Guitar Gear

I was on a forum the other day where someone had just gotten a Katana 50 and were singing its praises. Most comments were supportive, but one person said, “It’s paid shilling is what it is.” It’s easy to see why people might think the praise is over the top or, that the praise this amp line is getting is due to the manufacturer paying people to post positive comments about it. It’s not a stretch to believe that. We’ve all seen that happen in the past with lots of different items other than guitar gear.

I can see how it may look on the outside to those who haven’t played the amp, or even to those who didn’t really like it for some reason or another. This is a US$219.00 amplifier. It’s CHEAP! Something this cheap shouldn’t be this good. In a world where we’ve been lead to believe that more expensive something is it must be better, the Katana is an anomaly and the epitome of antithesis to that belief.

But instead of arguing about how good it is based on my experience, why don’t we look at it from a different perspective:

• Roland (BOSS’ parent company) has had years developing and perfecting its solid state and digital technology, so research costs that smaller and newer manufacturers would have to incur to get to this level of quality have already been paid.
• Roland has been making solid state and digital amps a LONG time, so they know how to mass-produces these things at a low cost.
• Finally, Roland’s production capacity kicks in economies of scale. Materials and labor costs are spread out, again, lowering cost.

The net result is that Roland passes on these savings to consumers, and we get the double benefit of being able to take advantage of their expertise along with not having to pay much for it.

To be clear, even as a big supporter of this product line, I’m not saying that this is the best amp I’ve ever had. But for what I get for the price I paid for it, it certainly has the largest value proposition relative to my other amplifiers and quite frankly, I can use it with a lot more diverse musical styles than my tube amps.

Think of the Katana like the Yamaha studio piano. The Yamaha studio piano is said to be the most-used piano on recordings across several genres of music. Why? Because its sound is considered to be “neutral.” What that means is that the recorded sound can be shaped and equalized to fit just about any recording. The drawback is that – according to several pianists I know – is that the sound isn’t all that lively, nor distinctive. But the advantage is that it sits very well in a mix.

The Katana’s sound is much like that. It doesn’t have that mid-range hump that I love in my Marshall clones, and it doesn’t have the jangly cleans of a Fender. But with pedals an EQ, I can get close – damn close. But I don’t believe the amp was meant to cop a particular style of amp. It really does have a sound all its own that sits somewhere in the middle; and for many people, it’s a sound that pleases them.