Line 6 Catalyst 100

[Armitage]

I was over at a friend's house and he just got a Line 6 Catalyst 60... in moments I got a killer high gain sound with loads of bottom, it's not boxy, and no shrieking mids... and loads of air... at low volumes. And then you can turn it up! The cleans are excellent and get really loud too.

I found a Catalyst 100 the next day and snatched it right up.

It doesn't have a lot of "stuff"... few amps and few effects, but a couple clean and a couple dirty and I've got what I want for amps and the reverb and delay are all I need for effects, (and you can choose from 6 of each). It's got an effects loop and direct out that people seem to really like. There's a basic app to tweak a few things, but it's pretty limited.

All my other high gain amps are tube and make so much noise I'm just used to suffering with it. But i hate the noise, even at low volume playing while watching TV. And the lack of bottom end and air at lower volumes requires an outboard EQ.

With the Catalyst, I didn't even turn on the built-in noise gate for ages. It was so comparatively quiet.

The obvious cons are it doesn't feel rugged. I guess to keep the weight down, it's really light, but I bet the tolex would tear easy. But they are really inexpensive. Next, it defaults with the reverb and delay before the distortion... press this turn that and you can move it... but i can imagine people giving up before finding it can move. And the foot switche is optional and only switches between channels A/B and turns the effects on and off.

 My pair of Peavey 5150 2x12 sound awesome but are noisy as Hell, clean is worthless (not that i really care). I really want to change the speakers in my EVH 5150 2x12... they're shrieky with zero bottom (2 Celestian Anniversary) until you really turn it up to stupid volumes... but this whole amp was less then a couple raw speakers.

So... for now... it's replacing a EVH 5150 2x12 with a Line 6 HX Effects for delay and reverb in the loop...

[stonge]

I have a catalyst 100 for my 'living room' amp. It's an easy fuss-free amp for jamming with the stereo or testing pedals. I usually leave it on clean or low gain drive, and I only use the reverb but not the built in effects. I have the foot switch, and I think you can reassign the effects button to activate the boost in the editor (I haven't tried the software, but it supposedly lets edit parameters with more detail). The power settings work well - half power is more than enough to jam or do a small gig with.

[princeofdarkness56]

Always amazed at how things have developed in amps and sound systems. 

[hamerhead]

That's really similar to the Boss Katana, which is 25 lbs of Swiss army knife. I'd like to hear those two side-by-side.

[Dave Scepter]

On 6/23/2023 at 9:52 AM, princeofdarkness56 said:

Always amazed at how things have developed in amps and sound systems. 

Yes and no cuz I still love me some good ol fashion hand wired vintage tube amps 😃

[Armitage]

On 6/28/2023 at 10:11 AM, hamerhead said:

That's really similar to the Boss Katana, which is 25 lbs of Swiss army knife. I'd like to hear those two side-by-side.

They both rock. The Katana has many more effects, but is quite a bit thinner sounding.

[Nathan of Brainfertilizer Fame]

I was wondering what the point of the Catalyst was after the Spider V.

So, thanks.

For my living room amp while watching NFL, I usually use my Roland Micro Cube.  It's limited in what it can do, but the things it CAN do are awesome.

And then for my main amp, well, I was totally enamored with the tones I was getting from the Roland Blues Cube 2x12.  Then I violated my rule against actual tubes to get an HFC-legacy Super Champ.  The ease of going through a bunch of different low- medium- and high-gain types made me rethink my love of the have-to-change-tone-capsules Roland Blues Cube, and then rethinking that made me go back and realize that the the Fender GT-200 I already had is probably the real solution, with the wide range of amps, cabs, and effects, AND online/downloadable presets.

And maybe it doesn't matter, since I use the Garage Band presets 99.9% of the time, which is the only way anyone ever hears me play since I don't gig.

 

and no one cares, so I should probably just delete this, but maybe someone needs a good chuckle at my evergreen idiocy.

[hamerhead]

The thing about the Super Champ and Boss Katana (both of which I own), and I assume the Catalyst as well, is that good sounds are at your fingertips. However, great sounds require a deeper dive into the computer software.

Fender made that dive stupid easy (actual pedal-type format), while Boss did their Boss thing and gave you tons of parameters to tweak (where you can rid yourself of that 'thin' sound). I again assume that Line 6 leans more towards the Boss method by giving you the kitchen sink and letting you decide what to do with it. Either way, the deep dive reveals some really great stuff.

[Nathan of Brainfertilizer Fame]

On 7/4/2023 at 8:58 AM, hamerhead said:

The thing about the Super Champ and Boss Katana (both of which I own), and I assume the Catalyst as well, is that good sounds are at your fingertips. However, great sounds require a deeper dive into the computer software.

Fender made that dive stupid easy (actual pedal-type format), while Boss did their Boss thing and gave you tons of parameters to tweak (where you can rid yourself of that 'thin' sound). I again assume that Line 6 leans more towards the Boss method by giving you the kitchen sink and letting you decide what to do with it. Either way, the deep dive reveals some really great stuff.

I think this is dead on.

For all that I really liked some of the sounds I found on the Line6 products, I always hated the interface.

And when I finally found a Line6 product with a decent interface AND decent sound (and it doubled great just as a living room music speaker), it was loaded with so many options that I couldn't get through a tenth of them in one setting, and I always felt like I had paid for 980 amps I'll never use for the sake of 20 I'll constantly, and it made me feel like I somehow wasted 98% of my purchase price.

I didn't say why I soured on the Blues Cube Artist, but it was that to change an amp model, you had to change out the capsule and turn it completely off and back on.  Getting great tones from the Champ or the GT-200 is just a knob twist away.  Plus, the GT-200 is quite light and easy to carry. The Blues Cube Artist is as heavy as a tube amp.

 

Not that I'm ever going to take them anywhere to gig.

[BubbaVO]

Super champ, katana and tm60 in my house.  All fun and have their own vibe.

[JGale]

Just sent a 60W version of this to my nephew. He's digging it! Thanks for the tip.

On sale for $240.