The Amp I Wish I Had 20 Years Ago
Today we’re seeing just how far solid state amps have come. I got my hands on the Boss Katana 50 Gen 3, a $300 amp aimed at beginners, and put it head-to-head with some of the high-end tube amps it claims to model — including my handwired Fender Princeton Reverb, a Bad Cat, and a Friedman Plexi-style head.
Can you actually get great tone from a budget amp? In this video, I walk through three iconic sounds — clean, edge-of-breakup, and classic Plexi overdrive — and show how to dial them in on the Katana using basic tone-shaping principles. We’ll also talk about how EQ, gain staging, and compression work together to create killer guitar tone, regardless of the gear price.
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????️ Gear Used in This Video:
Boss Katana 50 Gen 3 — https://sweetwater.sjv.io/yqOmZ3
Fender Princeton Reverb (handwired) — https://sweetwater.sjv.io/DyqkW2
Bad Cat Era 30 — https://badcatamps.com/era-30/
Friedman Plex 50 — https://sweetwater.sjv.io/je5ORP
Thanks to Sweetwater for sponsoring this video and sending over the Katana for demo. All opinions are my own.
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0:00 Intro
0:56 Thanks to Sweetwater
1:53 Let’s get a “Clean” tone
3:50 Let’s hear the Katana
5:40 How to EQ the sound
8:14 “Edge of Breakup”
9:54 Getting the Katana to EoB
14:50 Let’s add some boost
16:00 Classic amp overdrive
21:30 thoughts on the Katana
#Amp #Years
Originally posted by UCCJ56k8nBeqWLoxNa6DToAQ at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhBtDLcaoyA
lol "Color me impressed" The Replacements have influenced the English lexicon. You should do a video on Bob Stinson's tone some day Rhett!!!
I love mine. But then I got a Mesa Boogie California Tweed. And although I love the built in effects and Bluetooth, interface, etc., once I went back to it after a couple of months, it didn’t sound as good. It’s still the best beginner amp ever imo. But my experience has made me realize why tube amps still exist and still sell at the prices they do.
hi… so where are you volume controls at,,,,,don t hear to much about this
But, Can it keep up against a high end amp? I heard the Artist series can. Nice video. Cheers!
Hello sir, can it beat the drums on small live jam without mic especially outdoor?
Vox Valvetronix is still better than Katana imo
Thank you for doing this video Rhett.
to anyone interested in buying a Boss Katana, get a model with the bloom button, it makes such a huge difference
You can limit some of the harsh frequencies using the EQ settings in the Katana suite when you plug it into a computer
The Fender Mustang 3 wipes the floor with this Joke of an amp…
Excellent video. I’ll apply these concepts to learning my Helix LT
You know your doing well when other guitarist show up at your gigs like
Dickie Betts I use to buy him beers when I saw him from our stage he came out we made friends it made me feel good caused I learned guitar watching him now he was watching and enjoying me wow
Most amp sales men just play poorly
Rolland tube amp is just ok
The amp I loved the most as a kid was a big Roland cube thing. It might have been the Cube 80 or something like that. Fat sound, lovely cleans and chuggy metal tones. My favourite combo amp nowadays is the Boss Katana series of course
The katana 100 watt has a much better sound too
20 years ago. Yeah, right. Okay… That's the one you would have wanted. Uh huh
somehow any amp for me is scam since there are even cheap amp modellers that can do any amp sound you ever more 100% authentic…. best example is the ToneX pedal…
Take a shot in every Rhett video when he says – Edge of breakup, dig in
My 2 cents worth after owning several 15-20W tube amps and now the Katana 100 gen 3.
Does the Katana give that harmonically rich tone exactly like a tube amp can give? No.
Can you play fully cracked distortion at bedroom apartment levels at night. Absolutely.
With the amount of different tones, effects, eq options it's a fantastic at home practice amp. (I could have only dreamed about having an amp with so many effects 30 years ago for so cheap).. bit playing with a band, I find the Katana a bit lacking. A tube amp with 2 or 3 great tones for that situation is better than a Katana with 50 pretty good tones. But for practicing and jamming at home its my go-to amp.
So you do own a Boss Katana Why not use yours Why involve Sweetwater
I think you should get the equivalent ValveTronic amp and see what tones you can dial in now. Use what you’ve learned over the years to tweak it. I think you’ll see that they are pretty dang good!
I've been gigging all over South East Asia with one of these, and they are great. I have the 100W 1×12 version. It's great because, it sounds good one it's own, takes pedals well and also has an FX loop to run modeling amps into. The speaker yes isn't great but actually when using a modeling amp it works very well. It's fairly light as well so good for going into the back of Uber's and up tight staircases.
20:25 I wish you hooked it up with that Bad Cat cabinet to hear the difference !
Does it have better timbre than Mk2?
