Boss Katana mkII as a power amp/speaker solution

I also have a friend who plays in a florida cover Band. He uses the original Katana 50 as his ONLY amp-he is the lead (only) guitar player in the band. He likes it but he doesn't have any experience with real modelers but he defiitely is a very good player wih tons of tube amp experience.
 
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I just saw a young guy playing a wedding gig tearing it up using one. He used it as a pedal platform. His strat sounded 'stratty' and really good. It made me think of getting one. If I can find one for $100 I'm doing it for sure.
 
Bman said:
I just saw a young guy playing a wedding gig tearing it up using one. He used it as a pedal platform. His strat sounded 'stratty' and really good. It made me think of getting one. If I can find one for $100 I'm doing it for sure.
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I searched and $150 was the lowest I found and it was local pickup only. The others average $180 and local pickup. Shipping on most get you to new price range real quick. The MKII has more functionality and supposedly everything is upgraded. But who knows. The one for $150 was NY I think. Had a Celesion V12 in it.
 
OK. Got the Katana mkII. 1st imprssion, as a stand alone amp I am not impressed, but I didn't expect to be. Bought because it has a power amp in for my lonely in the closet FM3. Just really tried getting a clean strat sound. Adding some gain helped, but still. Haven't tried the FM3 to power amp in yet. That is my goal. maybe later this week. I had a small Fender Super Champ X2 with a eminence rajin cajin speaker in it. Blows this thing away. So far anyway.
 
I used to have the 100w combo, tried the Helix I had at the time into the fx return using it as a power amp. Utterly terrible.
As a standalone amp it was pretty rubbish as well.

I found one good use for it, using it as a "wet" amp using the built-in effects, that worked quite well.
 
I will have to revise my thoughts about the Katana mkII. Decided I might as well hook up to their tone studio and see whats what.
The sounds are like night and day. I easily downloaded and saved a few to my Katana 50 mkII.
Sounds great now for what it is. The editor allows lots of editing to the amp models and the fx, the amp itself does not.
Still haven't plugged in FM3 or FM9 to the power amp in yet, but I have to believe thats going to be fine because the only thing on the Katan that works are master volume and the variable wattage (which is cool btw)
 
Jamme1961 said:
Katana power amp in users bump
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I've been using the Power Amp In on my Mk II 100W head with my FM9 + Mesa cabs and have been getting great results. It's got me wondering about other, possibly better, SS power amps, but I also like that the Katana can function as a backup if there's an issue with the FM9.
 
TubeStack said:
I've been using the Power Amp In on my Mk II 100W head with my FM9 + Mesa cabs and have been getting great results. It's got me wondering about other, possibly better, SS power amps, but I also like that the Katana can function as a backup if there's an issue with the FM9.
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Same. I've been struggling trying to amplify my FM3; I usually use IEMs and then run them through my Neumann KH120s and it sounds great, but I had been using the Powercab 212 + and hating it. On a whim I tried my Katana MKii 100 today (which is why I'm here) power amp in and it sounds great. To me it actually sounds best if I leave all of the power amp and speaker modeling on in the FM3 (I was surprised by this). I'm actually thinking I may be able to use this...today at least lol.
 
MindBullets said:
Same. I've been struggling trying to amplify my FM3; I usually use IEMs and then run them through my Neumann KH120s and it sounds great, but I had been using the Powercab 212 + and hating it. On a whim I tried my Katana MKii 100 today (which is why I'm here) power amp in and it sounds great. To me it actually sounds best if I leave all of the power amp and speaker modeling on in the FM3 (I was surprised by this). I'm actually thinking I may be able to use this...today at least lol.
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OK so I’ve got an FM3. There’s an open jam session where bands come up and play every other 20 minutes or so. They have a katana 100 mark two and I decided to bring my FM3 along to see if I can get it to sound good. The guy who runs sound says the katana is a horrible amp and sounds completely fizzy. So I brought my M3 plugged it in and “thought” I adjusted it pretty good with my hi-gain setting for Alice In Chains, but he said that it still sounded fizzy. It may be because he’s a tube snob. I couldn’t hear completely precisely because of the monitoring situation at Cetera.

I didn’t get to dial it in much, but do you think the Katana guitar speakers could be shite?
 
The sound is there you just have to tweak it. I always used band practice as the time to try out a few different tweaks to one amp in my FM3. I always went with the power amp modeling on but the cabs off. There's with band settings and there's you alone in your room settings - they will be very different. It takes a lot of time to dial things in - I never stop tweaking that's why I love this stuff - it's great satisfaction when people including band members, compliment your tone -- it will happen - and then there's always haters out there - don't let them get to you

 
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PlanetGuitar said:
OK so I’ve got an FM3. There’s an open jam session where bands come up and play every other 20 minutes or so. They have a katana 100 mark two and I decided to bring my FM3 along to see if I can get it to sound good. The guy who runs sound says the katana is a horrible amp and sounds completely fizzy. So I brought my M3 plugged it in and “thought” I adjusted it pretty good with my hi-gain setting for Alice In Chains, but he said that it still sounded fizzy. It may be because he’s a tube snob. I couldn’t hear completely precisely because of the monitoring situation at Cetera.

I didn’t get to dial it in much, but do you think the Katana guitar speakers could be shite?
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I was a bonafide modeling hater up until I got my FM9 last April. They all sounded fizzy to me. I own some very nice tube amps. Every modeler I tried going all the way back to the original Line 6 stuff like 20 years ago sounded like shite to me. There were no picking dynamics or chime even on the clean sounds. The gain tones always ended with fizzy crap as the signal faded. They didn't respond to volume knob changes they way a real amp did.

