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Hey Everyone,
This fortnight it's official, I am finally going to be ordering a brand-new Boss Katana 100W 1X12 amp direct from Boss Australia, I'm also going to be ordering the optional GA-FC foot controller, plus the BAC-KTN100 amp cover for it as well as the BCC-3-TRA interconnect cable and two instrument leads, so, fun times ahead for me.
This is the Boss Katana amp I'm going to be buying online, direct from Boss Australia:
https://www.boss.info/au/products/katana-100_mk2/
Nice. That should shift some air.
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Not only that, it'll give my poor back a break from lugging my Marshall MA100C amp to and from live gigs, my back and shoulders was a bit sore the last time I lugged it to a live gig and back home again.Quote:
Originally Posted by dozymuppet
I have the Head and love it!
I play usually with a 2x12 V30 (Rock) or 1x12 Warehouse Cabinet (Acoustic)
Easy to dial in good tones, and if you deep dive you can "simulate" anything you want.
I prefer Brown Sound on the edge of breakup and 1-2 pedals (TS, RAT) in front of it. Cleans nicely up with the Volume Poti on the guitar.
I also use the acoustic channel quite often just little bit reverb/delay – works great.
Played many gigs and rehearsals with it and never let me down!
Cheers
Dominik
I've got a 200W Ashton Quad Box loaded with four 12 inch Celestion Rocket 50's, the cab is rated at 8 Ohms, I wonder if I'll be able to plug my new Boss Katana 100 amp into it?Quote:
Originally Posted by Rammsteiner
You could, as the Katana 100's speaker is an 8 ohm unit. But unlike the Artist version, it's hardwired to the speaker, with no speaker jack output (only the head versions have speaker outputs). So you could make up a flat spade to jack speaker lead and use the existing output push-on spade connectors, or you could possibly modify it to add your own speaker output jack. With a disconnect type jack, you could have it wired in-line with the internal speaker, so the internal speaker gets disconnected when you plug an external speaker in.
I expect it's got two of the 50W power amp modules from the 50W Katana inside, running in bridge mode. If so, it won't like anything less than 8 ohms, so you can't leave the internal speaker connected in parallel. I can't find a wiring diagram for it, but better to be safe than sorry.
For sure, maybe the best thing to do is leave it as it is, I could always buy the head version at a later date when I can afford it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Simon Barden
The amp/speaker modelling is obviously based around the stock speaker's response (which is generally considered a bit bass light), so you'd definitely get more bass with the 4x12", but some of the models may sound less authentic as a result. But regardless of being 'authentic', some may sound better and some may sound worse. You'll just have to find out if you try.
Update:
Okay, so after a bit of frustration (I'll explain shortly) I've finally got my new Boss Katana amp ordered online.
So why was it a bit frustrating?, I hear you ask, just before I did the online order I had to wait till Windows Update finished updating my computer, then while I was in the middle of doing the online order my internet decided to randomly drop-out, so I had to restart my computer a few times to fix it, nothing's worse than trying to finalize a payment for an online order and end-up having to go through it all again just because your internet decided it was a great time to chuck a big hissy-fit, anyway I think it's fixed now though.....touchwood.
Here's a bit of trivia for you, when you look at the front of the Boss Katana amp, you'll notice a strange symbol under the word Boss, that is the Japanese Kanji (writing) for the word "Katana", in the Japanese language the word "Katana" means "Sword", most western people pronounce the word "Katana" with more emphasis on the "ta" with a longer "ah" sound, but the correct way to pronounce it, as Japanese people do, is "Ka-ta-na", pronouncing each syllable in quick succession.
The Japanese Katana, is a single-edged sword with a curved blade that's usually about 32 inches in length, it's history goes back more than 500 years, traditionally they are hand-forged from a special kind of steel called Tamahagane, which is made from iron-rich sand, there's actually two types of Tamahagane used to make the blade of the Katana, one type has a low carbon-content and is soft, but tough, the other type has some carbon-content in it and is a lot harder, the ancient Japanese swordsmiths soon worked out how to combine the two types of Tamahagane so that they could create a sword that would not shatter, but would still retain a very sharp edge, during the hardening-process, the Katana acquired it's characteristic curved blade as the two different types of Tamahagane cooled at different rates.
