They’re affordable, they work across the entire country-death metal spectrum of gain and you can chuck it in a car boot with room left over for your bassist. Of course, Katanas aren’t about pure sound. The basic functionality is just the tip of the iceberg – we haven’t even touched on deep-editing in the Tone Studio app, direct USB recording and the like, and we’re still yet to talk about how good the Katana 50 MkII EX actually sounds. You can get as complicated as you like with it, really. It opens up a dizzying array of control options: connect up to three expression pedals, assign them to any parameter you’d like in software, connect and control another Katana, connect another footswitch bank, connect it directly to your brain and turn the reverb on with your thoughts. Oh, and like the Katana itself, it’s seemingly built to withstand light artillery fire. We never felt ourselves scratching our heads, and the lack of a need for a separate power supply means you can literally just bring the Katana, the GA-FC EX and a couple of cables to the gig. The foot controller is totally passive, connecting to the amp via any stereo quarter-inch cable, and yet still has bright colour-switching LED lights that actually make it pretty clear what’s going on. When hooked up to the Katana, it effectively brings the top panel’s buttons to your feet: you can switch between a total of eight presets (four more than you can without it) or use it in a sort of pseudo-stompbox mode to toggle individual effects.
But if you play live, the newly-supported GA-FC EX could well be. Realistically, though, neither a separate modeller nor a pedalboard are an essential accessory to the Katana 50.
Boss katana 50 mk2 forum full#
However, a full effects loop for the 50-watt version would still be nice to see, letting you get even more granular with your setup without having to mess around in software. It is undeniably handy to be able to entirely bypass the preamp, given the glut of absolutely excellent amp-modelling pedals on the market, from the HX Stomp to a UAFX Dream ‘65. We can’t really offer you any big revelations gained from plugging into a clean solid-state power amp – whatever you put in there comes out of the speaker, loud as you’d like.
We gave it a whack with a few different modellers and preamp pedals, and yep, it certainly works. Presumably, Boss’ logic is that if you’re purchasing this kind of amp your effects setup isn’t complicated enough to warrant a loop – but you might be looking for a way to embiggen the sound of a floor modeller. The MkII did add a power-amp input, AKA an effects return, but no corresponding effects send. There is one feature still missing from the 50-watt breed of Katana amp, however, and that’s an effects loop. Though in the absence of another Katana the most realistic use-case for the new output could be using it in lieu of a mic in front of the speaker running it directly into the front-of-house while keeping the stage volume provided by the amp itself.
Plugging into it doesn’t mute the speaker, and it’s not affected by the master volume: it’s for the Stereo Expand previously unavailable on the 50-watt Katana MkII feature to connect a second Katana MKII. The main addition is compatibility with Boss’ latest GA-FC EX foot controller, but also joining the GA-FC jack is the line-out socket like the 100-watt MkII models, one separate from the headphone/record output. Very little, really, which isn’t too surprising given the change hasn’t warranted a “MkIII” label.
0 kommentar(er)
