Why do I need a Catalyst!? | Line6 Catalyst 100 Amplifier Review & Demo
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- Опубліковано 21 лип 2024
- Imagine having a Line6 Helix caliber amp at your disposal for rehearsals, gigs or at home playing. The Catalyst line of amps is just that, with some impressive tones and cool features.
Today we're checking out the Line6 Catalyst 100 amp, and while I love a good vintage all-tube amp, new production modeling amps like the Catalyst have come a LONG way and insert themselves into the conversation.
There are some compelling reasons why I've plugged into this amp more often than others in my studio over the past month. We'll talk about that in this video and explore why it's a solid contender for your next amp. You'll also hear for yourself how Line6's amp models continue to get better and better, with dynamic response and impressive tones from these onboard Helix caliber amp models. Oh, and they crammed a bunch of Line6 Helix effects in here too, so if you're a fan of the HX Stomp or other Helix products, you'll find some familiar modulation, delay and reverb effects onboard.
Now through 3/31, get up to $100 off these killer amps! Details here: line6.com/catalyst-guitar-amps/
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I'm using my Fender CIJ Jazzmaster with Lollar Regal for Jazzmaster pickups (low-wind neck, standard bridge). Aside from that, all tones are from the Line6 Catalyst 100 amp in various modes, mic'd up with a Shure SM57 mic. It's that easy.
Thanks to Line6 for sending this amp over for review. Follow me over on Instagram for more content following this video - / ambientendeavors
As someone who has been very skeptical of Line 6 in the past, I picked up the Catalyst 60. I am incredibly impressed, and very happy with that amp. It’s been super easy to set a nice clean channel to use as a pedal platform. And it’s super easy to record with, using the direct out. Very cool line of amps. Highly recommend these.
Totally agree! Plenty of nice clean or clean-ish sounds, and that Direct Out is really convenient.
I got the 60 watt on Amazon for 212 dollars I really like it
@@samright4661 amazing! Hard to get a pedal for that these days!
@@AmbientEndeavors Exactly!! I got a 50 Nux plexi pedal that sounds pretty good running through the amp . Boutique Pedals are crazy priced
Love the exploration, always appreciate your perspective. Also, we rocked the POD hard.
Thanks man! Yes! Long love the pod. I distinctly remember backstories gigs with POD into Pro Jr? ..and did you have a Flextone head back in the day too?
I've had the 60 for over a year and I'm still finding out new things about it and different things it can do. Hope you have fun with yours =)
really enjoying it so far. what are some of your favorite sounds/features?
@@AmbientEndeavors -- So much of my working with it is turning knobs until I get a sound I like, lol. I've been using it like my synths. Instead of coming up with an idea and then searching for a sound, I do it in reverse. I find sounds at random and work to come up with something that best utilizes them. I don't usually look at what it's set on unless I'm using the Clean with my BOSS GT1000 Core. I can lose myself in the Core for hours this way. The Catalyst has one of the clearest cleans of any amp I've owned. That's why I said I keep finding new things and settings from just dinking with it. I've probably stumbled on the same things more than onc, but at my age I most likely forgot about them, lol.
Sounds awesome. Great playing as always!
Thanks! 🙏🏼
Beautiful sounds. Great playing!
Thank you 🙏🏼
Some lovely ambient tones there, and very pretty riffing.
Thanks! Thanks for watching
Great demo and playing. Stunned at the quality of sounds available at this price. Is it possible to share presets for the Catalyst as you can with the Katana?
Enjoyed your review. Have been considering this very amp as a replacement to an old Fender Mustang III 100 (pre GT series). Considered the GT’s for a minute, but didn’t like how Fender left us early Mustang adopters high & dry when they discontinued them. Your playing and tone selection was right up my alley. So refreshing and helpful to hear it demonstrated that way. I very much dig your style. After watching several other reviews - as soon as I saw your Jazzmaster, I was like, “finally! Here we go!” ;)
Aw man that’s great to hear. Definitely check out their newest versions of this series as I think you get 2x the amp options. I haven’t played the v2’s yet but hope to sooner or later
Very impressed and inspired! Do you have a way of sharing the boutique preset with the hall reverb? I would love to see where you put the knobs for that.
Got the 100 on sale at the beginning of the year ..a no brainer really....nice looking amp with lots of options and sounds great..no complaints at all so far 👍
love it! Yeah L6 have been doing some nice sales; glad you took advantage.
There really is no 'bad' gear out these days. So many great sounding affordable options. Love that Jazzmaster!
I totally agree. The question shifts to context and use case and personal preference and usability and a lot of those secondary categories, but the bar for sounds and tone has been raised so high
There is tons of bad gear out there.
