A couple Katana Volume Level Tips

Started by J Michael, March 10, 2018, 02:08:32 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

J Michael

Hi All,

  I picked up the Katana head last week and have been having a blast with it. Thought I would share a few things based on others usage I have noticed. (Sorry it is so long.)

Now onto a few volume (non) issues.

After watching tons of vids, reading other posts and downloading patches with drastically different volumes, it appears to me that there is confusion regarding a few things that effect volume. The majority of what I have seen is in regards to input gain and/or the 3 knob equalizer.

I also read a lengthy discussion, on a large forum (gearpage I think) with pages of replies, about the Katana's clean channel. Someone assumed that the katana was useless for clean tones as a result of the gain knob needing to be used to get sounds out of the amp. None of the responses explained why gain is a perfectly normal requirement for the clean channel to work properly. 

Below are gain and equalizer explanations and tips on their use with the Katana.

Gain

Gain is not distortion or overdrive. Gain is the volume setting for your input level. It is there to account for differences in the input signals between different guitar electronics, pickups etc. and any other instrument plugged into the amplifier. Gain is absolutely required for clean sounds even if that was not the case in other amps you may have used. Gain can cause distortion and we guitarists like that but that is a happy side effect of setting the gain too high. Gain on guitar amplifiers serve the same function as setting (gain) levels when recording mics or instruments or using a mixer. When set to 0 it sets the input level to 0 and you will not hear anything. When set too high it clips the signal creating distortion and potentially overdriving the preamp.

Many amplifiers have their gain setting start at a level other than 0 allowing an input signal even if it appears the gain is set to 0. This is causing some confusion as those amps make sounds even when gain is set at 0 and it is usually clean. Just think of the Katana as having a proper gain knob or think of it as going from 0 to 10 instead of 5-10. So, on the Katana, clean tones require gain and that is perfectly normal.


Now, regarding the equalizer. This is a can of worms it appears.

Many people are lowering the volume with the equalizer. I have seen this in most videos regarding the Katana, including setup videos and the same discussion threads.

The Equalizer knobs on the Katana, attenuate (lower the volume) of their respective frequencies, they do not boost or increase their volumes. Some other amps boost as well, meaning that turning the knob from 5 to 0 lowers the frequency while 5 to 10 boosts it.

If you start with them all set at the halfway mark, you are really setting it for the same tone as them at max but you have lowered the volume of the signal as it goes through the equalizer, lowering the overall volume as well. This can also increase volume differences between patches. So, for the Katana, you should start with them all set to max rather then 12 o'clock or halfway as is the case with many other amps when setting up a tone.

Unfortunately, if you set up patches already you cannot just crank up the equalizer settings without also adjusting the gain and volume to account for the changes, as increasing them at this point will probably introduce or add more distortion.

So how should you use the equalizer. When trying to dial in a sound you should start with getting the loudest clean signal before adding any overdrive, distortion, effects, etc. and that means allowing the full signal through the equalizer before lowering parts of it with the knobs. Below is how I do it on my Katana.

How I dial in a sound using the Katana's Equalizer knobs. Turn the guitars volume knob all the way up. Set Bass, Mid and Treble on the Katana to their max settings, Master at halfway or an appropriate level. Set gain to about 20%. Set the preamp Volume to max. If the signal is not clean lower the gain until it is as clean as it gets for that channel. (Note: Clean depends on the channel so clean on the Crunch, Lead and Brown channels are the setting with the least distortion.)

If the signal is clean then increase the gain until it distorts, or is adding more distortion depending on the channel, and back it off until it is clean again. Once that is set the amp should be pushing the loudest signal possible to the power amplifier which uses the Master volume.

Now lower the Bass, Mid and Treble to get the best tone. When done properly the one which has the highest setting should be maxed. If you have them all lowered try setting the highest one to max and turning the others up by the same amount as that one was moved. As an example; Bass is at 4, Mid at 5 and Treble at 7. Increase Treble by 3 to ten then increase Bass and Mid by 3 as well. Final setting would be; Bass at 7, Mid at 8 and Treble at 10(max). If it introduces distortion, lower the preamp gain to clean it up.

You should now have the loudest clean signal going through the amp. After this is set up to your liking then add in your gain and effects to get the sound you are going for and tweak those equalizer controllers again as needed for your tone while keeping them as high as possible. I also tweak the gain at the end of the process to match the guitar I am using with that patch so the volume on the guitar affects the tone.

This can also fix some differences in the volume between channels, patches, etc.

Have fun tweaking all!

Cheers,
J Michael


J Michael
—————
Dad, Husband, Musician, Guitar Instructor, Electronics Engineer, Software Developer, Computer & Network Engineer are a few of my hats.

Stevie F

 Hi interesting what about the presence  control  and boost knob were did you have those? Kind regards Stevie F

Krow

J Michael...Being a novice with first amps, I found your post extremely informative.

Aaron

J Michael, thanks!!!!!!!

I have NEVER seen "gain" explained as clearly as you have explained it!

jwhitcomb3

Quote from: J Michael on March 10, 2018, 02:08:32 PM

Now, regarding the equalizer. This is a can of worms it appears.

Many people are lowering the volume with the equalizer. I have seen this in most videos regarding the Katana, including setup videos and the same discussion threads.

The Equalizer knobs on the Katana, attenuate (lower the volume) of their respective frequencies, they do not boost or increase their volumes. Some other amps boost as well, meaning that turning the knob from 5 to 0 lowers the frequency while 5 to 10 boosts it.

