Katana sounds thin and tinny

Tone71

As per the title does anyone else find the Katana 50 sounds thin and tinny? 

Is there any setting that I`m missing, I`m using Tone Studio for patches and do occasionally get it to sound beefier but otherwise it sounds almost as bad as my Vypyr!

Any advice?

DrCornelius

I used to kick in the blues driver as a boost when playing clean. You can really fatten it up without adding too much dirt

Lebarque

Set the master at maximum, then adjust volume to taste

uncledick

Tone71 said:

As per the title does anyone else find the Katana 50 sounds thin and tinny? 

Yep.  That'll be why I didn't buy one.  I just couldn't dial out that high mid/low treble harshness.  It's a cheap amp which sounds like a cheap amp, no more, no less.  

Legionreturns

In tone studio, you need to tweak the global eq to taste. Makes all the difference. 

p90fool

Your Global EQ needs radical tweaks, they sound bloody awful out of the box, like a 1980s practice amp with an 8" speaker.

For home use I had to do this...

http://i64.tinypic.com/5v9kd3.jpg

...which made it sound great at home. 

It still sounded bloody awful at gigs though, in fact the bloke I sold mine told moved it on the morning after his first gig with it.

Nature of the beast I'm afraid, it's the best practice amp I've ever owned, I just don't need one. 

HAL9000

Only ever heard the 100W one and really wasn’t impressed. Sounded thin and didn’t cut through.

RandallFlagg

I love this. I thought the Katana was the forum's darling amp. Now it's a cheap tinny can of shite.

Legionreturns

RandallFlagg said:

I love this. I thought the Katana was the forum's darling amp. Now it's a cheap tinny can of shite.

It's superb if you actually take the time to set it up and eq it to taste, like many other amps. 

Tone71

RandallFlagg said:

I love this. I thought the Katana was the forum's darling amp. Now it's a cheap tinny can of shite.

To be fair, for the money it is a great low level practice amp, I have taken it out to practice and it is plenty loud enough its just recently its started to sound like this, think I may have mucked about with the settings too much, either that or the honeymoon period has ended and its time to dig out the Champ again.

kennedydream1980

I've got 2 50 watt combos that I run in Stereo, I run them clean with pedals in the front end. I don't think they sound thin at all. I think they kick out an impressive amount off bottom end for the size of them. I haven't felt the need to explore the software or the 'sneaky' amps. I just run the stock clean channel all EQ at 12 oclock and they sound great. Done 2 gigs so far and have no complaints. I have heard the speaker needs to break in on these amps. I bought my 2 amps second hand and I know for a fact one of had been used quite extensively before I bought it, so that's maybe a factor.

HAL9000

p90fool said:

Your Global EQ needs radical tweaks, they sound bloody awful out of the box, like a 1980s practice amp with an 8" speaker.

For home use I had to do this...

http://i64.tinypic.com/5v9kd3.jpg

...which made it sound great at home. 

It still sounded bloody awful at gigs though, in fact the bloke I sold mine told moved it on the morning after his first gig with it.

Nature of the beast I'm afraid, it's the best practice amp I've ever owned, I just don't need one. 

Legionreturns said:

RandallFlagg said:

I love this. I thought the Katana was the forum's darling amp. Now it's a cheap tinny can of shite.

It's superb if you actually take the time to set it up and eq it to taste, like many other amps. 

If you need to connect to a computer to change the settings to get it to sound good, then something is seriously wrong.

midlifecrisis

ive gigged my 100w combo about 30 times. I dont find it thin and tinny. I use the clean setting and then the crunch setting with the blues driver for extra gain. I dont use the lead or the brown setting,

Legionreturns

HAL9000 said:

p90fool said:

Your Global EQ needs radical tweaks, they sound bloody awful out of the box, like a 1980s practice amp with an 8" speaker.

For home use I had to do this...

http://i64.tinypic.com/5v9kd3.jpg

...which made it sound great at home. 

It still sounded bloody awful at gigs though, in fact the bloke I sold mine told moved it on the morning after his first gig with it.

Nature of the beast I'm afraid, it's the best practice amp I've ever owned, I just don't need one. 

Legionreturns said:

RandallFlagg said:

I love this. I thought the Katana was the forum's darling amp. Now it's a cheap tinny can of shite.

It's superb if you actually take the time to set it up and eq it to taste, like many other amps. 

If you need to connect to a computer to change the settings to get it to sound good, then something is seriously wrong.

My current Katana (upgrade from the 100w 1x12 to the head) has never been connected to a computer and it sounds great, I've made eq tweaks on the unit and saved them. 

monquixote

I've had mine since Christmas and I like it a lot.