Look at what just arrived in the post, literally a few minutes ago!!!!
My new Boss Katana 100 MkII guitar amp I recently ordered online, as you can see, my two pet cats are doing their regular initial routine customs inspection, fortunately they found nothing suspicious....apart from me....lol.
Attachment 40859
That little black parcel on top of the big box contains the optional foot controller I ordered along with the amp.
Here's a pic I took of the new Boss Katana 100 MkII, after unboxing it:
Attachment 40860
If you're going to buy one of these amps, I would very strongly recommend buying the optional GA-FC Foot Controllers to go with it, it only works with the Katana 100 MkII though, the GA-FC Foot Controller gives you a very convenient way to switch to any of the four channels while you're onstage.
That amp is only about 4 cats in size...
if cats were a unit of measurement.
Yeah...hahahaha....the thing is, my two cats think they are way-cooler than me, they always get all the groupies, while I always get all the lawsuits, and bad record label deals....lol.Quote:
Originally Posted by McCreed
I may have to have a few stern words with my two cat roadies/security staff....lol.
I'm going to put the new sticker-labels on the foot controller first and then plug the controller into the amp before I fire this bad boy up.
Incidentally, the amp doesn't seem to have suffered any damage while it was being transported up to Darwin, thank goodness.
This is a brand-new era for me, and I am extremely excited about it, who doesn't love new things?
Just did a quick play-test of my new Boss Katana 100 Mk II amp and ...Wow!!
For a solid-state Digital Modelling amp, this thing sounds really good, clean tones are nice and warm, just like maybe a Fender Twin, the crunch, lead, and Brown tones are some of the best distortion sounds I've ever heard coming from a solid-state amp, usually the distortion tones that you get from most solid-state practice amps tend to sound a bit harsh and "Transistor-like", the distortion tones coming out of the Boss Katana 100 MkII are more like what you'd get coming out of a tube amp like for example a Marshall, I didn't have to do much tweaking of the tone controls to get a good sound, I left the Bass, Mid, and Treble tone controls all on the 12 O clock setting....bam!!!! instant good tones with my Fender USA Strat and it's 3X Fender N4 Noiseless pickups....instant Marshall tones, sounds a lot like my Marshall MA100C 100W all tube amp, but maybe a touch less harsh, mind you, I haven't tried the other 5 amp type settings....yet, anyway, I'm getting some great sounds out of the amp that are perfectly usable in a live gigging situation, by the way, this amp is loud, even on the 50W setting with the master volume set half-way up.
The Australian Recommended Retail Pricing of the amp is just over Au$600.00, which I think is quite affordable, given that my Marshall MA100C amp cost me around Au$1,300.00 or so, don't get me wrong, I still love all my amps, but the Katana 100 MkII for me is a more practical gigging amp, it does weigh a bit less than my Marshall MA100C, a bit less back-breaking.
So, I'm happy with my new Boss Katana 100 MkII amp, can't wait to start gigging with it, I'm definitely going to see if I can get it's software updated, and will see if I can get the optional tone software installed on both my studio desktop pc and new Acer laptop today.
Got the Boss Tone Studio and the Windows 10 Driver for the Katana installed, had some trouble getting the amp to connect to the tone studio software, turns-out I had to do a system firmware update on the amp to fix it, anyway, it's all up and running with my studio pc now, next step is to get it working with my laptop.
The hell they are, they are thinking " get the bl00dy thing out of the box so we can play in it " ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by DrNomis_44
Quote:
Originally Posted by dave.king1
Hahahaha.....more than likely, I never quite know what my cats are thinking most of the time, they keep treating me like a mushroom......etc, etc, etc.....you know......lol.
Which reminds me of the time I woke up on my bed, not knowing how I got there, turns-out my two cats spiked my drink as revenge for taking them to the vets, I woke up to see both of them sitting on my chest, looking directly at me with broad, malicious grins on their faces, I thought to myself..."Oh no, not again!".
