Gas Supply
£237 to £439 CONTACT Roland UK PHONE 01792 702701 WEB www.boss.info/uk
Q&A What is it?
“It” is the answer to the question: ‘What has 10 amplifiers, 65 effects, plus a bunch of cabinet types and power outputs?’ In this instance, you don’t get a point if you answered ‘Joe Bonamassa’s spare room’. We are, in fact, talking about this year’s valve-free wonders, the tweaked and expanded Boss Katana MkII amplifiers.
Where have I heard the name ‘Katana’ before?
Seasoned readers may be having flashbacks to Fender’s 1985 Katana sixstring, the brand’s hard-to-love punt at the shredder market. For everyone else, you don’t know how bad it was. You weren’t there, man.
In the spirit of full disclosure, Japanophiles will likely know the Katana as the sword of choice for samurai in ancient and feudal Japan. Of course, you might simply recognise the name as part of the model designation on the first wave of these next-generation solid-state amps.
This is a sequel, then?
What gave it away? Yes, this is the followup. The good news is, in sequel terms, we’re talking The Godfather Part II here, not Blues Brothers 2000. This latest stab at the reinventing great amp tone without valves comprises four items. There’s a choice of a 50- and 100-watt 1x12 (£237 and £334 respectively), a 100-watt 2x12 (£439) and a 100-watt head (£369).
Taking a look at the spec sheets, it’s obvious that Boss has put a lot of thought into these amps. Get this, while you’ll want to run the Katana head through a 4x12 cab most of the time, this thing has a five-inch internal speaker. It’ll give you 30 watts in that format, more than enough for rehearsals and bedroom noodling. That’s a sharp feature…
Any other cool features?
Plenty. Each amp has a variable output function. You can run them at 0.5 watts, 50 watts or 100 watts. Obviously, the head offers a fourth option if you kick in the internal speaker. The latter amp and the 100-watt 2x12 combo also offer a trio of switchable cabinet tone tweaks – Vintage, Modern and Deep.
There’s the Power Amp In socket. This grants you permission to plug a preamp or multi-effect/modelling unit into each Katana model’s Class A/B power amp. Plus, the 100-watt editions can be controlled via
Boss’s optional GA-FC footboard. You’ll bag one of those floor dwellers for around £70.
What if you bought into the first wave of Katana?
There are some tweaks that might encourage you to upgrade. For instance, you get 10 amp sounds instead of five. What’s more, you not only get more effects in the MkII models, you can run five of them simultaneously. The previous range only manages three stompbox sounds at once.
When you figure in the increased sounds, expanded effects menu, not to mention the flexible Boss Tone Studio editing software, there’s plenty to get excited about here, regardless of whether you’re already onboard with the Katana concept, or just evaluating the validity of valve amp tones (without valves) for the first time. [EM]