Cato

I love mine.

Aside from what other have said, because it works both as a bass and a baritone guitar it's pretty much the perfect instrument for messing about with a looper pedal if that's your thing.

That's going to split the crowd.

I know there's fans af Antigua out there but I've also heard it described, more than once, as Fender's most repulsive finish ever.

Personally, while I'm not sure about the other models in that picture,  for some reason I reckon it really suits the Bass VI

Telescopic neck.

Allows quick changes of scale length on the fly.

When not in use the neck reverse-telecopes right down to the body and you can fit the whole thing in a small briefcase or carrier bag.

I'm torn between natural or this.

In my experience it's not unusual for tone controls on basses to be more on/off or for all the noticeable changes to happen in the last 1/4 turn rather than a smooth transition between maximum and minimum as you roll the pot.

No idea why they're like that.

The biggest fingerstyle breakthrough I ever had was when when I started brushing my fingertips across the top of the strings rather than plucking them from the sides with my finger oads, if that makes sense.

Less effort, more speed.

I did have to turn the amp up though to compensate for the lighter touch.

On the positive side fretless appears to be option, which I don't think has been the case for production Rays for a few years.

Configured an aproximation of my dream 'ray.

Natural, no frills apart from a tort guard.

I'd have gone with a 2 band EQ if it was an option but it's not.

$2800.

I can't imagine the £ price will be any less than that, especially with shipping to the UK and import taxes.

On 30/03/2024 at 00:40, gumtown said:

So two weeks ago many of you said "I'm getting one by the end of the week!"

So any real usage reviews ?

I've had mine for a couple of weeks now.

It's a great bit of kit, for anyone who's had any experience of the Katana guitar or bass amps this is more of the same in a tiny plug in and play package.

I will say the existing bass presets aren't that useful, 3 or 4 of them have 'slap' in their description and having determined that they weren't particularly good for slap or any other context those were the first slots I replaced with my my own patches.

It probably took me under 5 minutes to create 2 new bass patches, one clean with a bit of compression for a 'modern tone' and another with a bit more grit. 

As I mentioned in another post I have the guitar amp, but I reckon the Katana Go app is intuitive enough that even anyone completely new to the brand will be able to dial in something they're happy with within a few minutes of downloading the phone app 

As far as I can see you do need the phone app to set up new patches, it gives you easy access to the different amps and a fairly extensive array of effects where you can adjust all the parameters you'd expect on any amp or physical effects pedal.

The Go has 30 slots for your patches, which is less than than the average multi fx unit, but this isn't trying to replace the Helix in your main rig, I reckon 30 is more thn enough for practice, especially as it's so quick and easy to set new patches up or tinker with the ones you've got.

Once you've created the patches you want to use it's easy to cycle through them and the neat little display window will tell you which patch you're on.

There's also a nifty tuner function which, again is displayed on the device itself and does not require the phone app.

I've not had much experience with headphone practice amps, but I will say that the GO probably sounds as good as any full sized amp I've ever plugged headphones into, with the caveat that the headphones I use for practice are good quality over ear jobs (Behringer 770 Pro) I'm not sure using cheap earbuds , for example, would give the same experience.

All in all one of the better purchases I've made in recent years. It's just the ideal tool for those moments when get the urge to pick up an instrument and just start playing.

55 minutes ago, Lozz196 said:

Although I can appreciate it as a good song Fairy Tale of New York by The Pogues. I just can’t stand it.

+1

I used to really love it, but at some point I got sick to death of it seemingly being every 3rd song you hear wherever you go in December.

If it comes on while I'm listening to the radio I'll kill the volume before the first bar is over.

If someone had told me that had been written and performed by a human I wouldn't have questioned it.

I might have questioned "why?" but that's not the same thing.

Stylistically it's on a par with the radio jingles and ads I grew up listening to in the 80s and 90s that were written and recorded by real people, even if they didn't always feature 'real' instruments.

20 minutes ago, Greg Edwards69 said:

I had a feeling they would sell like hotcakes!

 

I wonder if your Katana Amp presets will be compatible with the Katana Go?

If I understood the Andertons video below, you can export presets from the amp to the Go, but not from the Go to the amp, if that makes sense.

I've been thinking about getting a plug in and play practice set up for a while.

I've already got a Katana guitar amp so it makes perfect sense from an already knowing how it works point of view.

So I've ordered from Andertons and it should be with me in a few days once they get new stock in.