Enjoy doc! I have the katana head, and love it (and I've only spent a little bit of time fiddling with the settings - I reckon you could spend forever playing with it)
Unfortunately, I needed new strings for my two Fender guitars and my Jackson Superstrat, I was planning on buying some new strings yesterday, but found-out that Darwin has been put on lockdown due to some Covid-19 infections, I was able to online-order a box of 25 sets of DÁddario Super Light strings from Stewmac, but they'll take anything up to 4-weeks to arrive in the post, so, no more guitar-playing till then for me.Quote:
Originally Posted by JohnH
Things I like most about my brand-new Katana 100 MkII....
* Has great clean,crunch, and distortion sounds.
* Has great reverb and effects built in, I particularly like the Tremolo effect, sounds great with a bit of reverb.
* The controls are all super-intuitive, no endless menus to scroll-through.
* Boss's Tube Logic definitely does get that tube amp sound, even though the Katana 100 MkII is a solid-state digital-modelling amp.
* The optional GA-FC foot controller works perfect with the Katana 100 MkII.
* The Katana 100 MkII seems to weigh less than my Marshall MA100C, so it's easier to tote to gigs.
So, I'm very happy with it, it ticks all the boxes for me, can't wait to start gigging with it.
I can see why Boss have won some awards with the Katana series of amps.
I remember playing through a 75 Watt Line-6 Spider IV amp that they had at the contemporary music department at uni, to my ears, the Line-6 Spider IV amp, in comparison to the Boss Katana 100 MkII, has a very "Digital" sound to it that's very hard to dial-out, the Katana 100 MkII sounds a lot more amp-like to my ears.
If anyone is looking for a decent practice amp, or gigging amp that has some great sounds, then I would very strongly recommend seriously looking at buying one of these Katana 100 MkII amps, they are rated to put-out 100W, but, they do include a panel-mounted power switch that you can use to dial-back the output-power to 50W, or .5W, there's also a standby setting as well that you can use for silent recording into Daw software, definitely worth the money.
A unit of meowsurement, surely?Quote:
Originally Posted by McCreed
There are plenty of online retailers in AUS that sell D'Adarrio's in bulk. Not sure why you went overseas. With the current condition of the AUD/USD and shipping, the domestic prices are pretty reasonable (from the right seller).Quote:
I was able to online-order a box of 25 sets of DÁddario Super Light strings from Stewmac, but they'll take anything up to 4-weeks to arrive in the post, so, no more guitar-playing till then for me.
Also, it would take a whole lot more than dead strings to keep me from playing!
^^^^^^^^^^^
I was thinking the same thing.
Ah, it's only cause I already had the strings in my wishlist, and I had been meaning to order them for a long time.Quote:
Originally Posted by McCreed
To be honest, I didn't know I could order them online within Australia.....*cue epic face-palm moment*....Doh!!!!!
It's a bit late now, Stewmac have shipped my order.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Simon Barden
I think the coolness-meowsurement of the cats is off the scale, since they are my roadies and they bag all the chicks and groupies, I'm just left to deal with all the lawsuits, bad contracts, etc, etc, etc.
Hey guys.
I am a plus 1 for the katana.
I flipped the ac30 for a katana 50 (the first one not the one with the two “down arrows”) and i am super happy with it.
The vox needed to be loud to sound good. The katana sounds unreal at any volume. But, of course it sounds best dialled in at 11.[emoji23]
Ive had a few solid state amps and was never fully happy with them. So i went for the vox. Thinking that the magic of tubes would get me the sound i would fall in love with. But it didn’t really.
Then i got the katana. And it really does tick all the boxes (for me. IMHO)
I will stick with this one for a while…
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I'm supposed to be getting another parcel delivered today, hopefully it's the special cover I ordered for my new Boss Katana 100 MkII amp, so, I'm going to have to stay alert today, cause I'm not sure when the delivery-person will be turning-up.
Woohoo!!!.....The special cover I ordered for my new Boss Katana 100 MkII amp just arrived in the post, that's everything I ordered online now.
My cat, Holly, is doing her regular routine customs-inspection, she found nothing suspicious so I guess I can go-ahead and open the parcel now.
The new special cover fits perfectly, looks real professional now.
I just did some quick googling to compare the weight of my Marshall MA100C amp with the weight of my brand-new Boss Katana 100 MkII, here are the results, which speak for themselves:
Marshall MA100C 2 X 12 100W Valve Amplifier:
Weight: 62.6 LBs, 28.39488 Kgs.
