Hey, looking to buy my first guitar pedal. Looking for one that works great but is not too expensive. I like playing grunge and alternative rock (i.e. nirvana, foo fighters)
Well, some would say that, regardless of styles, your first pedal should be a looper as these are a great tool for practice.
But if you are after something else, maybe a distortion pedal, like a Boss DS-1, would work.
It would help if you could tell us what kit you currently have, as they type of amp will make a big difference. For instance, if you already have an amp capable of decent grunge/rock tones, then a distortion pedal may not be your best purchase.
Edit: looking at previous posts, it looks like you might have a Boss Katana. You probably have all the pedals you need built into that. Have you tried setting up some patches with the Boss Tone Studio?
Cheers,
Keith
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The katana is amazing. The reason i want to invest in pedals is to be able to switch between certain tones quickly for certain covers
Do you have a footpedal controller for the Katana?
If it’s a Katana 50, then the Xsonic Airstep Kat Edition will give you a lot of control for onboard patches and effects.
If you have already been configuring effects on the Katana, you should have a better idea than us which sort of effects you are using, and which would be the best for your application if you do opt for separate pedals.
Cheers,
Keith
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Oooh this is interesting. I think I assumed that with my Katana 50 mk2 that I’d made a big error given that it lacks so many features of the 100 models. I was aware of the tone studio stuff but had no convenient way to make use of it. Something like this could be really useful and also not wasted if I do swap my amp for a 100 at some point. Thanks for mentioning it. Will watch the video this evening
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+1 on a one button looper pedal. Next I would suggest a tuner and/or a digital delay. These circuits are all well known and easily/frequently cloned to the point of being ubiquitous, so any bargain brand will do. I would not break the bank on any of these.
Yes, I thought the whole point of amps like the Katana was that you don’t need to buy any other effects pedals. You will only need an external controller as Keith indicated.
So I reckon a looper is the only one you really need.
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The problem with some modelling amps eg Katana & Mustang III yes you get all the pedals onboard but sometimes your limited on how you can stack them. For example on my Mustang III I can only have one distortion or one modulation or one reverb. So yes some time there could be a need for extra pedal but I guess the chain then gets very complicated in respect of outboard (pedal board) and inboard (internal to the amp).
Guess that why I went for the POD GO where I could stack for example 2 or 3 ODs. But hey could still be room for a pedal in that chain 
And maybe some kind of expression pedal like wah.
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First thing I’d do is get the GA-FC foot controller (if your Katana supports it), or something like that Airstep that @Majik posted. You’ve got a wealth of effects and presets available in your amp already, you just need a way to control them from the floor while you’re playing.
On the other hand, maybe you just want a few separate pedals that aren’t already part of your amp. Nothing wrong with that. If that’s the case, what kind of tones or effects are you looking for? You mentioned switching tones – what do you want to switch between? What do you want to happen when you step on the pedal?
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Try a multi pedal simulator like a zoom or something. then you can decide which pedal sounds floats your boat.
The Katana has a host of onboard pedals
Have you tried creating you own preset chains ? The Boss software should be similar to the old Fender Fuse which made building Mustang presets a piece of cake.
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I’ll point out, for the casual reader of this thread, that the above list is just the default effects selectable from the Katana top panel, without using the Boss Tone Studio (BTS) software.
If you use BTS, there’s dozens more. For instance, just in the “BOOSTER” category, you have these options available to you:
There’s 10 pages in the manual detailing all of the available FX.
I would definitely encourage anyone to explore using these before considering purchasing any other equipment.
Cheers,
Keith
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The Airstep Kat Edition has an input for an expression pedal, which can then be assigned to pretty much any effect within BTS, including Wah and pitch shift.
Cheers,
Keith
That is true. But for a lot of users, it’s more than enough. Personally, I’ve rarely felt the need to stack gain pedals.
My old Boss MS-3 did allow gain pedal stacking, and I had some patches set up for that, but in that case I was using the amp as a pedal platform, and just had the amp set on clean, so having two stages of gain was useful.
Where I have an amp with switchable gain then I’ve not, personally, had a reason to stack gain pedals.
I will mention that, although not as flexible as pedal separates, or a unit like the Pod Go, Boss GX-100, etc. the Katana is actually pretty good in this respect. For instance, as well as being able to select the amp type and gain, every boost pedal has a separate SOLO setting which allows you to set an additional gain level which can be footswitch controlled:
Cheers,
Keith
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If I owned a Katana 50 and wanted to change my sound with my foot, I’d buy the footswitch controller for the Katana, make Katana presets for all the different sounds I routinely use, and use the footswitch controller to either select individual effects ON/OFF or switch between presets. For the price of 1 pedal, you’ll have the same capability as 4+ pedals.
That footswitch isn’t compatible with the 50 models which is why the Xsonic Airstep was recommended above which is compatible. People think they’re getting a good deal with the Katana 50 (me included) because they’ll never need 100 watts (or even 50) but it’s all the extra things that are omitted from them that means I’d never recommend a Katana 50 to anyone (versus the 100)
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