I FINALLY Play a BOSS KATANA! - Is It As Good As People Say?

Hello guys, welcome back to the channel. I hope everyone is doing great today, as you can see I

finally

have the

katana

in the studio now, as you know, I use my Spark, I use my Yamaha and I've done a few. videos that compare and contrast those platforms that talk about strengths and weaknesses, but today we have one of the most popular guitar amplifiers out there and that is the

katana

. Now the katana comes in a combo version or a main version, depending on what your needs are. The head is great if you already have a cabinet that you love or if you are recording in a studio all the time like me, the combo is much better if you take your amp to places obviously for your rehearsals or just in your music. room or bedroom or whatever, then the model we're looking at today is the Artist Mark II.

Now many of these features will be found across the Katana range but the Artist is definitely the most feature packed version so there will be some that you won't see on other amps now this will look very familiar you've got your clean brown acoustic crunchy cable , so these are like your preset tones, we're all used to this kind of already set up so you don't know anything crazy and then you have individual gain and volume for the amp, so that's the first section, the second one obviously not There are surprises here, base, mids and highs, so we'll see how dynamic they are.

One second, when we plug it in, this is where we get the two level type of knobs, so the Boost and the mod is a very interesting setup, so we'll try this has also been on katanas for a while and then. you have your uh yeah, your different effects and delays and all that kind of stuff and then you have a dedicated verbal knob which is really nice. You know, I've seen some amps before where it's like you have to go. through a few menus and then you can't see exactly where your knob is because it's like a multi-purpose knob.

Here we have a knob for the verb in the effects section. Like, that keeps it really really simple so that's great and then here we have another tone section and we have a presence control again a dedicated knob super nice overall master and then your lead volume as well and then you have some of your lead settings. bank and that kind of stuff, so 2 and then your bank A to B, so it's kind of like in the tone settings, then you need to check this with an equalizer globally, so we're definitely going to test it with the settings Contour, you can have it off and disabled or three different ones. settings and here, of course, this is amazing, you have as standby 0.5 watts, 50 watts or 100 watts, so it's very, very versatile in the power settings and let's go ahead and check the back of the head while I can see that there are a lot of options.

I am using the 8 ohm output to a cabinet. Here we have midi to control the head. You have USB to go to the head directly to a computer if you want to record that way. Effects loop to bring in some of your favorite pedals, foot controls, here you have phones even or record in any way, you can record that way and you can also link multiple heads, you have your line out power amp and then some different ones . uh tone controls or master tone controls so that's a very quick overview of some of the controls on the katana.

I'll link it in the video description below. You can get full specs and all that kind of stuff I want. The thing to do now is test them in real time, so let's grab a guitar, plug and unplug this thing. Come on guys, here we go, the first few shades with the Katana

boss

should be a lot of fun. I'm using one made in Mexico. Stratocaster I think a lot of

people

know the Mexican Stratocasters and what to expect from them, so here we go, EQ at 12 o'clock, the only thing I have on is the verb, which is also at 12 o'clock, here we go, thank you, Yes, it sounds great, right? out of the box, uh, let's tweak the equalizer a little bit.

What I like to do on a clean channel is just lower the mids a little bit to open it up, create a little more space, and then turn up the treble without turning it up, but just one or two. watch, just see if that creates a little bit more openness and the ringing is definitely cool, so now let's add some of the effects. Now you can see that the delay light will light up as soon as you activate the delay, so let's say I don't know. around 12 o'clock here thanks foreigner yeah very cool there's even a little bit of chirping which is really cool and then if maybe we turn it down a little bit yeah well so let's mix that in with the mod as soon as how to use it.