Boss Katana 100 MkII 1 X 12 100W Solid-State Digital Modelling Amplifier:
Weight: 33 LBs, 14.9685 Kgs.
Difference in weight: 13.42638 Kgs.
It's obvious that the Katana is going to hurt my back a lot less when lugging it to and from gigs.
Last time I weighed myself, I weighed about 60 Kgs, usually a person should be strong enough to be able to lift their own weight, I am just able to do one chin-up on a horizontal bar, and I am just able to carry my Marshall MA100C amp a short distance by it's carry-handle, hopefully I won't get any more sore backs and shoulders this year.
Hi,
I am getting a used but, in reality brand a new Hughes & Kettner Black Spirit 200 Head
I am sucker for H&K Amps, I like the features and especially the clean sound. Looking forward with the sagging knob to get nice “on the edge of breakup” sounds
will compare it against the Katana.. should arrive on Tuesday!
cheers
Dominik
Update:
Well, last night I played my very first live-jam gig with my brand-new Katana 100 MkII guitar amp, and what can I say....it sounds HUGE!....I had the amp power-switch set to the 50W setting, and the master volume set to half-way, and the amp sounded Big and Fat, I was fully expecting my Fender Mexican Telecaster to sound a bit thin through it, but no, it sounded very fat and beefy like I was playing through a Marshall stack, something that doesn't normally happen with single-coil pickups, most likely it was because I had put 46-10 gauge strings on my Mexican Tele, anyway, the amp sounded very loud and fat, it easily cut-through the live band mix, and sounded great, I got off-stage with a big grin on my face....the Hype Is Real....Boss nailed it with their Katana series of amps.
I've decided that this amp is definitely a keeper for sure.
Just started having some problems with my Boss Katana amp, here's what happens.....
* I switch the power switch on.
* The Led indicators on the control panel light briefly, and then go out.
* I get no audio output from the amp.
* I try switching the power switch of and then on.
* Finally after switching the power switch off and then on again several times in a row, the amp powers-up normally and it produces sound.
This problem has happened twice in a row, the first time it happened the amp emitted a loud screeching noise, then powered-up normally but the sound was really bad with horrible digital distortion.....does this sound familiar to anyone?
Could be a loose ribbon cable, or it could be a dying PSU.
Whatever it is, best to take it back under warranty.
You might want to watch this.
https://youtu.be/EPvon7zLdgw
HI,
I was just having a look through the forums and I have been thinking about getting a Katana Myself. I am a qualified Electronics tech (I haven't worked in the industry for a while), and from what you described, as a rough guess it sounds to me like something is failing in the switch-mode power supply in the amp. I have come across the problem in the past in numerous devices in which cycling the power quickly has resolved the issue temporarily, and it is often caused by capacitors going bad, which is a pretty common problem in modern power supplies; they are incredibly efficient, but not as durable or reliable as an old school linear supply.
Is the amp still under Warranty? If so, send it back for repair, as this isn't the type of thing that can easily be fixed at home. Power supplies like this can be incredibly dangerous to work on if you don't know exactly what you are doing. Even if it isn't covered, it is still more than likely worth fixing, and Boss Australia should be able to direct you to somebody who can carry out the repairs for you.
best of luck with it
Nathan
Quote:
Originally Posted by NGCbuilder
Cheers Nathan,
I think Boss only give a one year warranty for these Katana series of amps, but I may need to do some online research to confirm that, I might also try getting in contact with Boss Australia and see what they say about it, and I'll take it from there.
I just checked the date when I bought my Katana amp by looking at my first post in this thread, and, if I'm correct about Boss only giving a one-year warranty on these Katana series of amps, it looks like the warranty may have already expired, but I should check that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Simon Barden
Yeesh!!!.....that doesn't bode very well.
Always try it, even if the warranty period is over. They shouldn't last just over a year. You should get some response. Otherwise try and Boss social media and raise it there. Twitter is good for getting a quick response (if Boss have a Twitter page).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Simon Barden
Well, I did go to the Boss website a few minutes ago, and submitted an enquiry about the issue I'm experiencing with my Katana amp, I'll just wait and see what response I get from them.
