App Profile: BTS for KATANA-AIR

#$5^&

Rating: 2/5

This is specifically about the app. When I got the Katana Air I was excited about the sound of the amp. Then I opened the app and thought it looked like it was put together ten years ago. There is a lot in the app but it doesn’t automatically rotate when opened on an iPad making it clumsy to use. What developer would have released something this poor, non-auto rotating app disappeared a decade ago. I naturally though this was a beta version of the app, but that was a year ago. Time to release a new version that: Auto connects to the amp when it is launched and the amp is on and in range; auto rotates with your device so that you can easily navigate the complicated options on one screen; looks like an app created for the second decade of the 21st century; has an auto convert feature that reads all Katana pre-sets, not just ones created for the smaller user base of air users; and finally, the app is rated generously rated at 2.7, your customers are sending a clear message. Is anybody listening?

burnsidestarfire

Rating: 3/5

Being able to control my amp from my phone and never get up to fiddle with knobs is amazing and revolutionary. However the app itself is not intuitive and feels quite limiting. I can only seem to use certain combinations of effects which is frustrating given the library of amazing effects available. Clicking through the menus is confusing and it’s easy to forget what I have assigned to each “color” on each switch. I can only use three effects at once, one from BST/MOD, one from DELAY/FX and one from REVERB. Any other combination seems impossible. Maybe being able to have all 50 effects on at once would be too much but I don’t understand why it’s so limited in this way. The Katana Air is a great amp and I love picking my guitar up and having the amp wake up and be ready to go, it’s great. But I hope BOSS can rethink this app and make it more intuitive and powerful.

bandit03

Rating: 2/5

I got this amp/app to make it super easy to practice. I practice over backing tracks in the app iReal pro. Everything works for playing with the track wirelessly, but it’s difficult to record. I’d like to be able to record my guitar and backing track on my phone so I can review my playing/improvisation as I practice. I don’t want to hook the amps line out to a computer because it defeats the purpose of a convenient small practice amp. I can’t use apples voice memo app without the Bluetooth backing track stopping playing from the amp and coming out of the phone. It would be nice is the app contained a feature that would allow you to record both the guitar and the backing track for practice purposes. Update: the amp makes a clicking sound kinda like interference but at a lower frequency than normal. Very distracting when I’m trying to practice.