Katana 100 as back-up amp?

BintyTwanger77

My 65 DRRI needs to go for a check up & repair (making strange white noise, sometimes a buzz like a fly trapped inside it, reverb not working), and I don't have a back-up amp.

Was considering a Katana 100 combo (the 1x12) as it's very reasonably priced and reports have been good. 

What do people think of them? If I like it enough, I might stop gassing after far. Ore expensive 2nd amps (I can't really afford a Louis Electric Columbia, unless I ravage another credit card...)

Legionreturns

The only problem with having it as a backup amp, is that you'll quickly become used to the weight (or lack of) plus very good (for the money) sound. You'll then take the lazy choice more often than not and it'll become your main amp. 

p90fool

Yeah it'll work, though you'll need to get into the software to edit the global EQ to give it a blackface type overall feel. 

I found it very brash until I scooped the upper mids quite radically - I now have an overall Fenderish tonality with the EQ on top of the amp set around halfway, giving me something to play with for different venues. 

Best bet is to have the two amps side by side to match the Katana properly to your Deluxe instead of trying to copy it from memory. I spent a worthwhile hour doing that today while my neighbours were out. 

BintyTwanger77

Legionreturns said:

The only problem with having it as a backup amp, is that you'll quickly become used to the weight (or lack of) plus very good (for the money) sound. You'll then take the lazy choice more often than not and it'll become your main amp. 

It's this kind of gas-fuelling logic that'll have me buying a more expensive, heavier back-up amp, damn it!

Legionreturns

BintyTwanger77 said:

Legionreturns said:

The only problem with having it as a backup amp, is that you'll quickly become used to the weight (or lack of) plus very good (for the money) sound. You'll then take the lazy choice more often than not and it'll become your main amp. 

It's this kind of gas-fuelling logic that'll have me buying a more expensive, heavier back-up amp, damn it!

Or... You could fuel an alternative gas splurge by trading your original amp for a nice guitar

BintyTwanger77

Legionreturns said:

BintyTwanger77 said:

Legionreturns said:

The only problem with having it as a backup amp, is that you'll quickly become used to the weight (or lack of) plus very good (for the money) sound. You'll then take the lazy choice more often than not and it'll become your main amp. 

It's this kind of gas-fuelling logic that'll have me buying a more expensive, heavier back-up amp, damn it!

Or... You could fuel an alternative gas splurge by trading your original amp for a nice guitar

I'm already selling a nice guitar (a Gretsch).

meltedbuzzbox

My backup amp is a sansamp fly rig.
Great fender blackface sounds (and a few extras) weighs sod all and might even squeeze on your pedalboard.

BintyTwanger77

meltedbuzzbox said:

My backup amp is a sansamp fly rig.
Great fender blackface sounds (and a few extras) weighs sod all and might even squeeze on your pedalboard.

Does that connect to any unpowered speaker at the end of my pedal chain?

In other news, I tried this guitar into a 65 PRRI,

https://www.absolutemusic.co.uk/fender-2017-ltd-ed-american-pro-mahogany-tele-deluxe-shawbucker-crimson-red-trans.html?source=shopping&sku=fen0175104738&gclid=Cj0KCQiAi7XQBRDnARIsANeLIesFuqDzweD-8eZG-ktbisQF-QflSlT7LKpnFk1XrbgPyR-lfZDTRawaAlpVEALw_wcB


I was offered £2165 for both guitar and amp if I traded in my Roadworn 60s Jazzmaster.

SO SO CLOSE to going for it. That Tele with those Shawbuckers into a BF Princeton was something else.

Quite an expensive back-up option!!!

grungebob

I’ve just taken delivery of the 50w tonight, a quick low volume check and I don’t like it at all, doesn’t sound miles away from my old park gr10. 

Either this thing only sounds good with more volume or ta going back to the shop. 

scarry67

If you can connect to the Boss Tone Studio, update to V2 and try some of the Tone Central patches. I’ve saved 4 of the Blues ones, amended FX to those I want and it sounds pretty good, I think. The V2 presets, on the other hand, sounded  awful to me. 

p90fool

grungebob said:

I’ve just taken delivery of the 50w tonight, a quick low volume check and I don’t like it at all, doesn’t sound miles away from my old park gr10. 

Either this thing only sounds good with more volume or ta going back to the shop. 

My experience exactly, I had to radically scoop the upper mids in the global EQ, and now I'm delighted with it. 

I'll never understand why people say it sounds great out of the box, it sounded awful to me. 

It's up to you whether you persevere, but it was definitely worth it for me. 

grungebob

p90fool said:

grungebob said:

I’ve just taken delivery of the 50w tonight, a quick low volume check and I don’t like it at all, doesn’t sound miles away from my old park gr10. 

Either this thing only sounds good with more volume or ta going back to the shop. 

My experience exactly, I had to radically scoop the upper mids in the global EQ, and now I'm delighted with it. 

I'll never understand why people say it sounds great out of the box, it sounded awful to me. 

It's up to you whether you persevere, but it was definitely worth it for me. 

Nice to know I’m not alone. Like I said I’ve had less than 10 mins with it but it doesn’t sound as good as the 10 mins I had with a blackstar ID core 40. 
Ill check again tomorrow with more volume but then it defetes the notion of me using this as a late night practice amp. 

grungebob

Used the amp a bit more now and I’m getting some tones out that are nice, haven’t tried the V2 software yet but I’m hoping it’ll allow me to do something with the lead and Brown sounds as I don’t like them at all, both very 80’s sounding no matter what I do to the EQ. 

