The Steel Guitar Forum

Hey guys. I've got a gig coming up and I'm playing pedal steel and telecaster. I only have one amp, the Boss Katana Artist MKII. Is there a way to run both instruments through the amp so I don't have to unplug and plug between instruments. Obviously, the guitars will not be playing at the same time.

All you need is an A/B pedal. A passive one is just two inputs, one output and a foot switch.

Fred

Depending on a lot of factors, you may have to change up your tone settings when you switch instruments; I've found steel to need considerably more bass and less treble than a Tele. YMMV, but check it out at home first.

Test your AB switch for tone degrading if you get a budget priced one, the Whirlwind selector i have is pretty good but the Morleys had issues in some combinations of ins and outs. (Or get a Radial AB and not have to worry about anything)

The 13 page Katana manual doesn't tell you how to save presets for each instrument but you should find detailed instructions on your footswitch / amp/ PC combo somewhere on

https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?board=231.0

also I *think* the Digitech footswitch worked (FS3x w/TRS cable) but I can't exactly perfectly remember it's been awhile.

The amp has 8 channel presets so i won't have to actually mess with the to knobs between instruments (I think the presets save the EQ settings). I know it won't save the master volume. I have a Boss FS 6 foot switch. Wonder if there's a way to make that work? Sorry for my ignorance on this subject.

There's also a reddit forum, they say that footswitch partially works but recommend the GA-FC

link to Reddit discussion.

as long as you back up your patches, I don't think you can do much damage experimenting, not like pluging a tube head into some cab where the guy doing the wiring got confused between parallel and series ...

$60 at Sweetwater

The biggest problem with running steel and guitar through one amp is setting the overall volume level for each instrument’s amp model preset. The guitar volume is probably going to be maxxed out or close to it most of the time, and the steel volume pedal will probably be closer to half-cranked most of the time.

It can be done, I’ve been using that ART Cool switch and a Boss GT10 with my steel and guitar into a single amp for a couple years. But I finally gave up this year and bought a Katana for steel only - which I have not used on a gig yet, thank you very much, 2020.

Boss has a great line selector pedal with 3 inputs...I use to plug in steel,dobro & slide out to volume pedal,then to effects,then to amp. 2 inputs have their own volume or gain knob, & 1 is straight through,so you adjust until they all come out the same. No tone loss like an A/B box

I looked at soem reviews of AB switches or using e.g. a stereo pedal in that capacity, most of the tone/noise /volume problems seem to be from splitting one input to 2 amps or combining 2 inputs to one amp e.g.

https://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=347957

also some makers call their products SWITCHING UTILITY or channel selector or something

Whatever you get, look at credible reviews, sweetwater, tdpri, Les Paul forum, thegearpage.net are pretty reliable

Whirlwind used to make a great"A-B"box that was bulletproof-you'd see tons of them on the road back in the"Stone Age"...

SH

I use a tiny Behringer Xenix 1202 mixer for guitar + steel running into a Session 400. I sit at the steel throughout the show, with the mixer within easy reach. This allows tweaking relative volume and separate tone needed for guitar and steel. I've thought about also bringing an acoustic guitar (with pickup) and could easily plug into another channel. You can no doubt pick up one (or one like it) for under $100 used--several for sale on ebay right now under $75. I've been extremely happy with this set-up. Good luck. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4GpqwnsbUI

I doubled on Steel and Baritone guitar.

The guitar put out way less volume than the hot steel pick up. In addition to the A/B box, I ran the guitar through a Seymore Duncan boost pedal. It was cheap, used.

It evened out the volume difference, so I could blast out a Bari solo and switch back to steel. No knob turning or unplugging/plugging .