If you start with them all set at the halfway mark, you are really setting it for the same tone as them at max but you have lowered the volume of the signal as it goes through the equalizer, lowering the overall volume as well. This can also increase volume differences between patches. So, for the Katana, you should start with them all set to max rather then 12 o'clock or halfway as is the case with many other amps when setting up a tone.
I'm curious about the conclusion that the EQ knobs are cut only. It was my impression, from both literature and a couple of years using the amp, that the tone controls are flat at 12:00, and can cut or boost their respective frequencies.

admin

#5
Quote from: jwhitcomb3 on June 11, 2019, 10:15:25 AM
It was my impression, from both literature and a couple of years using the amp, that the tone controls are flat at 12:00, and can cut or boost their respective frequencies.

Agreed

One thing is true - the Katana Tone controls are NOTHING like similar tone controls on Fender / Marshall amps 

I tend to leave my Katana Tone Controls  midway up at 12:00 o' clock noon


In fact  - I get a great sound from my Katana Head + Katana 212 cab turning  ALL Katana knobs  midway up at 12:00 o' clock noon

But I fully agree with bulk of the the rest of J Michael's explanations of Katana settings

dnr101

I've spent some time poking around trying to figure out what's really going on with the tone stack on the Kat and my conclusion is that it depends on the amp "model". For the Clean and the Crunch I believe it is as J Michael said - they are "passive" cut controls like on a classic amp tone stack. But for the Acoustic model I really think that the controls are active cut/boost controls. This is based entirely on my own subjective listening and experimenting, but I do know that I get the best results on that model if I start at noon and work from there, whereas for the Clean and Crunch I get better results starting from full on and cutting as needed. The other thing I noticed is how interactive some of the tone controls are compared to others. For instance on the Acoustic model, the controls don't seem interactive at all - treble is treble, bass is bass, turning one down doesn't turn the other up. Not so on the Crunch model, where the relative positions of the three knobs seem (to me anyway) to influence each other - cut treble, bass comes up even if the knob stays put. This would be accurate to many old tone stacks, (for instance a Tweed Bassman...) which leads me to believe that what Boss did was to separately model the way the tone stack behaves for each amp model.

There's further evidence of this when you consider the sneaky amps. On the Vox based sneaky amps (particularly the Match Drive, based on a DC30, which I personally have spent the most time with) the tone stack is even stranger. First off, the Mid control is mostly useless - it has little to no impact on the tone. This makes sense for the amp as a DC30 doesn't have a Mid control. The treble and bass knobs are extremely interactive, even more than the Crunch and the "Presence" control is  no longer a presence control at all! It's now a mislabeled "Tone Cut" control and operates as such. When you turn it up, you are actually cutting treble. Turn it all the way down to let maximum treble through, turn it up as needed to cut some of the brightness. This is how these amps are supposed to work, but it is not how a normal "Presence" control works. All of this leads me to believe that in fact each amp model in the Katana (including sneaky amps) has it's own tone stack model many of which work differently from each other.

Just my observations - I could be wrong about the Acoustic model having a cut/boost tone stack, however it would fit with how the tone stack behaves on many actual acoustic amps.

mcluff

JMichael - You totally fixed the clean channel for me. My low-E string sounded like a farting frog until now. Sounds terrific, and my dirt pedals do their job much better.... Thank you!

Vintenar

Quote from: J Michael on March 10, 2018, 02:08:32 PM


Many amplifiers have their gain setting start at a level other than 0 allowing an input signal even if it appears the gain is set to 0. This is causing some confusion as those amps make sounds even when gain is set at 0 and it is usually clean. Just think of the Katana as having a proper gain knob or think of it as going from 0 to 10 instead of 5-10. So, on the Katana, clean tones require gain and that is perfectly normal.



Something must have changed since you typed this because it is no longer the case that the gain goes from 0-10, if you turn it down it doesn't go to zero, but the volume knob, however, works like how you describe the gain knob functionally.

I not sure how it worked in past version but I have version 3 firmware so the gain knob, in my opinion, does indeed give you more amp gain and a fatter sound as turn it up, just like what would happen if you turned up the master.  The gain is really thin sounding if you put the gain on 20% as you say but it still is really loud. eh

When you say clean signal, do you mean clean single notes or chords? My chords will not go clean even down on one with the gain. 

The settings I wound up using via the not overloading the Katana 5 in speaker is 100 gain and 49-52 on volume, which is not as loud as the way you do it gives a lot of amp gain, and I keep my overdrives, distortion pedals gain really low.

I did, however, figure out the same thing about the eq's needing to be maxed.

admin

#9
Quotethe gain goes from 0-10, if you turn it down it doesn't go to zero,

Same here -
Gain @ "0" does not mute the input signal

I consider the Katana Gain Knob as an "input sensitivity knob"

Gain @ "0" = Clean tones

Gain @ "10" = max Crunch  / Overdrive


Murdockman

... another big thing to consider, the Master position is very important!

I used de amp without the Boss Tone Studio for 3 months... just using the amp and guitars, my experience gave me this:

When you use the Master below 12:00 the sound don't have the same harmonic content. Using clean, crunch, whatever you create on.

Know, using patches from others, and, experiencing lot's of weird stuff in volumes, glitches and loading the patches, etc... i need to hit the master to have more richness finesse  ;)

Thank's J Michael for your input, very sensitive thoughts.