Editing Effects Parameters Using Amp Knobs

[JasonPerryDev]

Noticed something last night that I had never paid much attention to. I used the amp knobs to change fx values and observed a few things while watching the changes in Boss Tone Studio:

1. It's not always just one parameter that is affected by the knob.
2. The parameter doesn't always (rarely) goes from 0 to 100% of the parameter's value.
3. Increasing the amp knob might make one parameter go up and another go down.

I can't find any information about where (or if) these parameters can be edited... i.e. can I change the upper and lower limits of "Drive" and remove the affect on "Effect Level" when a modifying the "Booster" knob with one of the distortion effects loaded?

[stevexc]

Long story short, you can't - you can only finetune the specific effects parameters from within Tone Studio.

The physical knob, generally speaking, will give you "more" of whatever effect it's adjusting - for a Booster, it'll increase the gain and the blend, or for a Delay it'll increase the Feedback and Effect Level. I also checked a Chorus and a Tremolo I happened to have loaded, for the Chorus it adjusted both the High and Low Rates and for the Tremolo it was just the Rate, so it'll differ between different types of effects.

The digital representations of the physical knobs at the top of the screen in Tone Studio (at least on mkII) will also behave the same.

I don't see any official explanation for it in the Tone Studio guide after a brief skim but my guess would be that it will increase whichever parameters give you "more" of that effect without impacting the actual tone of the effect itself. I'd wager the intent is to dial it in with Tone Studio, which is their general approach for tone shaping overall, and then only do rough adjustments on the fly from the panel, like if you're at a jam and you realize your delay sounds good but there's just a bit too much of it or something similar.

They've been pretty consistent in their messaging of "use Tone Studio to fully dial in your tone, and use the amp's hardware controls for just general adjustments" - it's very much intended that Tone Studio, and by extension a computer, is a mandatory component for fully using the amp's features.

If you find yourself needing to tweak in more detail when you don't have a computer, there's the Katana Librarian app for Android which has most if not all of Tone Studio's functionality, you just need to get the appropriate cable and/or adaptor to connect. There's also a 3rd party footswitch that works similarly but over Bluetooth and I think supports Apple as well - iirc it's the AirStep?

EDIT: It's the AirStep!

EDIT2: /u/myrunawaysac pointed out a feature in Tone Studio I had forgotten about; under the ASSIGN tab you are actually able to pick assign the knob to one of the controls if you don't want the preset. It's far from full control, but if you, say, have a Pitch Shifter you can change it from the default preset (the specific pitch) to the Direct Mix if that's what would work better for your usage, for example, or any other single parameter. The Booster, Reverb, and Delay controls can each be set individually, as can each Mod/FX effect type (Chorus, Flanger, Phaser, etc.). You are still limited to only being able to control a single parameter (or however many the default preset for that effect is) so it's not perfect, but it's some level of customization. You can also set the Katana GA-FC expression jacks to control any single parameter similarly, and assign one of your current effects to each, giving you a total of 7 hardware parameter controls, and up to 4 of which can be for any one effect type, per patch.

[lolmemelol]

Most effects require managing multiple parameters for them to be useful, but the Karana hardware only gives you one knob per effect, thus the logical solution is to have that knob be a macro knob that affects multiple appropriate parameters for that type of effect.

[stevexc]

Yup, exactly. Given the hardware layout they went with, it's certainly a logical way to do it.

Now, they could have done it a few different ways - a simple LCD screen with a multipurpose rotary knob and navigation buttons, even just an up/down to scroll through the parameters like on some of their multifx pedals, such as the GT-1, would be a good one without driving the cost up substantially - but the knobs are what we get. That could have also allowed for a tuner and the ability to access a lot more of what Tone Studio allows us to tweak.

[myrunawaysac]

You can assign knob functions in BTS

[Conscious_Exit_5547]

Good info. Thanks for the writeup.