I quite often get tunes in my head, usually melodies but sometimes basslines that I then work out how to play on an instrument and record before I forget them.

I even have a 'memo app' on my phone so that I can 'sing' the tunes into it and preserve them as and when they occur in places where there's no instrument to hand.

I've built up quite the sonic scrapbook over the years.

Problem is I'm never 100% sure if it's something I've come up with spontaneously or whether lt's something I've heard at some point somewhere beore, that's for some reason re-emerged from my subconcious, that I 'm then basically plagiarising.

I've seen a few people doing that 2 handed 'piano' stlye tapping on extended range 'basses' over the years.

Charles is certainly one of the best I've seen, it's undeniably impressive and it works very well as entertainment in the short video format he excels at.

Would I choose to listen to an albums worth of it?

Probably not.

9 hours ago, Jean-Luc Pickguard said:

If you think these are expensive, check out the price of the very lovely Epiphone "Inspired by Gibson" 1963 Firebird V

 

https://www.peachguitars.com/epiphone-inspired-by-gibson-custom-collection-1963-firebird-v-frost-blue.htm?opt=47549&gad_source=1

 

If I was spending that much though I'd at least expect an indian rosewood fingerboard rather than indian laurel, and I'd want it to say Gibson on the headstock even if it is made in the far east.

That's more or less what Gibson were charging for a US Firebird 2 years ago, just before they stopped making a 'standard' model.

The only Firebirds Gibson have made in the last couple of years have all been Custom Shop or Murphy Labs limited editions, starting at around £6k.

Even given that I can't see many people handing over that amount for an Epiphone.

On 29/02/2024 at 12:36, cetera said:

Nice, but the price is heading too close to £1k (& Gibson territory). I'll stick with my sunburst and black Vintage Pro/60's Epi Tbirds....got them at under £500 each.

There does seem to be a concerted push to reposition Epiphone as an upper midrange and beyond brand.

There were a few skinny stringers last year that they put out around the £1.5k mark which I'd say is getting into the top tier of massed produced guitars.

Interestingly though when I was looking at the new years sales at places like Andertons a lot of those Epiphones that had originally been priced at £1k plus were being offered at significant discounts, often £300 or more which suggests that people don't really see Epiphone as a brand that they're willing to pay that kind of money for.

I'd have the green one in a second if I didn't already have an Embassy.

19 hours ago, AndyTravis said:

That's a stunner.

38 minutes ago, Cosmo Valdemar said:

I've owned two, the first was one of the early ones in white. My current pink model is a much better instrument, the old one felt a bit... rickety. And the nut seemed to be made of nougat.

Mine is one the puprle ones that, I think, were exclusive to Andertons but as I recall they and the limited run pink and blue models all came out at about the same time so are almost certainly identical apart from the paint job.

I think the newer models may have been tweaked a bit.

I got mine brand new at the end of 2022 and was suprised that the two things that most people seem to have a problem with, the bridge (particulary with regards to intonation) and the stock strings, weren't an issue for me.

I love mine, I use it both as a bass and as a baritone guitar for surf style leads.

The pickup switching options and the 'strangle' switch mean it functions very well in both roles.

Great fun can be had with a looper pedal and a drum machine with the bass VI playing all the parts.

You see that shape in funk music quite a lot.

Try barring just the G B and E strings at the 7th fret then move to 6 on the G and bar the 5th on the B and E.

Repeat.

That's a fairly common sequence.

1 hour ago, SumOne said:

 

Not so much US popularity for bands along the lines of Erasure, Pet Shop Boys, Pulp, Suede, The Cure. 

I'm not sure about the others but The Cure are pretty big in the US.

US sales make up just under a third of The Cure's 30 million or so career album sales and in 2023 they played to over half a million people on the sold out North American leg of their 2023 tour.

Not music related but...

I think the only company I'll never use again is a local Ford garage.

It's about 3 minutes walk from my house so it made sense when I first moved  here to take the car there for MOTs , services etc 

But they always found stuff that 'needed' doing. The tracking would be off or the tyres were worn or the air conditioning fluid needed changing.

The final time I went there I got a phone call saying I 'needed' over 1k worth of stuff doing or the car would be undrivable.

I declined, took the car back and took it to another local garage where they told me they were unable to find any of the issues the first garage had warned me about.

So now I take my car to that garage, and if anyone ever asks me if I know a good mechanic I 'll warn them about the local Ford garage that tried to rip me off.