Any good steel amps with built in effects?

[James Strelow]

After I bought my pedal steel, volume pedal, tuner, etc I didn’t really want to buy another amp since I already have several other guitar amps (none great for steel) and just dropped a good bit of money on all the previously mentioned effects. I had a Boss Katana 50 watt that I use for home playing, and some gigging, and figured I might as well try that out as my steel amp. It’s solid state and has plenty of clean head room with the gain turned all the way down so I figured how different can it be from any of the popular peavey solid state amps? What I’ve come to like most about it apart from being lightweight is that it has built in reverb, delay, tremolo, chorus, and phase which saves me from also having to schlepp my pedal board to gigs. Can switch to overdrive channel too if I want some extra gain. Most of these pedals I have are Boss anyway and from my understanding it’s the same circuitry in the amp. I don’t have any major qualms with my tone but now that I’ve developed as a player a bit more, I’m curious about other steel amps to get a bit more clarity to my tone. Currently have a lace alumitone in my GFI so the output level is good too. Wondering if there’s anything comparable that would have at least reverb and delay built in as those are the main things I use and could live without the rest. Wondering if there’s anything out there or if it’s maybe a case of “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” and I should ignore my inner voice of gear acquisition syndrome

[Larry Dering]

I Understand your interests in a better amp. Not so long ago the Katana was considered a decent lower priced steel amp. I picked up a MK II 100 Watt Katana and watched all the videos and suggestions from other forum users to dial in a suitable tone. It's a very good and usable amp but not on top of my tone choices. I also got the Fender Mustang V2 100 watt amp that offered a similar format. Again it was a usable amp but less than satisfying overall. I came from the old Tube amp group and I moved to Peavey SS for pedal steel amps so my collection has grown substantially. And with all that I have rack gear, processors, pedals and multi effects units, amp simulators, you name it. I'm now on the Tonex users club. What I'm saying is follow your heart on what tone you like and listen to other steel players and what they use. Most high quality amps only offer reverb and maybe a 2nd effect.

[Fred Treece]

How does your Katana 50 sound without the volume pedal connected? I have a 100, but that doesn’t matter. I set my tone with the pedal steel going straight into the amp, then try to duplicate that ideal sound with the VP in front of the amp. Most volume pedals suck tone and volume, so adjustments have to be made.

I use a GA-FC switchboard with my Katana. There is a jack for plugging in a volume pedal, and the routing in the switch places the VP after the preamp in the signal chain. Yay! So whatever the sound my preamp settings are producing tone- and gain-wise without anything in front of it is pretty darn close to what comes out of the speaker when the VP is in line. There is still a noticeable drop off in volume, even with the pedal (a Stage One) wide open. Luckily there is plenty of headroom in the K100 to make up for it.

All this is to say that while there may be better sounding stand-alone amps for pedal steel, there are ways of using some of these low-budget “multi-effects-unit/amplifiers” that aren’t in the user manual to make them more effective. I have a friend who uses Line-6 gear on the big stage. Many others swear by the Fender Mustang, and Tonex is this year’s New Kid In Town. I’m sticking with the Katana for now.

[James Strelow]

I guess I haven’t ever tried with no volume pedal connected. Will try it out. I typically go on the clean channel with gain all the way at 0 and master at full always. Then use the channel volume to set my level. If I’m mic’d and monitored it hasn’t been a problem, only have run into not enough volume problem at unmic’d gigs and I have to add a little gain to get enough volume to play over loud guitar amps.

[Fred Treece]

Also, this.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-LziqByMxHE

I do everything the same as shown in the video except I run the Gain way down to about 10 and the treble down a little too. But the Parametric EQ setting is very transformative, and I think Larry Dering agrees with me on that.

If your K50 has neither an input jack for the GA-FC footswitch nor an FX loop, then the volume pedal test becomes a little more crucial.

[Ian Rae]

Bass amps often make good steel amps (for reasons I've attempted to explain in the past). The Roland cube I bought as a bass amp is actually very good for steel and has acceptable reverb, delay and chorus. I use it for rehearsals and small gigs. I don't think they make them any more.

[Larry Dering]

Fred is right, the parametric EQ is key. That's a good video helping to sculpt the amp to a better place. You definitely need the Tone Studio free download from Boss and spending a little time doing the settings. I use a Android tablet and a purchased App Katana Librarian to tweak my Katana. The amp is very versatile and has a good tone for steel. Noting in its price range can touch it. The new Peavey is $1499.00. It may be better but not $1200 dollars better. I have the Fender Tonemaster Twin which was all the rage not long ago. Good amp but again not my preferred tone. They are also more than triple the Katana cost.

[Daniel Stein]

Evans has some flange if not chorus in their amps? At least the NEW ones

[Rick Contino]

The Quilter Aviator Mach 3 is 200 watts with overdrive, reverb, trem and various amp models. Its not all the effects the katana has but it covers the basics.

[Dave Grafe]

If you can find a good Roland Jazz Chorus 120 it is a worthy beast with excellent reverb and chorus to go with its great sound for steel

[Donny Hinson]

I've used a (modded) Peavey Stereo Chorus 212 for decades. While the reverb was only so-so, I found the chorus and slapback to be quite useable. The only (stompbox) effect I used quite often was an MXR Phase 100.

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[Jerry Overstreet]

Telonics combo amps. Actually just a power amp with a component multi-fx unit with a lot of patches for steel and a speaker all in one cab.

Otherwise, consider a component raw power amp and one of the older but great Peavey fx racks such as the Profex II, Tubefex or TransTubefex that have all the steel presets either installed or on a ram card. From there, all you have to do is scroll the menu to find the ones you like, but they are all good.

There's also the late 90s, early 2000s Peavey Session 2000 combo that has the same "fex" unit installed for steel patches.

[Gregg TeHennepe]

Here are custom steel presets I built for the Spark 2 amp:

Modern Steel GT: https://spark.app.positivegrid.com/pres ... WDL6j38k1A
Vintage Steel GT: https://spark.app.positivegrid.com/pres ... wDAjbpPjv6

- Gregg

[Henry Matthews]

At venues where I can line out my amp, I use a Fishman Loudbox performer. It’s 180 watts and has built in effects, chorus, flange, delay and some real nice reverbs. It’s only 27 lbs and sounds really great. Now if your band is playing at warp 7, I wouldn’t recommend it. It can’t handle really loud volumes but can handle about any thing else.