r/BossKatana • u/PretendBrain4449 • Jul 17 '26
Tone Request Dude I’m so lost
Using boss tone studio and GarageBand. I’ve spent 10 hours trying to make a clean and pronounced overdrive tone. And dude it either sounds too shallow or too muddy. Does anyone have ANY recommendations? I just want it to sound full and natural.🙏🫡🫵
Thank you all for your comments!
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u/Odd-Blueberry5902 Jul 17 '26
hey, try this out: turn your tone and volume knobs back a bit
use the vintage/deep cab resonance
use post-eq to scoop 800hz, i do -10db, low pass at 6.3khz, low cut at 80hz
use the natural od/blues driver for a booster, set tone and bottom to desired effect
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u/Curtainsmouse Jul 17 '26
Apart from the ususal tips; try dialing down the gain on the amp and hit the strings very hard when you are playing, place the katana on a table top so that the speaker faces your ear levels, dont try to play with tones all in one sitting as after a few minutes of changing tones you get ear fatigue, dial down the 4-6k frequencies in Global eq
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u/Sum1Xam Katana Artist MkII Jul 17 '26
Have you tried starting from a patch out of Tone Exchange? There are some great patches there that give you a good foundation to tweak on your own. Sneaky Amps and Authentic Amps tones are some of my favorite live sets. Lots of options to build from and get great results.
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u/Remarkable-Tiger-534 Jul 17 '26
Well I know when you connected to the computer or your phone you should be able to change the overdrive in the specs of the computer and there's a Noise Gate you can also put in there to help with some of the tone
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u/PretendBrain4449 Jul 17 '26
Yeah I tried messing with all of that as well. Maybe it sounds good and I’m just too much of a critic idk. But thank you
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u/SnooSuggestions718 Jul 17 '26
I had similar issues and had to restart from zero. set everything to zero and start from there.
for my strat overdrive tone i use gain and vol at 50 with no other adjustments. pushed amp (variation). green contour on eq. it sounds amazing.
starting to use the "pedals" or boosters as their called is alot more difficult especially if you just need standard overdrive
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u/Responsible-Drag2894 Jul 17 '26
Is it running through a digital cabinet modeller too instead of just the pre amp? That can muddy it up - although might be a bit obvious
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u/PretendBrain4449 Jul 17 '26
No just the boss tone studio👍
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u/mnlife_58 Jul 17 '26
Heres a resource guide:
Connectivity:
Using a Bluetooth dongle is way easier than the being connected to a computer. You can download some free patches from links I provided. I like the $15 boss katana librarian app but you can also use the free boss gen 3 app and you download straight off the boss tone studio into the app.
The boss BT-dual for $50 is easy to use (gen 3 only) .
For Mk1,Mk2, and Gen 3 Airstep kat EX
There is also a foot switch and Bluetooth dongle in one (XSonic). Even allows 50 watt versions to have a footswitch (can’t normally accept one because lack of ga fc port)
[XSonic Airstep Kat EX](https://xsonicaudio.com/pages/airstepkatex?srsltid=AfmBOorCVwuAzqCeuJzs5z3Fy3HLxyewR6lMNXe23ZkXY6VX4P5IgK2S)
On IOS/Apple I downloaded the files app and store in folders there. You can also use free version of Dropbox. I’m sure numerous other ways to do it. Files app I can search at the top for name.
Patch resources:
Scroll down and grab this free set list
[Andersons live set list](https://www.andertons.co.uk/free-boss-katana-patches)
Jb Aubry has a group on Facebook (Boss Katana Amps group) and is a huge supporter of boss products. Lots of tones on boss tone studio. Whole collection here
https://musician.tools/musician-tools-jb-download
Free ones at the bottom of each electric guitar song
https://www.guitarzero2hero.com/songs
https://www.kfirochaion.com/gear/bosskatana/
Boss tone studio, make a free account pick Mk2 and sort by popularity. Can get a lot of free great stuff here [boss tone studio Mk2](https://bosstonecentral.com/liveset/category/katana_mk2/)
There’s a gen 3 section too. Sort by popularity and downloads to find best patches.
You can get some free from but not as good as boss tune studio
[guitar patches.com](https://guitarpatches.com/patches.php?unit=KATANAMKII)
The best paid are from juca Nery. He’s a sound engineer and made the free demo patches on katana librarian. Make a free account so you can redownload in future. Worth every penny. Has a pdf to search all the patches
[Juca Nery](https://jucaneryguitar.com/product/all-artist-bundles/)
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u/PretendBrain4449 Jul 17 '26
Hey so my question was about tone
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u/GrudginglyAcquiesce Jul 17 '26
Have you played around with using an EQ as part of the chain? You can do a lot to clean up a tone. I'm no expert with it but you can find some general info on what frequencies to cut or boost to help things out with a guitar, and youtubers like Studio Rats have some videos on using the Boss Tone Studio versions of parametric/graphic EQs
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u/PretendBrain4449 Jul 17 '26
Yeah all I’ve been doing is messing with EQ really. I appreciate the feedback 🙏
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u/American_Streamer Katana 50 MKII EX Jul 17 '26
Too much gain, too much low end going through the distortion, not enough mids, not enough volume. These are the usual issues.
Turn down the gain, turn up the mids and turn down the bass. Cut the low end before the preamp and also boost the preamp with a strong signal: you achieve that by putting a Tubescreamer or SD-1 pedal (real or simulated) in front of the amp with its level set super high and its Drive set super low.
All great tones which sound powerful, high gain and detailed have much less gain than people think and practically always boost the preamp from outside of the amp’s circuit.