Update:
I got a response back from tech support from the Boss website, they suggested performing a Factory Reset on my Katana amp, which I have just done, so far it seems to have fixed the issue I was experiencing with my Katana amp, I'm going to do a check to make sure it is fixed by leaving the amp powered-off overnight tonight and I'll try powering the amp on again tomorrow.
Apparently the cause of my issue was a certain effect remaining locked-on or something, here's the response I got in my email from tech support at the Boss website:
Hi Simon,
Have you performed a factory reset on the unit?
KATANA MK1 and MK2 FACTORY RESET - 50 / 100 / HEAD / ARTIST
It sounds like a certain effect might be locked on or something here and this would clear it up.
Kind Regards,
Braedon
Technical Support Representative
Roland Customer Support
If anyone else is experiencing the same, or similar issues with their Katana amp, here's how to do a Factory Reset:
https://rolandus.zendesk.com/hc/en-u...0-HEAD-ARTIST-
Glad to hear that you seem to have gotten the problem sorted. From the way you described it, it sounded more like a hardware fault to me, but I guess you learn something new every day. From the response that you got, it seems that you are not the first person to have had the issue, and Boss have been able to help you out pretty quickly. Iv owned a lot of Boss pedals over the years and I have never had a problem with them, but its good to know that if something does go wrong, they are quick to help out.Quote:
Originally Posted by DrNomis_44
Nathan
Have you checked for a firmware update since it happened? If it happened once it could easily happen again with the same patch.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NGCbuilder
Yes, at first it did seem to me that my Katana amp had developed some weird kind of hardware fault, and I was actually dreading it cause it would have meant one of two things, either sending it back for a warranty repair/replacement, or shelling-out another Au$600.00 or so for a new replacement one.
With computers, software faults can manifest as hardware faults and vice-versa, and since the Katana does have computer circuitry in it, I'm sure that also applies to it.
My current theory is this, for some odd reason one of the virtual FX pedals I used to create a sound on one of the channels, ended-up being fed-back into itself making it go into self-oscillation, which forced it into an occasional lock-up state when the amp was powering-up, this most likely explains why the control panels lit-up briefly and then went out, the amp went into a shut-down mode as a form of protection, the loud screeching sound I heard was most likely caused by the virtual FX going into self-oscillation, whether I'm right or not is wide-open to debate, but the theory sounds good enough to me, I'm perfectly happy to be proven wrong though.
I'm going to stay open-minded and pragmatic about this whole thing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Simon Barden
Actually, I did log onto my account at the Roland Corporation website to see if they had released a new firmware update, but as it turns-out the latest firmware update they have available is the same one that's installed in the amp, they may consider releasing a new firmware update soon though.
I've just tried powering-up my Katana amp after leaving it switched off for some time, it appears to be still powering-up normally like it's supposed to with no signs of the issue I was experiencing before, so, it does look like the Factory Reset I performed on it seems to have fixed the issue for good now, time will tell if that is in fact so.
Apparently it's a common issue with these Katana amps.
Now, if my ears aren't blatantly lying to me, the Katana seems to be sounding much better after the Factory Reset.
Update:
Well, sorry to say this, but my Boss Katana KTN-100 MkII amp is no longer working like it is supposed to, here's what it is doing now:
* Powers up as it normally should.
* No sound from the speaker, even if I set the power switch to 100W and the Master volume on full.
* Sound comes through the Headphone/Recording Line-Out socket on the back panel.
* Some of the Channel select switches on the front panel don't seem to work as they should.
* I can only switch between all 8 Channels using the GA-FC Foot Controller.
Here's what I've tried so far:
* Checked to see if the speaker is still good and not open-circuit, it does appear to be good and measures about 6 Ohms.
* Tried a Factory Reset by turning the amp off, pressing the Panel button and then switching the amp on while keeping the Panel button pressed, it only restored the sound once and then the amp stopped making sound again, further Factory Resets failed to fix the "No Sound" issue.
* Tried re-updating the amp's firmware a couple of times, that did not fix the "No Sound" issue.
So, it looks like I might have to replace it with a brand-new one.