JayGee

grungebob said:

Used the amp a bit more now and I’m getting some tones out that are nice, haven’t tried the V2 software yet but I’m hoping it’ll allow me to do something with the lead and Brown sounds as I don’t like them at all, both very 80’s sounding no matter what I do to the EQ. 

I think you’ll find that’s a feature rather than a bug... :-)

Factory “voicing” (before you start playing around with the global eq etc) is very much r-a-w-k which was fine for me but obviously isn’t going to suit everyone...

p90fool

It is, but if you give the whole amp a Blackface type voice using the global EQ the Brown channel has some lovely smooth low gain sounds available. 

It's actually a very tactile amp to play once the brash mids have gone. 

grungebob

Ok. So ignoring the lead and brown channels I can get the sounds I want from this amp now I’ve realised the EQ section isn’t really functioning as my other amps do. The boosts with the crunch has channel has changed my opinion of this amp and  I’m liking it a lot. 
Hopefully this weekend I can connect it to my Mac and tweak those two channels I don’t like into something better. 

ThePrettyDamned

p90fool said:

It is, but if you give the whole amp a Blackface type voice using the global EQ the Brown channel has some lovely smooth low gain sounds available. 

It's actually a very tactile amp to play once the brash mids have gone. 

Out of interest, have you played with the global eq beyond getting a more fender, scooped voicing? I'd be interested in whether it can get more voxy tones. 

Also, once the global eq is set, how much "change" is available from the eq on the control panel? 

p90fool

ThePrettyDamned said:

p90fool said:

It is, but if you give the whole amp a Blackface type voice using the global EQ the Brown channel has some lovely smooth low gain sounds available. 

It's actually a very tactile amp to play once the brash mids have gone. 

Out of interest, have you played with the global eq beyond getting a more fender, scooped voicing? I'd be interested in whether it can get more voxy tones. 

Also, once the global eq is set, how much "change" is available from the eq on the control panel? 

I haven't tbh, because my primary concern is for gigging, so when I get it to do exactly what I want I'm going to leave it. 

On your other point, the sweep of the onboard EQ is actually very smooth and fairly limited. 

To me, that's a great feature, there's no tiny sweet spot plus a load of horrible crap like there is with most non valve amps - it's natural, progressive, and you don't have to worry about accidentally dialling in a viciously unusable tone. 

I've set my global EQ to give a particular overall feel with the EQ knobs set halfway. 

I see on some forums people have started to experiment with speaker swaps in Katanas which seems pointless to me, the global EQ is like having an infinite and totally controllable number of speaker choices. 

I don't see why you couldn't make it more Vox-like tbh, the dynamic "feel" of the amp is genuinely excellent, and the tone shaping possibilities are pretty much endless. 

Erjimipey

For a nice voxy tone I use the sneaky amp VO Drive. I set the mids and presence to 0-10, the bass to 30-40 and the treble to 80-90. That gives me a nice chimey vox clean. then, I adjust the gain or use the internal pedals to push it when needed...

Hope it helps...

ThePrettyDamned

p90fool said:

ThePrettyDamned said:

p90fool said:

It is, but if you give the whole amp a Blackface type voice using the global EQ the Brown channel has some lovely smooth low gain sounds available. 

It's actually a very tactile amp to play once the brash mids have gone. 

Out of interest, have you played with the global eq beyond getting a more fender, scooped voicing? I'd be interested in whether it can get more voxy tones. 

Also, once the global eq is set, how much "change" is available from the eq on the control panel? 

I haven't tbh, because my primary concern is for gigging, so when I get it to do exactly what I want I'm going to leave it. 

On your other point, the sweep of the onboard EQ is actually very smooth and fairly limited. 

To me, that's a great feature, there's no tiny sweet spot plus a load of horrible crap like there is with most non valve amps - it's natural, progressive, and you don't have to worry about accidentally dialling in a viciously unusable tone. 

I've set my global EQ to give a particular overall feel with the EQ knobs set halfway. 

I see on some forums people have started to experiment with speaker swaps in Katanas which seems pointless to me, the global EQ is like having an infinite and totally controllable number of speaker choices. 

I don't see why you couldn't make it more Vox-like tbh, the dynamic "feel" of the amp is genuinely excellent, and the tone shaping possibilities are pretty much endless. 

That's reassuring, very cool to hear it gets the feel right. I heard one when they first came out and assumed I was hearing a jtm45 so it's capable of good sounds. I have not tried one yet though. 

andyoz

p90fool said:

ThePrettyDamned said:

p90fool said:

It is, but if you give the whole amp a Blackface type voice using the global EQ the Brown channel has some lovely smooth low gain sounds available. 

It's actually a very tactile amp to play once the brash mids have gone. 

Out of interest, have you played with the global eq beyond getting a more fender, scooped voicing? I'd be interested in whether it can get more voxy tones. 

Also, once the global eq is set, how much "change" is available from the eq on the control panel? 

I don't see why you couldn't make it more Vox-like tbh, the dynamic "feel" of the amp is genuinely excellent, and the tone shaping possibilities are pretty much endless. 

The dynamics of the amp are what alot of people pick up on firstly I think.  Not like the older generation SS stuff at all.