Boss Katana Artist 100

Bill Duncan · Post by **Bill Duncan** » 28 Oct 2024 6:49 am

I have had a Boss Katana 100 for several months that I had given up on and had planned to get rid of it because I could not download and install the Tone Studio program. I rolled it to the side in my studio and forgot about it.

Last Saturday night my grandson was visiting and came up to my studio noticing the Boss amp and remarked it was a good-looking amp. I responded by saying it was garbage, and I was going to get rid of it. After I explained the difficulties I had trying to load a program in it from Roland he asked to take a look at it. He got my information about the amp and after about 10 minutes he had the programs downloaded, installed, and working.

I still cannot say it is my favorite amp but, I can use it now and it doesn't seem to be such a bad amp.

I did change out the speaker for a Travis Toy 12" 8 I had which in my opinion helps a lot.

Larry Dering · Post by **Larry Dering** » 28 Oct 2024 7:03 am

Bill, I'm glad to hear you can now tweak it. I had trouble finding a sweet tone on my steel and yet my Zum with E66 pickup sounds great on it. Go figure. I too am considering a speaker swap. I think that may be the extra ingredient needed.

Bill Duncan · Post by **Bill Duncan** » 28 Oct 2024 7:24 am

Hey Larry, I had ordered two Travis Toy 12's and used one in my 50 watt tube amp and was going to build an closure for the other one but decided to try it in the Boss. It sounds much better than the Waza speaker that came in it. I plan to leave it.

Larry Ball · Post by **Larry Ball** » 28 Oct 2024 7:43 am

I have one and love mine, my “Show-Pro” sounds great with my settings. I also know someone who just had an Eminence speaker put in and it also sounds great. Good little amp for the price.

Larry Dering · Post by **Larry Dering** » 28 Oct 2024 8:04 am

Well that's worth a try. I have a Texas Heat Eminence new and a couple other types. My TT speakers are in 2 different extension cabinets but I can easily borrow it for a test. Thanks guys.

ajm · Post by **ajm** » 29 Oct 2024 6:05 am

Just curious: What did you guys not like about the stock speaker?
And what did changing the speaker do for you?

Larry Dering · Post by **Larry Dering** » 29 Oct 2024 5:58 pm

I can't answer on the new speaker yet but the stock speaker in mine has an annoying buzz n the midrange that the eq can't fix. I used the app and tried it's parametric eq but still not good.

Charlie Hansen · Post by **Charlie Hansen** » 30 Oct 2024 8:16 am

Just a thought but you might check your gain settings, The buzz maybe there, I had a buzz in mine and that's what was causing it

Larry Dering · Post by **Larry Dering** » 30 Oct 2024 5:33 pm

Charlie, you could be right but I have to say I've been all over the globe on these settings. I will give it another go before swapping speaker.

Bill Duncan · Post by **Bill Duncan** » 1 Nov 2024 12:47 am

I had the same as Larry with the Waza speaker.

Dan Beller-McKenna · Post by **Dan Beller-McKenna** » 1 Nov 2024 4:14 am

This is slightly off topic, but I was telling a gear-head friend about my Katana 50 and 100, and how even with all of the settings exactly the same, including the deep dive in the computer settings, the 100 set to 50 watts still sounded decidedly better than the 50 at 50 watts. I attributed this to the slightly larger cabinet on the 100, but he pointed out that the magnet on the 12" waza speaker in the 100 was significantly larger than the magnet on the same speaker in the 50.

This says nothing about the Artist 100 model, but it does suggest that a different, more powerful speaker does seem to have a noticeable effect on the sound of the amp.

Bill Duncan · Post by **Bill Duncan** » 1 Nov 2024 5:05 am

I set my Katana Artist 100 at 50 watts. The fact I can put more signal through at tolerable volume improves what I hear. To be honest, in a band or auditorium setting I sincerely doubt anyone other than myself would notice any difference in any of the sound qualities discussed. I can use my tube amps or my solid states and no one notices but me.

Dan Beller-McKenna · Post by **Dan Beller-McKenna** » 2 Nov 2024 3:51 am

Bill, sad but true.

That notwithstanding(!): I just put a Warehouse G12 C/S 75 Watt speaker in the Katana 50 and it added a boatload of tone and volume to that amp. Added a few pounds, so it pushes up against the point of having a lightweight amp like this. But it still comes in a a good 6 or so lbs lighter than the 100, and makes it a much more realistic choice to take to a rehearsal.

Bill Duncan · Post by **Bill Duncan** » 2 Nov 2024 4:50 am

A sad fact about Roland is their inattention to the cumbersomness of their downloads. I have a Spark and Positive Grid is way ahead of Roland/Boss.

My opinion of course.

Larry Dering · Post by **Larry Dering** » 2 Nov 2024 7:02 am

Well I must have had a lucky day yesterday. I played my Katana 100 on the 50 watts setting and used the app to set low mids at 400 and high mids at 2.5k and tweaked the settings on both acoustic and clean amp. Played a GFI SD10 4x5 with 705 Lawrence pickup and Sarno black box. That thing was singing the best tone I've heard from it since I got it. I played for 2 hours and hated to quit. I saved my settings to the channels and my library. Got a few screen shots to boot. I was impressed with the amp. It has the capability to do some decent steel tones.

Jim Pitman · Post by **Jim Pitman** » 7 Nov 2024 10:58 am

I just acquired the original version Katana 100. I was able to download the control app and also updated the firmware.
It's a great amp for my Tele. I'm looking forward to trying it with my steel.
My ears love my Session 400 but my back hates it.