BOSS Katana GO
- Thread starter Stone
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KHAAAAAAANNNNNNN!!!!!!!!
Shredder
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Boss and Line6 stay awake nights figuring out how to shoe horn existing tech into ever smaller and smaller units, instead of improving their core products. Prosumer paradise.
Fractal FTW,
Fractal FTW,
Sascha Franck
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So, you have this thing with a plug that you can even move around to suite any output jack angles (curious to see it sticking out of a typical Strat output plate...) with a headphone and USB cable hanging out on the other side and expect me to think of that as something sturdy?
Sascha Franck
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Seriously, this needed a clever way to stick/clip it to your guitar/strap and should then come with a proper 1/4" input.
laxu
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Loved the jam at the start @2112 ! 
It's honestly insane what is packed into this thing. I know it's basically the Waza Air in a different form factor, but it's still really impressive. IMO the plug solution is not great as it might not fit every guitar but I suppose you can throw a short extension cable on it. I know I have a bit of trouble fitting e.g my Boss WS-20L into my Skervesen Shoggie's output jack.
As much as I hate editing things without physical controls, for this sort of thing it's the best way to go and Boss really nailed it. It doesn't seem gimped in what you can tweak, reasonably easy to use, tons of fx choices, and that "stage feel" feature sounds awesome too.
As your resident UI complainer, I kinda wish the amp settings were on one page excluding the amp model selection. Having to flick between EQ and gain/volume sucks a bit, but maybe it works fine in practice as it's at least just one tap to go between the two pages.
But the fx editing seems great. From your amp settings it takes something like 2-3 taps to go to any effect or to toggle it on and off.
This is 144 euros in Finland and that's just really fantastic value for money for a headphone, super portable, wirelessly editable rig. Boss has really raised the bar here for what these budget end, super compact devices can do.
Hell, it's probably raising the expectation on what the more expensive units should do. If you have wireless editing in something this cheap and small, what's the excuse for anything coming out after this to not have something similar? Boss seems to have even released a BT adapter for the GX-100 and ME-90 that adds support for wireless MIDI and audio streaming so it's clear they are going all in on this sort of capability.
It's honestly insane what is packed into this thing. I know it's basically the Waza Air in a different form factor, but it's still really impressive. IMO the plug solution is not great as it might not fit every guitar but I suppose you can throw a short extension cable on it. I know I have a bit of trouble fitting e.g my Boss WS-20L into my Skervesen Shoggie's output jack.
As much as I hate editing things without physical controls, for this sort of thing it's the best way to go and Boss really nailed it. It doesn't seem gimped in what you can tweak, reasonably easy to use, tons of fx choices, and that "stage feel" feature sounds awesome too.
As your resident UI complainer, I kinda wish the amp settings were on one page excluding the amp model selection. Having to flick between EQ and gain/volume sucks a bit, but maybe it works fine in practice as it's at least just one tap to go between the two pages.
But the fx editing seems great. From your amp settings it takes something like 2-3 taps to go to any effect or to toggle it on and off.
This is 144 euros in Finland and that's just really fantastic value for money for a headphone, super portable, wirelessly editable rig. Boss has really raised the bar here for what these budget end, super compact devices can do.
Hell, it's probably raising the expectation on what the more expensive units should do. If you have wireless editing in something this cheap and small, what's the excuse for anything coming out after this to not have something similar? Boss seems to have even released a BT adapter for the GX-100 and ME-90 that adds support for wireless MIDI and audio streaming so it's clear they are going all in on this sort of capability.
Sascha Franck
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Well, there's the Nux Mighty Plug Pro which is basically doing all that already (€98 at Thomann/Germany), plus it's allowing you to load your own IRs.
laxu
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Yeah pretty similar, seems to have come out like 5 months ago or so? I don't really pay much attention to these things since I don't really need something like this atm, but would be definitely interested if I was a beginner or if I was traveling a lot.
Sascha Franck
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Well, the non-Pro model has been pretty similar already and got released quite a while ago.
For me, the unit to support any kind of half-decent foot controller will likely be the one I might buy, simply because in that case I could as well use it as a backup. So far, the best bet apparently would be the Mooer P2. Now, Boss have their own foot controller, but with up/down only, it's fairly limited (especially at that price point I'd surely expect more, so maybe there's some configurability hidden in the app).
Another contender might be the Pod Express, but no Bluetooth and having to rely on batteries aren't exactly great.
the-trooper
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Boss: you know, we should be more like Neural DSP.
Sascha Franck
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Well, I wouldn't go that far. With Boss, you always get very mature products straight from the start. And this one here seems to be no exception.
laxu
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I tried to look if Boss releases any MIDI specs for it and seems they don't.
XSonic made a Boss Katana specific version of their Airstep controller that might work with this one too. The regular Airstep can also be programmed for the Katana functions.
The main issue with the Airstep is the lack of a screen and the way it handles preset storage. Instead of reading the preset data from the Airstep, it's stored in the mobile app itself. When I used iOS only, there was no issue because iCloud synced the Airstep data between my mobile devices. When I moved to Android + iOS it became a huge mess since there was no way to keep them in sync. The Android BT connection seemed a lot less reliable than iOS for some reason - I have had zero problems with BT on anything else on my Samsung Galaxy Fold 4.
So I sold the Airstep and went with the Luminite Graviton M1 instead, which is just way better, but obviously you'd need to reverse engineer any Katana specific MIDI functionality to get it working with the Katana Go.
Sascha Franck
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I actually consume *very* little disposable items and try to keep using everything as long as possible. I'm using a GT-10 for one kind of gig and a Zoom G3 as a backup, just as two examples, but now it's about time to finally up my hotel room/backup game.
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Fwiw, of topic (but maybe not really): talking about the Zoom G3, what an incredible, almost perfect device! I sooo wish there was something like it with better modeling and Bluetooth.
- Runs with each and every plain USB PSU (USB B input), still has a stock 9V input and also runs for loads of hours on 4 AA batteries (looking at you, L6 devices...)
- I can power it from my Samsung Tab A and use them both for hours (obviously, USB audio is supported, too). What a nice jam pack.
- The internal looper is among the best in this class (looking at you, HX Stomp...).
- Global tap tempo (looking at you, Ocean Machine, TC Plethora...).
No, you can't directly attach it to your guitar, but otherwise it does everything I could ever need (minus the outdated sound).
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Had one for a long time ... very nice device. Sounded good too. Unfortunately I fried it by plugging an AC adapter into it ...
ragingplatypi
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I feel like half that sum is just the bassoon my 11-year-old wants.
Sascha Franck
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Oh right, the G3 has that, too. And you can even route it pre-FX, which sometimes comes in handy (I'm using it like that for acoustics).