I suppose, but much more great sounding gear than bad. Any examples of something horrible?
This seems to be good to be true - a modeling amp working properly with pedals. Boss Katana failed (huge Waza fan here btw), but this one seems to be worth a try.
Man I kinda like the katana with pedals, but that might be pedal dependent
Wow, you’re a great player. Love it.
🙏🏼 thanks for watching
I personally own the Catalyst 60 and I only like clean tones, I don't like the hard metal rock distortion stuff and I've been told it's not good for that kind of sound.
But if you like clean sounds like in this demo, it's definitely a should buy category.
Sounds really great on my end! I’d love to know what you think of the Catalyst in comparison to the Princeton tone master that you featured on the channel a bit ago. Both amps are pretty intriguing to me
yes! I think I'll have to end up making that video - I need to sit down and do a side by side comparison, each are really cool and different in a number of ways.
Amazing playing at the end of this video, more playing videos, guitar lessons please!
I've just found your Spotify link! Excellent!
cheers! Thanks for watching and for the kind words! Lots of music to stream or download, and a couple playlists (ambient sketches and coffee and loops) here on YT for more listening :D
For me, this year, the best modeling amp is the Positive Grid Spark.
Unfortunately, they don't have a regular 12-inch model, so I bought the Spark Mini in the meantime to use it everywhere, whether at home or outside. I dream that Positive Grid will release a much larger model, or that Line 6 will come out with a better model because I have been disappointed in recent years, even though Line 6 has a very special place in my heart as it was my first real modeling amp that sounded great. I had the Line 6 Spider Valve 112 (in collaboration with Bogner)something like 10 years ago.
In a year or two, new models will have been released by all these manufacturers, so I'm waiting to see the developments.
Have heard good things about those little Sparks - I'll have to check one out sometime. They definitely seem to hone in on the uber-convenience and portability aspects.
@@AmbientEndeavors Not only are they compact, but they also have great modeling. It doesn't necessarily sound exactly like the amp it's supposed to simulate, but it already sounds really, really good. That's what surprised me the most about these small amps - how good they sound. I'm eagerly waiting for the day they release a true amplifier with a 12-inch speaker.
Hi, did you finally got this extension cab for your spark? Not 12" but people say it's loud ;)
@@damasterkarej no I'm still using my JBL Party box for that
But their cab seems nice
I just bought this about two days ago, but I don’t know how to use the guitar tuner on this. Could you show a little quick video on how to tune your guitar to this amp? I would really appreciate it so much.
Great video, playing and voicing! Can you share your amp settings on Line 6 Customtone?
thanks for watching and for the kind words! Ooo, I'll have to look into that...
Ive had my cat 200 for about a month now. Ive got to be honest, i really struggled to like it for a while. Its a beautiful clean to mid gain amp but after that the wheels kinda fall off UNLESS you either go direct out or use a good hi cut in the effects loop.
As a poweramp, its fantastic with the hx but again you really need the hi cut.. its the speaker but its understandable when you think its one speaker compromising between 6 very different amps.
what are the reverb and delay settings you used to the get tones at the end ?
Dig it! Thanks!
Thanks Ben - love what you and the crew are doing over there :)
The eerie music in the background is a strange effect for a guitar review
Thanks for watching!
Love my line6 60 watt. Starting to make popping sound when I turn it off though. Anyone know why? Thanks
@Ken Chance Something tells me that Line 6 is probably going to release the Catalyst MK II series very soon! My prediction is, sometime later in 2023, or early next year. So expect the Line 6 Catalyst 60 MK II, Catalyst 100 MK II, and Catalyst 200 MK II. As new Spider models go, my prediction is that we will possibly get a Line 6 Spider VI very soon, followed by a SPider VI MK II model. Any predictions on what wattage Line 6 will use on their future Spider VI series? Maybe a Spider VI 30, Spider VI 60, Spider VI, 120, and Spider VI 240, and 240 HC, followed by their Spider VI MK II models? Or will Line 6 go back to how they did it with the Spider IV series? Spider VI 30, Spider VI 75, and Spider VI 150? I wish the Catalyst series had drum loops. But you get what you pay for. Thank goodness, I got my hands on the Spider V60 MK II. Great amp! Hopefully if Line 6 releases the VI series soon, they will include lots of effects, more effects than what they have on the Spider V series. Who knows, they could include the Catalyst settings, and Spider V settings all in one. So everyone has best of both worlds. Who knows.@ken Chanceline 6 catalyst unboxing 2023
Hi, can you help me and suggest me something?
I play in a 30 instrument band (a lot of brass !!), we play some funky and jazzy and bluesy stuff. They put me behind near the drum and I'd need of an amp with a lot of headroom to play a lot of clean sounds with a touch or wha or chorus....