I tried all the new ones as they came along - even the software plugin modelers in my DAW. A few of these worked OK for cleaner tones but once you added some crunch and grit - same old story - fizzy and artificial with no real tube amp feel or dynamics.

I bought a Helix and returned it. I bought a GT-1000 and returned it. I tried friends QC's and Kempers. I also tried a Katana at an open mic. For anyone that has ever owned a high end tube amp it was and is all shite. Until the latest gen of Fractal's modelers came along.

So plugging your FM3 into a Katana is probably gonna make it sound like the Katana. On a Katana's best day it still sounds like shite to me.
 
Jamme1961 said:
The sound is there you just have to tweak it. I always used band practice as the time to try out a few different tweaks to one amp in my FM3. I always went with the power amp modeling on but the cabs off. There's with band settings and there's you alone in your room settings - they will be very different. It takes a lot of time to dial things in - I never stop tweaking that's why I love this stuff - it's great satisfaction when people including band members, compliment your tone -- it will happen - and then there's always haters out there - don't let them get to you

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A buddy of mine owns one, but he doesn’t use the software because it doesn’t work on his computer. So maybe I’ll go over his place with my FM3 and see if I can make it sound better than the Katana internal brown sound stuff. Yeah, the sound guy who does not like the sound of this amp is questionable because he’s a tube snob to the point where he doesn’t think anything sounds good if it’s not tubes. Lol
 
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Rex Rox said:
I was a bonafide modeling hater up until I got my FM9 last April. They all sounded fizzy to me. I own some very nice tube amps. Every modeler I tried going all the way back to the original Line 6 stuff like 20 years ago sounded like shite to me. There were no picking dynamics or chime even on the clean sounds. The gain tones always ended with fizzy crap as the signal faded. They didn't respond to volume knob changes they way a real amp did.

I tried all the new ones as they came along - even the software plugin modelers in my DAW. A few of these worked OK for cleaner tones but once you added some crunch and grit - same old story - fizzy and artificial with no real tube amp feel or dynamics.

I bought a Helix and returned it. I bought a GT-1000 and returned it. I tried friends QC's and Kempers. I also tried a Katana at an open mic. For anyone that has ever owned a high end tube amp it was and is all shite. Until the latest gen of Fractal's modelers came along.

So plugging your FM3 into a Katana is probably gonna make it sound like the Katana. On a Katana's best day it still sounds like shite to me.
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I love the Fractal stuff. I actually had Joni Mitchell’s producer/engineer come over to help tweak my Marshall and Bassman presets to be more authentic at high volume when I use my FM3 power amp 4x12 setup. I had him come over because he knows what those amps are supposed to sound like. And, the presets sounds amazingdespite my using my $150 45watt Quilter Microblock guitar pedal sized “power amp”. The Quilter actually sounds great with it’s flat eq setting.

I was hoping the Katana would be a turnkey solution instead of bringing out a 4x12. I just do not really know how much tweaking would be needed on the Katana to get an acceptable tone. I’m thinking the Katana speaker might just suck.

I’m thinking I may just get a 1x12 cabinet and go that route Instead of lugging my 4x12 1960Acab around.
 
Katana Artist mk ii is a wonderful amp on it own and the power amp in works fantastic with FM3.

it is nice to have a bunch of great options. (Including FM3 into a pair of Adam A7X monitors in my home studio).

the waza speaker is tremendous.
 
So, I finally purchased the Katana Artist combo. With my FM3, this amp kills sounds great and is loud as F. The Katana is a full blown power amp/guitar speaker speaker solution for any amp sim product.
These Katana amps are a perfect companion for any Fractal product. I’m surprised that Inhave not read a lot about this setup. All people talk about is trying to get a real nice tube power amp like a Fryette along with a guitar cabinet.

So, for my FM3, I’ll take this Katana Artist Amp over the Fryette amp 4x12 cab solution anyday.
 
PlanetGuitar said:
So, I finally purchased the Katana Artist combo. With my FM3, this amp kills sounds great and is loud as F. The Katana is a full blown power amp/guitar speaker speaker solution for any amp sim product.
These Katana amps are a perfect companion for any Fractal product. I’m surprised that Inhave not read a lot about this setup. All people talk about is trying to get a real nice tube power amp like a Fryette along with a guitar cabinet.

So, for my FM3, I’ll take this Katana Artist Amp over the Fryette amp 4x12 cab solution anyday.
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Just wondering if you are using Output 2 of your FM3 connected to the Katana Artist Combo? If you do, do you have the global settings for Output 2 set to Unity Gain or Line Level. I have the same combo and am trying to find the best setup. I have it set to Unity Gain but in this setting Output 1 has a much higher output level than Output 2.

Sounds great but curious as to why the output levels are so far out for the 2 channels?
 
1anP said:
Just wondering if you are using Output 2 of your FM3 connected to the Katana Artist Combo? If you do, do you have the global settings for Output 2 set to Unity Gain or Line Level. I have the same combo and am trying to find the best setup. I have it set to Unity Gain but in this setting Output 1 has a much higher output level than Output 2.

Sounds great but curious as to why the output levels are so far out for the 2 channels?
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Oh yes, output 2 set to unity- with it’s volume knob cranked all the way to 11. Line level has more to it than the hi-impedance output 2.
 
PlanetGuitar said:
Oh yes, output 2 set to unity- with it’s volume knob cranked all the way to 11. Line level has more to it than the hi-impedance output 2.
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Just in case anyone else is interested I also followed the Manual's page 33 advice and in the Amp Blocks, (Speaker Page) settings for each of my my Scenes I set Speaker Drive, Compression and Thump to zero. The last thing I changed was the Output Mode from FRFR to SS PWR AMP + CAB.

The Katana Mk2 Artist 100W Combo with the FM3 sounds great to my ears and worth trying out if you have one.
 
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