Man my biggest struggle with the Katana is getting a bit of bite/gain on the clean channel that doesnt completely squash or fight against any additional gain added to the front with an external pedal. I know their intended scenario is totally pedal-less but I'll never not have my Rat with me.
I still have my valvetronix
I've had a katana mk11 50 watt since 2021 and I've giged with it since..it's my go to amp to gig with…as far as editing the patches I've always used the editing app I can't remember ever using the panel for anything more except the volume master control.
The real magic of the Katanas is when you plug it into the computer and change around with settings there. You can get sooooo much more. You can change the cab resonance from deep, modern and vintage, you can change contour, you vave two 10band EQ's one infront of the amp and one after, you can change what effects you want to have and choose from. Like the boostar has 3 pre set, but you can change all of them to like, high boost, mid boost, fat dist, warm dist, and even some real pedals, like the HM-2, Metalzone, Tubescreamer, big muff and so on. Same with the mod and FX Button, you have so many more effects to choose from, and you can dial the effects much more indepth. You can also change the effects chain, so if you want the FX before the distorion, or the reverb last or whatever you want.
And I'm not even done there, you have the Tone exachange website where people can upload their settings so you can download them to your computer. People try and emulate a JCM800 sound, or Jimi Hendrix sound, or Hetfield in 84 or whatever it may be, or their own badass tones they have come up with.
For me, as a guy who just plays at home for fun it is the best amp I could ever had imagined for that price! It is so incredibly good!
I don't get the "clean" amps…so boring!
Crate 8" was my first….
Very amusing when he says the pushed setting is a “better clean” setting than the clean setting, when it’s not very clean at all lmao. The clean setting sounds great – they both sounded great. All about context and what youre trying to get out of it
You neglected to mention how light these are. My Fender 22W [tube] Supersonic combo amp weighs 2-3 times what my first generation Katana 50W weighs. Trust me kids. l'm 69. Sooner or later the romance of toting heavy amps [and guitars] in and out of vehicles, up and down club steps, is going to get old. Possibly in one day! l bought my Katana at the Clearwater FL Guitar Center for 225 plus tax. l still think it's the most bang per buck of ANY music purchase l've made. Mine doesn't have a "Pushed" setting but l can easily dial in a lightly clipping sound. On mine a little "Boost" goes a LONG way. Cheers!
I have Gen3 EX Katana 50. the best amp ever!
I have a Katana mk2 50 and i like it a lot given the price and the possibilities it gives you. I do want a tube amp in the future, but for now it’s pretty much perfect. I do have a pedalboard too, cause i like to experiment with pedals, although most of the effects are on the amp. Learned from this video, thx for that????
That amp modeling is actually pretty good… That speaker kind of sounds like sh** though.
Most clean – clean tones need modulation or delay in HEAVY amounts to make it sound rich.
Solid state is high fidelity clean, tube amp are not.
That is why the majority will enjoy a solid state with some distortion edging.
To get some harmonics.
Some styles want very sterile for the transients being smacked so fast they're their own distortion fluting.
… The Katana is a greeeeat starter amp but you'll need a 10" speaker to learn some harmonics.
The Crunch is absolutely amazing. Loves an acoustic signal!
I use a Mini with an acoustic because I become my own Roland Jazz Chorus if I do.
The Mini with its 4" is great for non-drony assistance at volume but also expand on tight yet present bass at lower volumes.
But you can't have both volume and a full tone.
Any chance of you sharing some of your Katana presets with us!?
Sounds beautiful!!
Not good.
Id love to hear this amp with a greenback/creamback in it. I bet it would be the balls
Rhett, please do a video of running OD and fuzz pedals through this amp. I feel like these modelling amps sound good on their own, but sound rather odd with dirt pedals.
That sounds dang good in my opinion. That "pushed" options is super neat and think it is well done! Definitely better than the "crunch" I had back with the Spider Line 6s aha. This is an amazing amp and I'm so glad beginners have way better options for guitars/amps nowadays for the price.
You have the Master on 10 and the amp vol at like 6. Is this super loud in the room?
Do a little Fender Mustang LT25. I think you'll be equally impressed. I love mine so far. Not as simple, but maybe more flexible. Great vids!!!
yes is a great amp. No, it doesn't sound like a $3000 amp. Stop exaggerating about this amp
If anybody has 100 W MK two and they’re not seeing a push setting simply select the clean channel and hit variation and that is push. I was confused when I saw this video at first.
It's much better through better speakers. I have at the head and 212 katana cab and threw in v30/g12h combo I had lying around and its a lot more present with more depth. It's really just my home amp I can practice anything with but I mainly have gigged Marshall and Orange the last 20 years and I'm perfectly fine using this on stage if I have to. The only negative to me is not the sound I just prefer plywood boxes for gigging.
You know solid state amps have improved when Rhett instinctively dials in a tone using the same principles as when he uses a tube amp and it works.