Katana - Tricks for getting the most out of a Katana in live situation

Started by PhilBr, November 05, 2017, 11:42:25 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

PhilBr

I love my Katana 100/112 for many reasons, particularly since the v2 upgrade. I've owned everything from valve amps with increasingly complex pedal boards to give me some flexibility, to a Line6 HD500X/Variax setup. The Katana is the perfect blend of flexibility and simplicity. However, there are still some apparent compromises when it comes to playing the amp live, and I'd be really interested to hear some of the tricks people have adopted to get around them. For example, you can set up a channel with a great sound for chords, and then kick in a clean boost to get a solo version of that same sound, which is quite often when you want in order to be playing your solo within the general sound of the song. Or you can set up that great sound for chords, and kick in a chorus. But because the boost and chorus exist in the same effects bank, you can only set the channel to use one or the other. With v2 you now have more channels, so you could program your combination into two channels, but that means you'd have to maintain the one base sound in two channels, which isn't ideal. You do have the red, green and orange effects for each channel, and you could program green as boost and red as chorus, but what are the practicalities of dealing with this in a live setting? Anyway, I'd be really interested to hear how others are getting the most out of their Katana for live work.


carydad

In the same control boat here. But I have always been here, from my tube stuff to the modelling stuff. The balance of keeping it stage simple and still getting enough options never really ends. I've built 7, 4 and 3 button arduino midi controllers for the AF3 and keep programming those too! My hope is that they allow programming of the buttons at some point to the extent that you can have them be 3 presets and then three for whatever you want within reason. For example one button could be a green mod and another the yellow. I dont need tap or to turn on/off rev/dly. Just stuff I don't use, I leave it on all the time in the back but too much buries me in the mix.

For now I use outboard stuff. Auto-engage wah, switching to an orbital mod and the pitchfork for all things pitch related. I currently have a drive but my plan for the live setting is to use the "B" bank for the one off wierd stuff and to play 95% of the songs from within the preset. Just be in my crunch preset, in effect mode, so all I need to worry about is the boost and effect switches. Mode and bank switching will probably become more natural to me but doing a gig six days in on the K100 made for a couple of missed dance steps. I use the loop for a solo boost. In two bands and I need a different level for each band so that will be another bit of a hurdle. On the AF I could change that from the pedal menu, not here. A little pre-planning  is all that is needed there. Between the crunch setting, the drive on it and the volume knob on the les paul I can get the majority of gain range I need. So...not very helpful but that's my plan headed into week two of ownership :)