Introducing the Katana-Artist Guitar Amplifier

Refined Tones and Enhanced Features for Professional Stage Players

BOSS Katana-Artist Guitar Amplifier.

With the Katana-Artist, BOSS brings a powerful new flagship to the hugely popular Katana amp lineup. This impressive 1×12 combo offers all the features that have made the series such a breakout success, including versatile amp voicings, an expansive range of built-in effects, and most importantly, exceptional sound and feel with BOSS’s Tube Logic design approach. Building on this rock-solid base, the Katana Artist adds numerous refinements, all specially tuned for the needs of gigging players and any guitarist seeking the very best in tone.

Video: BOSS Katana-Artist Guitar Amplifier

Larger Cabinet, Bigger Sound

If you’re familiar with other Katana amps, the first thing you’ll notice about the Katana-Artist is its larger cabinet and front-facing controls. The primary reason for this new look is the pursuit of bigger, punchier tones with richer resonance characteristics, along with improved performance in high-volume stage applications.

The Katana-Artist features a new semi-closed cabinet design for full, punchy, and resonant sound.

To start, the cabinet construction is beefier, and features a wider speaker baffle than other Katana 1×12 amps. In addition, the back is a semi-closed design, providing improved low and low-mid reinforcement while also maintaining the open, airy feel that works so well with clean and light crunch sounds.

With the Katana-Artist’s larger cabinet volume, BOSS was able to position the panel on the front for easier access, and also add more external controls than other Katana models.

New Waza Craft Speaker—Vintage Tone with High Power Capacity

To complement the robust cabinet construction, BOSS has outfitted the Katana-Artist with a high-performance Waza Craft G12W 12-inch speaker. Originally developed for the Waza amp series, the G12W delivers the coveted tone of low-wattage vintage speakers, but with enough power-handling capacity to support the Katana-Artist’s big and loud 100-watt output.

The 12-inch Waza Craft G12W realizes classic 25-watt British speaker tone with greatly increased power handling.

Without a doubt, the seminal ‘60s-era British 100-watt amp stack is the defining sound of heavy rock guitar. The most famous cabinets paired with these amps were loaded with four 25-watt speakers, wired in a series/parallel configuration to support the head’s full output. To this day, these speakers are considered by many guitarists to provide the ultimate tone experience. But with their low power rating, they need to be used in multiples to work with high-wattage amps.

In developing the G12W speaker, BOSS set out to capture all the tonal magic of the 25-watt British classic, but in a modern design that can handle a full 100 watts of power on its own. The engineering team meticulously analyzed many original speakers to fully understand their resonance characteristics, harmonic balance, and more.

Through careful selection of the magnet, cone material, and many other construction elements, the Waza Craft G12W fully realizes the rich tone, quick response, and wide dynamic range that’s made the original so famous. Paired with the Katana-Artist and its beefy cabinet, the G12W allows you to enjoy big-amp performance with the convenience of a compact and easy-to-carry 1×12 combo.

Refined Amp Voicing

All Katana amps (with the exception of the Katana-Mini) feature five unique amp characters: Clean, Crunch, Lead, and Brown, plus Acoustic for use with acoustic-electric guitars. In the Katana-Artist, all have been retuned for the very best tone with the Waza Craft speaker and new cab. The refinements include not only the gain stages, but the tone stack interaction as well.

Amp type and tone stack controls on the Katata-Artist guitar amp.

Version 2.0 Katana Features and More Hardware Controls

Released in late 2017, the Version 2.0 firmware update for the Katana series added lots of features, including new effects, double the Tone Setting memories, cabinet resonance, line out Air Feel, and more. The Katana-Artist includes all these great Version 2.0 enhancements, and adds some new panel controls for direct access to a few of them.

There’s a bank switch for Tone Setting memories, allowing you to jump between two banks of four memories with a quick press. With the three-way Cabinet Resonance control, you can instantly re-voice the amp with Vintage, Modern, or Deep settings. There’s also a three-way Air Feel control for adjusting the tone character of the mic’d cab emulation on the Katana-Artist’s line output. (Cabinet Resonance and Air Feel are also available on other Version 2.0 Katana amps, but the controls are only accessible via the BOSS Tone Studio editor.)

Front-facing control panel on the Katana-Artist guitar amp.

Rear Panel Connections

The Katana-Artist is equipped with rear-panel connectivity that’s basically the same as the Katana-Head. This includes support for the GA-FC and other external foot controls, a MIDI input for control from MIDI devices, an effects loop, and an aux input for connecting a smartphone for backing music. There’s a recording/phones out as well, plus USB for direct recording and connecting with the powerful BOSS Tone Studio editor software.

A notable addition for 4×12 stack users is the two 16 ohm speaker outputs. Most classic 4×12 cabinets are 16 ohms, and you’re able to use one or two with the Katana-Artist for huge sound! Note that when a cabinet is connected to a 16 ohm jack on the Katana-Artist, the 8 ohm speaker jack (normally used for the internal speaker) is disabled.

Note: Please refer to the Katana Owner’s Manual for instructions and precautions when using external cabinets with the Katana-Artist.

Katana-Artist guitar amp rear panel.

More About the Katana Amplifier Series

Learn more about the Katana-Artist and the entire Katana guitar amp lineup at the BOSS website.

The 2018 Katana guitar amp lineup.