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Post by Deleted on May 7, 2017 17:23:48 GMT
HB is releasing a new JA-60 Olympic White  with 2xP90's  I think Im sorted even if they keep that ugly PG! |
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Post by Deleted on May 7, 2017 17:29:44 GMT
Seems to me that Katana 50 has no hiss at all  I like it! And it take pedals well! |
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Post by salteedog on May 7, 2017 18:39:29 GMT
And for those who like a cranked tone, here's another nice video...
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Post by Deleted on May 8, 2017 11:46:17 GMT
I think a lot of what is making this Katana sound so right is the use of a decent speaker in a decent open backed cab. Just look at this other video by the same guy. This one's all about the speaker cab:
I really don't see how you can possibly be disappointed, saltee. Fingers still crossed for ya.
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Post by salteedog on May 8, 2017 12:14:08 GMT
I might be disappointed because only the other day I had an opportunity to experience a Fender DRRI up close. Holy God but the cleans from that thing were amazing. And the reverb was out of this World. I'll admit though that that is setting the bar pretty much as high as it'll go  |
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Post by Deleted on May 8, 2017 12:22:01 GMT
I agree Fenders have great cleans and reverbs that match them but many don't do distortion all that well and the Katana will hopefully give you the better of both worlds.
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Post by salteedog on May 8, 2017 12:37:39 GMT
Correct - was using pedals for distortion on the DRRI. And furthermore I could get at least 6 Katanas for the price of that amp. But as far as cleans+reverb go the Deluxe is close to the pinnacle.
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Post by salteedog on May 13, 2017 9:36:10 GMT
The amp was waiting for me at home when I got back from work yesterday evening.
Quick first impressions - nicely built, feels quality, nice clean tone, searing lead tones, crunch needs a little work. It can go very loud. No hiss unless the overdrive/distortion pedals + one of the gain channels are enabled. Quieter than my Fender Stage 112se and also not as hissy as my Marshall MG15cf. Don't expect it to be entirely silent when using a lot of gain though.
Effects are nice but I'm getting used to the control knobs - one knob controls 2 effects (only 1 on at a time). Analog delay effect sounds great. I'll probably switch out stuff I wont use like the phaser, octaver and wah and experiment with the o/d distortions.
It's clearly advertised and engineered as a giggable amp for those who don't want to be arsed going through effects menus etc. As such it's closer to the Roland cubes than the Line6 and Mustang 'swiss army knife' type modellers.
Prior to getting it I was agonizing over whether I should have coughed up €100 (or 80 for B-stock) extra for the 100w. Certainly i could have used the effects loop. As it is the 50w is still a hell of a lot of amp for the money.
Biggest downer is that Boss have temporarily taken the software offline. That might be a good thing as it means I have to focus on what came stock with the amp for now. Otherwise I'd be buried in PCs and usb cables and settings etc.
..ok gotta dash. Sat morning family stuff beckons.
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Post by Deleted on May 13, 2017 9:45:12 GMT
All sounds pretty sweet so far. Are you thinking that an effects loop would allow you to insert certain effects that you don't like on this? I was thinking the same with the Boss ME70 pedal.
Can I have the phaser and wah if you don't want them? (I can't play without having those options close at hand) ... the octaver? Well. There's good and bad. I'll take it too.
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Post by salteedog on May 13, 2017 13:11:46 GMT
Well that but the main reason is an effect loop is more useful for using a looper - so you can change the amp/onboard effects effects between rhythm and lead. As an update I now like the crunch channel - tried it with Humbuckers (HB-35) and it sounds really sweet. Also spent 45 mins there playing against some youtube blues backing tracks. Crunch, Lead and brown channels all give nice tones in a mix. Re. effects: Not a fan of flangers either but managed to get a good reproduction of The Cure's 'The forest' earlier using reverb, flanger and delay.  |
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Post by Deleted on May 13, 2017 13:19:16 GMT
Ah, flangers. They need some careful consideration.I tend to like them most on choppy palm muted rhythm sections.