I'm thinkin' to buy a Catalyst 200W 2x12...In your opinion is this a good idea???
Thanks!!! M.
Do you think there is a notable difference between a Tube Tonehat and a digital Tonehat?
A great question. The digital ones do seem to be getting better…
@@AmbientEndeavors makes sense. The old digital tone hats from the 90s were pretty bad.
Owned a Katana 50 the last five years. Nothing knocked it off the pedestal til now.
Line 6 HX technology sounds better than Boss Tube Logic IMHO. The user interface is a breeze to use.
How would it do with a Helix in front of it?
I sure hope to try it and report back sometime soon ;)
Making me wanna spend more money I don’t have 😂
Anybody use a Helix in conjunction with a Catalyst?
Actually, Keith at 5 Watt World is using one witn a Stomp.
Might be a bit late to this party but yeah I do.
Sounds great but as with all Line 6 gear, whether it's superb or sounds like plastic, their pricing for what you're getting is always ridiculous.
*There are better options that outright do it better and for 25% less or greater.* I suppose that trend in market pricing is where every brand is heading though now that we're hearing digital produce textures and note separation once exclusively associated with tubes.
curious what your comparables are that you're referencing?
@@AmbientEndeavors I have a Valeton GP200, it's every bit as good as the Line 6 POD Go. I have a Zoom G5 that's 12 years old and has a 12AX7 at the end of the digital chain of effects, and it's better than the pod, the valeton and the Headrush unit I formerly owned.
Whether I run my modelers through one of my solid-state heads or my tube heads, the technology has definitely reached a point that it's going to make tubes obsolete very soon, and I say this as someone that went to college for electrical/electronics engineering. *Ideally, the digital equipment should be priced even lower than solid-state amps, but they're just greeding the prices way up there while building it all in China.*
The cost in producing an SMD modeling circuit with a modern microcontroller for it's embedded processing is literally a few dollars per unit. If I were to use Arduino to build a full-fledged guitar amp with deep parameter controls and a ton of effects and modeling options, it wouldn't even cost me $20 in terms of buying hardware and that's as a consumer.
*Maybe a competitor will surface that undercuts everyone dramatically, we will see.*
@@JonDeth Ive not tried the Valeton stuff but it looks interesting , I could see the comparison to the POD GO. What I've experienced with those units in relation to the L6 stuff is cheaper construction in the product design side, more generic sounds, sometimes less control or clunkier interface, etc. The bar has no doubt been raised across the board for the digital stuff, but I also would raise the curiosity of development and mfg ethics in some of these low cost leaders. I don't know one way or another, but there's usually a reason why a unit doing essentially the same thing is marketed at half the cost.
The math is oversimplified I think , as any old monkey can't just pull together hundreds of parts and snap his fingers and for $20 create a POD GO. And I've built plenty of pedals and worked with builders to know that $20 doesn't even buy you a box , jacks and knobs to put on the pedal , so calling your bluff on that number. There's this interesting clamoring for the cheapest product in this race to the bottom (across the board in tech) that I think we're failing to see the fringe or consequential costs associated in getting there.
We do live at a time where at least nearly all options are available, so to each there own, but I think there's some intrinsic/intangible value you get with a legacy like L6 that is so quickly overlooked in favor of the newest/cheapest thing.
@@AmbientEndeavors all electronics for any division of consumer products are outrageously priced in comparison to both development and manufacturing dude. Line 6 produced a lot of garbage early on, built a base and can now attain $1500 for a Helix that doesn't even have $150 in mfr. cost with it coming out of China.
Line 6 has microcontrollers designed proprietary to their company which is more common today, but it doesn't change the accuracy of my points. With enough time and effort, I can produce my own digital unit using Arduino hardware for a total cost of under $20, granted my time and effort to do it is not free. Upon the completion of said device, a commercial board for a consumer grade product can be designed off the development prototyping hardware, and we're talking under $10 a piece for the full PCB, the microcontroller, digital encoders A/D and D/A converters; you name it.
It's just the nature of the electronics industry no matter what product market you're looking at. 10,000 to literally 100,000% markups are common.
I've seen some absolutely dreadful sounding demos of this amp. This is not one of them.
hey that's great to hear - thanks for watching!
All the pitch effects suck, huge ping delay between pluck and amp.
My experience with this amp is that it is awful and unusable. Controls are really bad and the effects are cheap sounding. Tuner is complete junk. No wonder SW blowing these out in Fall ‘23.
Interesting! What guitar are you playing through it?
This amp is crap
Thanks for the thorough, in-depth review of this amp!