I haven't gigged it so I can't comment what it's like in a band mix, but the more I use it the more I like it.

Tweaking the global EQ and the cab resonance made a positive change as it was a bit rawk by default. 

Certainly the best practice amp I've ever had.

p90fool

HAL9000 said:

p90fool said:

Your Global EQ needs radical tweaks, they sound bloody awful out of the box, like a 1980s practice amp with an 8" speaker.

For home use I had to do this...

http://i64.tinypic.com/5v9kd3.jpg

...which made it sound great at home. 

It still sounded bloody awful at gigs though, in fact the bloke I sold mine told moved it on the morning after his first gig with it.

Nature of the beast I'm afraid, it's the best practice amp I've ever owned, I just don't need one. 

Legionreturns said:

RandallFlagg said:

I love this. I thought the Katana was the forum's darling amp. Now it's a cheap tinny can of shite.

It's superb if you actually take the time to set it up and eq it to taste, like many other amps. 

If you need to connect to a computer to change the settings to get it to sound good, then something is seriously wrong.

It's really bright, I mean crazily so, I've never heard another amp like it. I was almost convinced by other owners that mine must have been faulty, but I've tried two others and that's just how they are.

I watched well recorded videos with the EQ controls set at noon, dialled mine in the same at home and it's horrific. I'm in my 50s, so Christ knows what it must be like with a 20 year old's hearing. 

I've now had two 100w and a 50w Katana combo in my house at the same time as five different valve heads and a Princeton and I can't get anything else to sound as bright as a Katana.

It's not me, it's the amp, it sounds tiny. Those Global EQ tweaks I posted are ridiculous (and, I suspect, bullshit). You would never cut those frequencies by that amount on a real parametric EQ.

As I posted at tedious length in my own thread I did get mine to sound good, but it was so venue-dependent I just gave up and went back to plug and play valve heads. 

I actually miss it to be fair - it's a great tool, and if I had the space and money to throw away on landfill products I would have kept it as a rehearsal amp. 

chrishill901

I've got a Katana 50 and have never had to delve into the settings on a computer. I've got it dialed in to sound great at home* and then when I take it to rehearsal and up the wattage it doesn't need tweaking - I probably back my tone control down to 9 on my guitar but I don't touch the amp. That is in a small fully carpeted (walls and ceiling) practice room though.

I probably wouldn't gig this amp though, I would never expect a tiny (in dimension) open back amp with a cheap speaker and probably cheap cabinet construction to project my tone with the depth and clarity I'd want to rely on to fill a pub/club. Maybe the issue here is in expectation - I bought my Katana as a practice/home amp, not a gigging amp. Happy to take it into rehearsal for 90% of the time but when I want gig tone I'd use something bigger.

*There is another expectation issue here. When I say great at home I mean something that has a nice 'feel' to it at TV volumes. I do not play loud at home in the slightest, (I'm getting rid of my Marshall SL5 because even at 1w I can't get it over 1) I should probably use something even smaller like but my issue with practice amps has always been in the feel and I think the Katana *feels* great at low volumes... It's still a little fizzy but it responds well to my dynamics.

timmysoft

Why is connecting to a computer such a big issue? 

Its part of the amps functionality so i don’t see it as a shortfall. 

I dont own one but have played through the 100w a lot and it’s s decent amp.

HAL9000

timmysoft said:

Why is connecting to a computer such a big issue? 

The Dog & Duck doesn’t have a USB socket. So why does an amp that is marketed as ‘stage-ready’ need one?

menamestom

I liked mine at home, but not so much when in the rehearsal room.  It was too big for a home practise amp so I moved it on.
I wouldn't say it sounded thin or tinny, just a bit harsh when pushed. 

RandallFlagg said:

I love this. I thought the Katana was the forum's darling amp. Now it's a cheap tinny can of shite.

Having sold mine, I didn't really think telling everybody I thought it was shite would have been helpful.  It's a versatile budget practise amp that sounds better than many other budget practise amps.  I was also conscious that I'd not given the speaker long to break in and I'd not tweaked loads with the software to address it. 

I think sometimes it's just best to move on without declaring something is shite when loads of people own them and still enjoy them.

bloodandtears

HAL9000 said:

timmysoft said:

Why is connecting to a computer such a big issue? 

The Dog & Duck doesn’t have a USB socket. So why does an amp that is marketed as ‘stage-ready’ need one?

Dog & Duck doesn't need one.. I think you misunderstand the purpose, take a laptop if you need to venue tweak. it's not unheard of for many modern musical equipment items.