Phaser I prefer to chorus. I set it for a very long shallow effect. It just gives movement to a lead or a rhythm line but is difficult for the listener to pinpoint what is causing it. Now, with my ME70 I can alter the rate of that modulation using the expression pedal as I play and it's wonderful. Because the effect is very shallow and low in the mix it just speeds up and slows down the most subtle of colourations and I often use that instead of the whammy bar or any kind of vibrato on a held note. Nice.
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Post by salteedog on May 15, 2017 12:59:57 GMT
Quick update - manged to get the software installed on a Win 10 pc last night (had to get it via another forum as Boss have removed it temporarily). It works fine but I only got time to add a Big Muff to one of my presets. Sounds great.
All my playing has been on the .5 watt setting. It's bloody loud on 50watts. The crunch channel (based on Fender Tweed champ Bassman I think) is now my go-to.
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Post by salteedog on May 17, 2017 10:10:27 GMT
Playing around some more with it. I'm finding it difficult to dial in lower amounts of gain on some of the boosts. The default Boss BluesDrive BD, OD and Distortion SD) ones are great because they are setup to dial down the 'level' when the 'gain' is increase but thats not the case with most of the the other boosts - e.g I swapped out the OD for a Tubescreamer and the Distortion for a Rat and while I'm happy enough with managing the Rat level I'm finding the Tuebescreamer to be too much gain by far. Not sure what I'm doing wrong - need to experiment some more. Overall it's very easy to get solid high-gain tones out of this amp. Turning out to be trickier to get the right level of breakup edge/crunch though - especially on hotter pickups. The amp seems more sensitive to pickup output than others I have used. Will probably use my regular boost pedals into this too as it take pedals well.
Again it's clear that this amp is built for those who like to set-up once and play often. Those who like to perpetually tweak will need it hooked up to a computer always - and thats a pain. (Although there is a 3rd party Android app that some clever boffin have built ...as you can drive the amp controls via midi through usb...I must give that a try also).
Most of the effects sound good - has good fun with the harmoniser last night. Tremolo is a bit too 'deep' for my liking but that's a matter of taste (depth can be controlled via the software but the onboard knob controls the velocity setting only).
I reckon I'll be leaving it set up so I can access the following as default on the panel -
Boosts -> BluesDriver/ Top Boost / Big Muff
Mods -> Chorus / Harmonizer / Parametric EQ
Delay -> Analog delay / Tape Echo / Reverse Delay
FX -> Compressor/Tremolo/ Flanger perhaps
Reverb ->Plate/Spring/Hall
Finally - there is a terrific clarity to this amp - harmonics ring out too easily - usually when playing with a pick I let my fingers also contact the strings to take the sharp attack edge off. But with this amp I'm hearing all the harmonics that that generates - sometime desirable, sometimes not. The distortion 'decay' is nice too - played loud and left ringing the tone will decay for ages. There's no nasty 'noise' floor here where suddenly it drops from 1 to 0. Even the actual on board noise suppressor is set up to be unobtrusive - in fact it's barely noticeable at all.
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Post by Deleted on May 17, 2017 10:16:23 GMT
It's sounding very similar to my ME70. The distortion/overdrive settings are hard to subtly dial in some breakup crunch too. I mostly achieve that by ignoring the OD effect altogether and tweaking about with the preamp/gain stages. But again we are talking digital here and valve modelling seems to be remarkably difficult to successfully emulate. It seems binary code is as unsubtle as binary forum debate.
Wonder why Boss have taken down their software. Perhaps they were hacked.
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Post by salteedog on May 17, 2017 12:14:25 GMT
I'd imagine the pedal models are identical to the ones in the GT-100 which i guess is in the same family as the ME-70. The gain channels without boost offer the best return for effort in terms of dialing in breakup. From what I've read - from folks who own the GT100 and the Katana - the Katana preamp works that bit better as it is engineered to match the amp model with the actual physical power amp in the unit. And speaker and cabinet etc. are engineered accordingly too. As regards the effect pedals though - I'd wager the software is exactly the same as what's in the GT-100. Apparently the midi control codes are all the same. Re. the software. I read somewhere that it was taken down due to an expired security certificate and the software was broken by a recent update of windows. I'd be worried though they are trying to close the 'backdoor' on the various third party softwares that are starting to pop up. github.com/katana-dev/docs/blob/master/how-to/use-28-amp-types.md |
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