I will start off with a little contextual history on Roland and Boss Amplifiers. Obviously Roland is Boss’s parent company and had the initial success with its JC Jazz Chorus amps. On the back of that success it then released a number of wedge-shaped Cube amps - essentially outdoor performer amps - which became the mainstays of journeymen buskers. If you’re out and about in London you will likely see Roland Cubes on every other leading tourist area street corner. So for the longest period it ...

Boss’s Tube Logic Series of Nextone Amps somewhat failed to garner the same plaudits and support as the lower cost Katana Range - while the Artist edition Nextone contained some particularly clever circuitry - yet those amps did not resonate as well with their intended audiences as was predicted / expected. Meaning that the Boss engineers have expended some very significant effort in the interim towards getting the new Special Amp up to the level it truly deserves to be at.

The Nextone ...

So this is the amp a lot of us have been waiting for - and actually somewhat ahead of schedule really per my expectations. It of course carries over all the previous Artist advantages and benefits - including the front-facing control panel and superior Waza Craft Speaker - and marries those to the latest Katana MKII innovations - the Variation button on Amp Types, more granular Effects control via dual-concentric knobs, dual-amp stereo link - and of course the extended range of Effects and ...

Anyone who’s read this blog will be very aware that I’m a fan of the Boss Katana amps - I’ve had the now series 1 KT-100 since it first came out as my left-hand amp in my stereo rig, and had already decided that I would be transitioning to the Katana Artist - with its better speaker and it’s various included extras - amongst them the forward-facing control panel.

Now the MKII range has come out and it has in effect frog-leaped over the Artist in terms of overall...

Poland was both trickier and yet eventually easier to rationalise than originally perceived. I have scanned through many a country now, and Poland seems to be the last of those with sufficient numbers of high calibre pedal builders to warrant a dedicated feature*. As noted before - these sorts of article take quite a lot of work to complete - and so this is the last of these I will be doing for a while.

* Note that USA and Japan are the leading pedal builders of the world still and too ...

I feel Boss still kind of bossed it in 2018 - with 3 heavy hitters that took on all-comers in those categories - the Katana Air, Katana Artist and Nextone Artist - a trio pretty much suited for any sort of conditions - the first as the best of the portable practice amps - and the latter two as the ultimate versatile gigging-machines - for those that still like to lug amps around.

I feel that this sort of cabinet form factor of amp will be largely restricted to more fixed locations as ...

After the Best of French roundup, the German leg of the European tour turned out to be quite arduous. Germany have easily as many pedal builders as he UK but with a little more strength in depth. There’s a mix of everything from Germany - both vintage and innovation, and they’re of course very strong in the area of overdrive and distortion as backed up by their many superb high-gain amp builders.

Overall, I felt that there were a few more brands here that I was familiar with, and I chopped ...

I always expect to be excited by the new prospects introduced at Summer NAMM, but it can be somewhat antic-climactic, particularly compared to this year’s very formidable Winter NAMM show. Several pedals that were announced there are still alas somewhat in the ether. I was expecting to see updates of the Empress Zoia and the Keeley Stereo Tape Delay pedal - but those were not forthcoming, which most probably means some production delays - I certainly can’t imagine the Zoia is going ...

I will preface this article with two statements - firstly, I currently run a stereo rig with a 39-pedal-chain, going into a Boss Katana KT100 on the left channel, and an all-tube Carvin V3MC on the right. The Katana is obviously a digital modelling amp based on an EL34 tube amp profile, while the Carvin V3MC runs on proper EL84 tubes - which gives you a lovely warm, dynamic and sparkly tone. The two amp profiles combine really well together to give you a beautifully harmonically rich and wide-...