For a desktop amp of this type, it delivers seriously impressive sound! The excellent KATANA-MINI
Why I Bought the KATANA-MINI
One day, at the live house I frequent, the owner confided in me, “My guitar amps keep breaking down all the time.” It’s true—the Marshalls there keep getting replaced one after another. But then again, we already have a Jazz Chorus, and a good amp… I thought about it, and then I remembered the amp Boss recently released called the “Katana.”
When I mentioned it to the master, he promptly got one for me. It’s a transistor amp, but it doesn’t have that Hi-Fi feel like a Jazz Chorus; it also produces a suitably bluesy tone.
It can switch between light crunch distortion and heavy brown distortion instantly, almost like having a Boss pedal built in. It’s easy to use, and personally, I really like it. I often plug my guitar into the “Katana” when playing at that live house.
One day, I started feeling a bit stressed about my Kustom A-12, which I use as my practice amp at home. First, it takes a while for the sound to come out. Since it’s a tube amp, I know it can’t be helped, but I found myself wishing I had an amp that would start sounding right away when I just wanted to play a little. Also, the fact that it picks up hum noise easily is a bit of a hassle.
Then it hit me! Maybe if I put that brand-new “Katana-MINI” I just got on my desk, it would solve everything in one go? So I promptly clicked and ordered it online. Was it around 9,000 yen?
This is the control panel. Between GAIN and VOLUME, there’s a slide switch that changes the tone, shifting abruptly like a regular “katana.” The CRUNCH and BROWN modes offer very usable sounds, perfectly adequate for practice. After all, it’s a hassle to hook up effects pedals just for a quick jam, right?
This amp employs an analog multi-stage gain circuit (analog discrete configuration) rather than digital modeling, resulting in a very natural distortion texture. For its compact size, it actually delivers a surprisingly serious sound.and KATANA-mini has 3-band EQ.
Also, it might be impossible to add reverb at this size. This amp has a DELAY function. If you set the TIME to a short value, you can use it like reverb, so I think this is also quite practical.
Place this amp on your desk and connect your guitar wirelessly to start practicing with minimal hassle. It can be powered by a power cord, of course, or run on batteries using six AA.
As you can see, the plastic casing looks very cheap, but that’s why it’s lightweight and easy to handle! Plus, it has mini jack AUX in and out ports on the back.
When I want to practice late at night, I plug my phone into the AUX input and connect headphones to the PHONES/REC OUT jack. That way, I can crank it up without worrying about disturbing anyone. And honestly, being able to pull this off with the bare minimum setup is pretty great, don’t you think?
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