Is the Boss Katana the newest Fender Mustang III?

[DetroitBlues]

Not sure how many of you remember this, but when Fender rolled out the Mustang series, those amps had a pretty solid following. Cheap, loud, and honestly sounded pretty decent for digital modeling. If I remember right, the Mustang III was the 100-watt 1x12 combo where you could flip through patches for different tones and effects.

I’m pretty sure our long-departed brother Rhoadscholar was an early adopter and gigged a Mustang III all the time.

Now I’m seeing more and more people running the Boss Katana 100...another 100-watt 1x12 combo.

Feels like it’s the next wave of “good enough to gig, won’t cry if it dies” amp tech.

Line 6 → Peavey Vypyr → Fender Mustang → Boss Katana… the evolution of cheap “tube-ish tone” amps?

Am I missing any stops along the way?  (I'm omitting the expensive types such as Fractal, Kemper, and Neural DSP)

 

[kennyv4]

I like the 100 watt Katana amp. I bought the first generation model and gigged with it for quite a few years with no issues.  The amp is worth the money and I recommend buying the control pedal for the amp. 

[TalismanRich]

I've been going to a local blues bar to see some friends play, and the bar has a backline available.  Some nights are jam session nights, others have regular bands.   They keep some Boss amps for guitars,  and a Hartke bass combo amp.   

It seems that most guitar players bring along their own amps if it's a working band.   For the jams,  it seems the Boss works out.   The bass players just use the Hartke.

I've never played one, though.

 

Years ago I got a Peavey Transformer 112.   It's still downstairs.   It wasn't bad.  I used my Classic 30,  but our keyboard player used it for a while since it had rotary emulation which gave it a Leslie sound.   

[rwinking]

The high end modelers (Fractal, Line 6 Helix, Quad Cortex, etc) are all used a lot with touring bands. The low end is the Boss Katana and also the Line 6 Catalyst, which has some of the Helix models and FX and sounds great. I have also seen a move toward the lower end Tone X and HEADRUSH run through powered speakers as a lot of companies are buileding powered cabs. For a while, the Fender Tonemaster Twin, Deluxe and Super were getting popular and I have to admit they were great. Their drawback was that they used all of their DSP recreating the Fender tone which was great if all you wanted to do is have Fender tones.. I still use tube amps for my more serious stuff but have lately been using the Quad Cortex along with the Line 6 powercab for smaller gigs. Nobody has complained at all about my tone in using it. The models sound great but I still can feel something lacking in their response to my fingers.

I would have no trouble using the Katana or the Catalyst soundwise. Using a Fender Tonemaster is simple in that it is built exactly like a Fender, so plug in and play. The Tone X, Katana and Catalyst require a few minutes of figuing out how to set them up in order to get the most out of them