On the smaller inner knob, you'll see the mod light turn on right there. Let's set them both to 12 and see what kind of tones we can get there. Thanks, very nice and if you use the app you can change, I think, the mods and that kind of stuff and what kind of delay or whatever, but yeah, just stock, that sounds great, let's go ahead and try the crunch. I'm going to go to my bridge pickup here, um, let's put the EQ on, well, you know what I'll leave. mids cut out a little bit let's go to the Crunch Bridge pickup here we go thanks foreigner that's awesome so let's use the boost control now that's the biggest knob here you'll see the boost turn green obviously activating this in and out with a foot switch would be the way to go but you'll see me reach for it and the green light comes on that's when the boost kicks in so let's go ahead and stay in the Crunch and then what I'm going to do do is push it. and we'll listen to it, so here we go overseas, yeah, I really love that boost control really makes that crunch scream loud, really cool, let's try something similar with the lead, so I'll just do the solo, we'll leave the EQ. same thing and then you'll see me dial the Boost in and out, so here's just the Straight Lead, thanks really smooth considering I'm using single coils, as soon as I take out the humbuckers it's going to be a completely different situation. so it's going to be even smoother so yeah that sounds really cool so that was the brown one uh really really interesting let's clean up again because there's an effect that I haven't shown you yet and it's right here on the knob of effects.

I'll see it's the left side and I love it, it's really cool, let's

play

that again, yeah, it's really fun. I wanted to show you that one for sure, now in the next section I think what we're going to do is switch to a humbucker guitar. and

play

because I want to show you the Contour, there are three different Contour selections and there are three different shape controls, there's green, red and amber, so this section here is very powerful, but I think the best way to show it is to just do a small drink but it will affect all your shades.

I had it off for the entire demo because I wanted to free play for you guys. Could. I think it's the best way, but I'm going to show you this cabin resonance, so here it is. vintage maybe uh let's go back to Brown and I'll just play some chords and go from vintage to modern to deep okay just so you can hear that so again that little change makes a big difference. I had it on the whole time because I think it adds a little bit of realism, um, I don't know, like a really open back or something where the frequencies just start to overlap and you get those overtones, so I had it on. deep for the whole demo but you could have it on Modern or Vintage as you heard it really affects the tone so I'm going to switch to a humbucker guitar here we go guys now I have a humbucker fitted. guitar, this is a PRS SE, now what I'm going to do is show you what we can do.

I have the Contour on Two and the global EQ on red, so yeah, when we turn up some gain and I'm on the brown channel up here and the EQ is the same No effects, but the verb thanks now beyond what you just heard , they can use the app to modify additional parameters, they can upload ringtones, they can download ringtones, they can do all that, save. all of its presets and all that, but what I wanted to show you today was a completely unedited direct playback of this amp because I think this will give you the best representation of what this amp offers, so yeah, I wanted to do that for you. guys, so they could hear in real time what was happening, so they did a really

good

job on this.

It's not complex because I'm the type of person who tends not to use apps. I like to use the panel and find out. What does just the basic amplifier offer? And yes, this one is super easy to use. You might want to use it as the app to change some of your effects if you don't like Flanger or something and want to put something else on. That would be a use case I would definitely do, but yeah, having the delay in the verb and all that kind of stuff in the Boost. You also know that you can get the foot switch.

I'll try it with luck. the camera will catch that, but anyway, yes, you can also modify all your banks and effects with a footswitch, which makes this amp super awesome for live. This is the key if you want to play live and use it. Yeah, this is going to be a very, very powerful tool, you can tell this is not the first generation Katana because they have everything figured out, so I think it sounds

good

, a lot of variety of tones in the UI, although there is a Lots of super simple knobs, like I said. and he gushed about it.

I love this control. Here you can just turn it off, not use it, don't worry, but if you're looking for a specific tone like I said, maybe with a high gain tone you want to really tune it. that low end and a really good crunch, this is the ticket right there, so I love it, I love that too. I kept it at 50 watts the whole time, but you can go 100 watts or less so I love that too, so there are a lot of features. On this amp, great tones and yes, I love it. Thank you very much for watching them.

I've wanted a katana for a long time and it didn't disappoint, so yeah, I'll link it in the video description. below you can see it there if you wish along with the rest of the equipment that I use for my videos other than that if you haven't subscribed to the channel make sure you do in addition to that have a great day. guys take care