We all had our doubts about the Fender Mustang Micro, but, you have to admit, the dongle-sized practice amp certainly does the trick. It’s proven quite popular, too, so much so that we’re starting to see competition prop up in the amp category we never knew we needed. The Boss Katana: Go is the newest device to take a stab at the micro-sized amp form factor.
Yes, Boss decided to name their micro amp after their popular Katana series, which has sold millions of units worldwide and garnered high praise from fans and critics alike. Clearly, the outfit is banking on the popularity of those amps to help bolster their micro-amp’s chances and, based on what we’re seeing, it definitely looks like it will be up to task.
The Boss Katana: Go takes on a dongle form factor, consisting of a small thumb drive-sized box with a connector on one end for plugging to your guitar’s input jack. It has a few small buttons on either side, a tuner, a dial out front, a display strip showing the current setting, and little else in the way of interfacing with the user other than choosing presets and adjusting volume, so you’ll have to use the companion app if you’re going to dig into its full feature set. When used with guitars, the device offers 10 amp models and 85 effects, while giving musicians three amp models and 65 effects when used with a bass.
All amp models and effects, by the way, have been pulled from the outfits current line of Katana modeling amps, so you get the same honed and proven sounds that guitar players have loved for many years. Granted, they offer a more limited selection here, but it’s still impressive all the same.
The Boss Katana: Go has a unique feature called Stage Feel, which is designed to make practicing with headphones feel a lot like live studio practice. When you add a backing track to your guitar playing, for instance, the device reshapes the sound, such that the amp and the background music feel like they’re coming from different places in the sound field to create the impression of jamming with a band. Even better, users can supposedly choose the placement of their amps in the 3D sound space, so you can tailor it to your liking. If you’re not a fan of the “in your face” feel of using headphones with a practice amp, this will definitely make for a much welcome change.
A total of 30 presets can be saved into the device, allowing you to create a decent number of amp and effects combos. It already comes with 30 presets preloaded, by the way, although you can tweak or change them entirely using the companion app, in case you have a different sound in mind. Oh yeah, you can even use it as a USB audio interface, in case you want to record your guitar playing straight to a DAW, which is a really useful feature.
The Boss Katana: Go is available now, priced at $119.99