How To Use The Boss GA-FC EX and GA-FC Tutorial 

No bud, foot control 2 means you can control another Katana with EX

Thanks for the video. Boss! If you read this stuff. Let us assign two separate boost pedals to each channel. I don't need a dedicated Mod, Fx, and Delay. Combine two of those and free up a switch for a second boost. Or better yet, in the Tone Studio, let the user assign the pedal to the switch. If that were the case each of my channels would have two boosts, a Solo/Clean boost, and one channel for all mods/Fx/Delays.

Great video and explanation. Thank you 👏 I have both the original and the EX versions. Both together is definitely the way to go, especially if you're playing live. But it still becomes a lot of work just trying to do anything beyond switching channels or effects. What I have found to be better, at least for me is - if you have the KATANA Artist (MKII) you can do all this and more by using the midi input. Your DAW or other midi controller can send ALL of the information for as many things as you want to change all at once. Yes it takes a little pre-emptive prep work, but it's way easier than trying to push through 3 or 4 buttons in a second or two and possibly getting it wrong. Plus allows you to concentrate on your playing which is very helpful if your gigging live.

At 02:58 meant you can turn your solo on and off, which you can also do with the GA-FC by long pressing the channel button. Also, when I said you can have four expression pedals, I meant you can have one plugged into the back of your amp.

I knew I should’ve stayed in school!!!!! 😊

I use the boss FS-5U attached to my GA-FC so I don't have to long press to switch banks.

Thanks for this video. Im glad I found your channel as you have helped this beginner figure out the amp and the footswitch.

I bought the EX and it’s definitely better than the regular one. I have two Katani and I run them in stereo. The control of both amps is the tits and the different colors between A/B mode is essential if you gig.

Great video! I Just want to add that im currently using a katana 100 mk2 and a 50 mk2 using the stereo expand function found in back of the 100 mk2.i controll both amps with one gafc controller.you can also slave a MK1 50 or 100 as well. The stereo sound is HUGE !

MK II Artist over here... and although I started with the GA-FC EX switch, I have totally abandoned it. I stored 8 patches in banks A & B and I control my rig from my former BOSS GT 10. midi cable enables to switch both banks & presets... and TSR jack will enable the solo function through AMP CONTROL (from the GT 10) Unfortunately, I found it impossible to control the Katana FX with the CTRL1 & 2 pedals of the GT10, which would have been awesome. I was also very close to using the expression pedal as a wah. Unfortunately, the BOSS GT 10 won't send latching information to the Katana and it never "toggles", I don't know why...

Hi Scott...thanks for your honesty.......just checking that the regular older GA FC is compatible with the Katana Artist MK2 version.........thank you

Thank you for this. It was helpful!

Well, I haven’t bought either one yet but there’s place on my homemade paddleboard for it and I just ordered some metal sides for this homemade paddleboard which is made out of two by fours but it’s lopsided so I got these two metal pieces coming in. I’ll have to turn the 2 x 4 sideways or cut them in Cut them because it’s a 2 x 2 but it’s a little bit bigger when I get down there this one

So i have to learn to be as dextrous with my feet as my hands , dancing and playing , boss certainly tie you to their products !

Hey, here's a common question I've yet to find the answer to. I'd bet you can help. And thanks for the great videos in advance. Dedicated Solo pedal run into the GAFC.... Can you tell us how to, when using the gafc, you can assign one of the expression pedal outputs to a simple foot switch that activates the Solo function? I know a long press will do that on the gafc, but that's a bit cumbersome. I'm quite sure I've heard of it being done by assigning one of the Expression pedal outputs in the Tone Studio to a Solo mode. Again, thanks for the great videos.

If you hold the effects it will blink and they do the same things, just expansion port and switch are added to backside, so thank boss for green LED and a lighter wallet

Thank you for the vid and for saving me $150.00 I’m fine just switching between channel and effects mode.

The tap tempo doesn't flash on the pedal on my MK1 but it does on the amp panel

That makes total sense just not right now but I'll catch up later

Must too fast when explaining. Totally confused

I just picked up a the EX. Two reasons, one because it's supposed to be better (we'll find out) and two because I play out a lot and like having a spare footswitch in the event of a problem. The connecting cord for the GA-FC is pretty flimsy, so I definitely wanted a spare of that. I have a spare 100MKII too. My assumption is that the amps are so inexpensive that I doubt it would be cost effective to try to have them repaired.

So even with the EX there is still no way to cycle through the three banks that the Booster, Mod, and FX each have (Red/Amber/Green) via footswitch, correct? I can say this, I am comfortable working with technology and I have a MkII Head, but running two of these footswitches is just too much going on.

