Katana owners warranty issue "sneaky amps"

I don't think they could legally void it for that. You paid for it and it's yours to do with what u want, EXCEPTING of course something that could cause damage which they could then legally void it. I'm not a lawyer but common sense would seem to indicate that to me. There are many things that manufacturers cannot void your warranty for that would be far more likely to cause issues. I believe vehicle manufacturers can't even void your warranty if you decide to do your own maintenance which i would see as far more likely to be a problem for manufacturers.

I suppose boss could say u pirated some digital data but unless they make owners aware of this i doubt it would hold up in court because it's not obvious to the owner like pirating a software all or movie etc. In any case my guess would be they couldn't legally void your warranty for this. Maybe they could nail u for piracy, but that's pretty unrealistic. Besides, if you needed warranty work chances are that if you do a full factory reset they'd never know.

 

so...what's a sneaky amp?

 

I don't know about this issue, but I do know if you replace a bad switch or pot on your Fender (or Gibson or any other brand) guitar instead of taking it to a warranty station to have it done, then you've voided the warranty. But, it hardly matters anymore, since Fender's become so cheap and greedy that they no longer offer a lifetime warranty on their instruments, only two years.

 

It's neither a software hack or anything else that would void the warranty, it's just a bunch of settings that can be loaded in to the Tone Studio.

 

They are amp models that boss did not intend to be included with the katana, but they are on the chip because as i understand it the katana uses the same chip for other boss modeling products which contain these extra amp models. But the katana cannot access them without a file that has been called sneaky amps. It comes in the form of a TSL file, the file type boss tone studio uses as patches. So u download this sneaky amp file and it adds about 30 amp models to boss tone studio from other boss products that u can then save to the amp slots and use. Some like myself find the best of them to sound better then any of the 5 sounds that come in the katana by default.

 

...and, 'side-loading' software items often violates a warranty--especially one that is for an item that is basically a computer with a speaker attached.

Still, I'd rather see something official about it in writing from BOSS/Roland than some random internet post.

 

No software is being "side-loaded" so there is no need to be concerned about that.

 

A warranty on a $220 amp isn't that meaningful, anyway. But getting all of the amps that come on a $400 pedal is!

 

Oh, I'm going to do it at some point...

 

They are definitely an improvement imho. Try them.

 

If you're scared of Sneaky Amps, don't even think about the Katana FxFloorboard.

BTW, in two years, over 800 pages of the dedicated Katana and other threads on TGP I've never seen this even mentioned.

 

Warranties don't get voided wholesale. Products either have them or they don't and there are circumstances where the manufacturers can and can't deny claims. In the U.S., this is governed by the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act. You mostly hear about this law in relation to cars, but it applies to everything with a warranty.

If the input jack on a Fender amp goes bad and you decide to replace it yourself with a Switchcraft jack, it's no longer Fender's part and they're not on the hook for failures in the replacement part. Any warranty on that is between you and Switchcraft. If the power section fails a week later, Fender is still on the hook for that unless they can prove that the jack or the way it was installed was the cause. On the other hand, if you'd replaced the speaker with one of the wrong impedance, the bill for that repair would be on you because it was very likely the cause of the damage rather than a defect in material or workmanship.


Software modifications are is a very sticky issue. It's entirely possible that damage to the hardware could be done by a badly-thought-out software change but, again, the onus is on the manufacturer to prove that was the cause. The cost of doing the forensic work for that might not be worth the effort and they just fix it.

The sneaky amps case is really interesting. From what I can make of the development information, it looks like all they've done is take live setlist files generated by Tone Studio for the GT-100 and load them into the Katana. I downloaded their sample set, and the data is insanely easy to pick apart and understand. My reaction to this as someone who writes software professionally is that Roland got sloppy, assumed nobody was ever going to figure out how this stuff worked and didn't bother putting anything into the Katana to make sure that only the five amps they wanted would work. Neither the Katana nor Tone Studio validates the data it inhales or uploads to make sure it fits in with the product's specifications. Writing the additional software to do that would have taken all of ten minutes, and the the only way Roland will be able to put that genie back in the bottle is through a firmware upgrade to the Katana that sneaky amp users simply won't install.

The bottom line is that I don't think doing this violates Roland's copyrights on anything because a TSL can be generated manually or by third-party software and it is just data that Tone Studio happily uploads to the amp. I read the license for Tone Studio and it doesn't forbid reverse engineering the data files, just the software.


The best thing you can do with any digital device before sending it in for service is back up any data you've got on it (patches, settings, whatever) and do a factory reset to put it back into a pristine state that the manufacturer can't complain about. (For example, this is how you do one on a Katana .)

 

If you mess with the amp's OS without their permission they have every right to bounce your warranty.

 

That's what I was trying to say, but someone got all Wittgenstein on me. Still, haven't seen any official word from BOSS, nor has someone brought one here to this thread.

 

Then you write to Boss. You're the only one that seems to be bothered about it.

Nobody is tampering with the hardware, firmware or software of the Katana.

 

Have a nice day! And thanks.

 

It's all done by MIDI over USB. It's nothing that can't be done with any MIDI controlled device, if somebody sits down and writes the controller program.

 

As long as the amp can be reset back to the factory defaults, I don't see any warranty issue.

 

Why would anyone want to change the OS in the chip? All the DSP algorithms in the katana already run just fine on the stock OS.