pedal was set up but it was so worth it.

I have been a fan of this amp since it was first released. I actually think that I got my 100 a few weeks after they were first released and I have been enjoying it ever since. With this pedal, I feel like it completely makes the amp invaluable. I can't believe how much you get at this price point.
 
This is what always happens. Every time I pick the guitar back up and start playing and loving it, they come out with cool new stuff and I want it!

I actually am really interested in trying one of these. I currently have a Peavey Vypyr Tube 60 that someone gave me. It actually sounds really good but as with most tube (or sort of tube) amps, it is best if you crank it up some. It's just me in the house so that can be annoying. So something like this could really work, and it has an acoustic setting which isn't an acoustic simulator but rather a setting for plugging in the acoustic. Good to hear that you guys are liking it. Plus I should be able to sell the Peavey for enough to get one.
 
I toyed with the idea of getting one, but frankly I have no real need for a 50 or 100 watt amp. It's been a couple of years since I've played in anything bigger than a living-room.
 
mystixboi1 said:
I really didn't think that I needed the GA – FC but I finally bit the bullet last week and ordered one through pitbull audio through reverb.com for $85 shipped. I think that's a pretty good deal.

Anyway, it completely opened up the amp. It only took a few minutes to figure out exactly how the pedal was set up but it was so worth it.

I have been a fan of this amp since it was first released. I actually think that I got my 100 a few weeks after they were first released and I have been enjoying it ever since. With this pedal, I feel like it completely makes the amp invaluable. I can't believe how much you get at this price point.
Click to expand...


This is awesome @mystixboi1 - I have the foot switch on order and for my first gig on 8/11 I might just be going with a regular pedal board as I'm not exactly sure how the foot switch works with everything.

I know you can turn the different memory channels ( I have the 100 2x12) on and off - How easy is it to stay on one channel and just hit the over drive without switching to another channel to do so?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top