At about 3:00 I think you need a time sequence effect, like a delay, for the tap to work ....

Thanks for taking time to make this useful video. Important to note that in the "SUB-EFFECTS" mode as you call it, the functions of each of the GA-FC switches can be configured/assigned from a drop-down list of functions in the Tone Studio in the SYSTEM-->GA-FC SETTINGS page. Quick question ... on the GA-FC-EX, in EFFECTS mode can you somehow (long-press on the switches maybe ?) cycle through the GREEN-RED-YELLOW effects on each of the effects switches ? Example ... if I wanted to switch from the BLUES DRIVE to the T-SCREAM to the METAL ZONE drive pedal on the BOOSTER effects switch on the same patch). If you can, I would upgrade to the EX just for that. Thanks.

I wanna know if the airstep is superior to the gafc because the airstep is 70 bucks right now.

Spending a bit more on a real MIDI controller eliminates 100% of the headaches the GAFC/EX present. No fooling around with modes or holding down switches or anything. Literally just tell the controller what you want each switch to do and you're done.

It needs more channels and banks. 6 total channels is not enough for an amp like this. The Marshall code pedal board has A through J banks with 3 channels each (30 channels). And you can turn on and off effects as well with each channel. The Katana is a lot better than the Code but the pedal isn’t.

But how do you assign the amp typeto a channel switch, when mine came out of the box there were assignment already configured which I cannot change

Hey Scott, you seem to be one of the resident experts on the Katana so I have a couple questions if I may. I have a Katana 100 Mk2 head and 212 cabinet. I have it set up like this.... using FX Floorboard instead of Boss Tone Studio, I set the signal chain up so that the effects loop send and return are after the preamp and EQ but before the onboard effects. (Don't get me wrong, I still use Boss Tone Studio for other stuff, but Floorboard lets me arrange the signal chain any way I want. Tone Studio is a bit limited on this). My pedal board gets plugged into the effects loop return so it by-passes the Katana preamp and EQ but still uses the onboard effects. I have the GA-FC footswitch on my pedal board to control those effects. All of my preamps and EQ are on the pedal board. This brings me to my first question. I can control the onboard effects with the GA-FC footswitch... somewhat. I can turn the MOD or FX or BOOST effect on and off. But I have three different effects programmed into each of those effects channels. Like on the MOD channel, I have a chorus, a phaser and a flanger. on the FX channel I have a tremolo, a vibrato and a harmonist. My question is this... is there any way to switch between these individual effects using the footswitch, or can it only be done with the extremely non-ergonomic little button on the amp? I plan on adding one of the expression pedals so I can do a wah or volume or adjust delay. But it would be so great if I could do say, a long press on the button to switch between each effect, instead of having to fumble around with the tiny, hard to find button. Did I mention that those buttons are very non-ergonomic? My second question has to do with the onboard noise suppression. I have it in the chain but whenever I turn it on, I can get no signal through it at all, no matter where I have the threshold and release set at. If it is active, I get nothing through it at all. What am I doing wrong? This happens whenever I use the noise suppression in FX Floorboard. I have not, as of yet, tried it in Boss Tone Studio. One other question if I may. I noticed that there are a couple places in Boss Tone Studio and FX Floorboard where certain levels can be adjusted... the send and return levels, the output of the preamp, the output of the EQ's. As I said, I have the output of my pedal board going into the effects loop return so it goes through the onboard effects and then into the main power amp. For my looper, I take the line out of the Katana to the input of the looper and then I take the output of the looper into the aux input of the Katana. This way I can still hear the looper through the amp and I can play the guitar into the looper to record a loop with it, but the output of the looper doesn't go through any of the onboard effects. The problem I have is that with this setup, the audio level of whatever is playing out of the looper is pretty low. So much so that the guitar usually drowns it out. When I first got this looper, I had it plugged directly into the amp like all the other effects instead of going into the aux input and the audio level was fine. Now that it's going into the aux input, I can't hardly hear the thing. This aux input is supposed to be so you can plug a MP3 player or whatever into the amp and you can hear it through the amp and play along with it. I figured a looper pedal would kind of be the same thing. So, my question is... is there a way to adjust the level of the aux input to get the output of the looper pedal at a similar level to the guitar audio? I have the dB level and the volume level of the looper maxed out but it's still much lower than the guitar. What can I do about this?

Hi; could you help me? Can I use a footswitch as a memory mode, changing the patches, and the other as the manual mode (like Boss ME 80) to add effects (mod, fx, dly, etc) to that patch? and then I cas save patch. Thank you.

I really wish boss would just make a bigger controller with 2 or 3 rows of buttons, so you could control everything you need without that silly “long hold” crap…I’m sure NOBODY finds that very usable in a live situation on stage. Even an all in one 3 row, 2 expression pedal sort of thing would be sweet….I use my artist mainly with a pedalboard, but for “grab-n-go setup it’s great with the exception of having to haul xtra stuff, cuz controller functionality is CLUNKY!

Hey man! The GA FC EX fits inside the back of the amp (Especially the Katana MKII 1x12 100 Watts)?

I just bought the EX version footswitch for my Artist head. I figured out the basic channel/ effects functions but a couple things irk me. Whenever I switch channels (clean-crunch-lead etc) the volume defaults to LOUD. Is there a simple remedy for that or do I need to adjust settings in the tone studio? Also I assume you need to save effects settings assigned to each effects patch because every time I switch back and forth between functions (red to green) they aren't stored. I don't know why the settings can't be temporarily stored at least until you shut the amp off. I rather do that on the amp's control panel. The Katana does great stuff, but it's far from smooth and intuitive when it comes to otherwise simple controls.

How do you use the GAFC-ex to switch through the 3 assigned effects versions (red, green, orange). Like if I want to switch from spring reverb [green] to a different reverb assigned in BTS directly from the footswitch? I know airstep-kat can do this. I'd think the GAFC-ex should be able to as well?

I just got my Boss Katana 100 MKII and my Boss RC-5 looper. Don’t know how to use them and I have band rehearsal in like 40 min 🤦‍♂️… also have the GAFC-EX and the Xsonic pedal on the way. Ordered at different times but my gear always comes at once and I get overwhelmed. Still trying to figure out how to record from my katana to my MacBook Air m2?

when I hold down my effects Botton it does nothing no blinking from A to B

I am, hopefully 🤞🏼🤞🏼, picking up my new Boss Katana 50 EX tomorrow. Did I need it? Fuck no. I got it just for funsies lol. I already have a mark 2. I got the ga-fc ex last week. I just couldn’t help myself.

I can't get the green led lights to come on in the function mode. Using the GA-FC Ex with both MK 2 100 and MK2 Artist and controller leds won't show green. What's up with this problem?

So the EX doesn’t work with the 50amp MKIII?

What does the solo button do on the katana 100 Artist? And how the heck do I use the solo button?

Geez, sorry but I am at 3min mark and all I can think is "can Katana make the GA-FC any more confusing?" If it is green, it is A, if red it is B, if flashing green it is something else, why didn't they just include a light up A and B? Still trying to decide on whether to get physical pedals or not, thought maybe the GA would be an alternative but so far it just makes my brain hurt. Gave up on this at 4:50, what a stupid way of making a controller. In the middle of playing "oh, is my light green or red, is it flashing?"

You can do the long press on the GA-FX for the tap tempo just like the EX.. You just don't have the labeling to know what you're doing... Haha..

Will the ex pedal work on the 50 watt mkII ?

For some reason my solo boost button does not work. It turns on the led on the pedal but does not activate the solo boost on the amp panel, nor does it activate it. My amp has the latest update so that shouldn't be the problem. Any ideas?

Can u program your own settings on it?

Hi is it possible to cycle thru effects with these footswitches? Say boost1 -> boost2 -> boost3 ->boost1

Can I use the gafc ex on expand with the gafc to control the channels and effects of my MK1 Katana?, It would give me the perfect live set up, I can't afford a mk11 and my combo doesn't have Midi and I use the USB for katana librarian

Can you save tones from the foot switch? On the 50 ex , can I save tones 3 and 4 from the switch or do I need a computer?

EX is too complicated!

I have one of these pedals. whoever invents this shit does not play guitar. I garantee it

Tottaly useless controller for the live performances....expecially changing bank switching time -its making me crazy......no transparency,long press??? Hitting wrong button for effects....mah.......This is beadroom controller..........stupid fc for the great amp. BOss? What's up? Never played live? Another stupidity is no tap tempo via midi controller. Makes me think of buying different amp... Boss?? Fc is for sure bad investment.

Thanks!!!!

What about using the original GA-FC with a Blues Cube Artist, got ya 🙃

It needs more channels and banks. 6 total channels is not enough for an amp like this. The Marshall code pedal board has A through J banks with 3 channels each (30 channels). And you can turn on and off effects as well with each channel. The Katana is a lot better than the Code but the pedal isn’t.

It needs more channels and banks. 8 total channels is not enough for an amp like this. The Marshall code pedal board has A through J banks with 3 channels each (30 channels). And you can turn on and off effects as well with each channel. The Katana is a lot better than the Code but the pedal isn’t.