Creating the Ultimate Practice Environment with the WAZA-AIR

Nice to meet you all. My name is “Ken @ Bass Player,” and I play bass in the Kansai area. I’ve been given the opportunity to write a contributed article for Sound House. Thank you in advance for reading.

Since it’s been difficult to perform live lately, I usually focus on playing bass, while also playing guitar and piano on the side, enjoying music at my own pace.

However, I often run into problems like getting home late from work and not having enough time to practice, or being unable to play out loud because I’m worried about disturbing others…

But there is an item that solves these problems and provides the ultimate practice environment.

That is the “WAZA-AIR” released by BOSS.

BOSS / WAZA-AIR Wireless Headphone Guitar Amp

The WAZA-AIR is described on the official website as a “wireless guitar headphone system,” but simply put, it’s a device that connects to your guitar wirelessly and lets you hear the sound processed through an amp and effects directly through headphones.

Until now, practicing with headphones usually meant a setup like “guitar → cable → multi-effects unit → wired headphones.” With the WAZA-AIR, this becomes “guitar → wireless transmitter → headphones,” an extremely simple and stress-free setup.

With electric guitars, from the moment you feel like playing to actually producing sound, there’s quite a bit of hassle when connecting cables, setting up effects, and so on. So after getting home from work, even if you only have a little time before bed, it’s easy to feel like, “This is too much trouble.”

However, with the WAZA-AIR, you just plug the transmitter into your guitar and turn on the headphones, and your practice environment is ready.

When you’re busy, when you’re tired, but still want to play guitar… in those moments, the WAZA-AIR lets you pick up your instrument and start playing as easily as if it were an acoustic guitar. In that sense, it has tremendous value in significantly lowering the barrier to starting to play an electric guitar.

Another major factor in enabling stress-free practice is that it is “wireless.” When playing instruments like electric guitar, cables from shields and headphones inevitably get in the way, becoming a subtle but constant source of stress. Recently, affordable wireless systems like the BOSS WL-20 series have appeared, but the convenience of being wirelessly connected directly to headphones is truly remarkable.

The WAZA-AIR can also connect to a smartphone via Bluetooth, allowing you to play music from your phone through the headphones and practice along with it. With just a guitar, the WAZA-AIR, and a smartphone, you can create the ultimate practice environment at home.

Another point that cannot be overlooked with the WAZA-AIR is that its sound quality is quite impressive. Its sound character follows the BOSS KATANA series of guitar amps. It offers five types of amp simulations, including the well-regarded “BROWN” from the KATANA series, as well as a “FLAT/BASS/ACOUSTIC” mode designed for use with bass.

In addition, it inherits a wide range of effects from the KATANA series. When you think of BOSS, you think of the OD-1, and this unit includes an overdrive that simulates it, along with various distortion sounds from both BOSS and other effect brands. It also includes effects like chorus and compressor, allowing you to shape your sound almost like using a multi-effects unit.

These sound settings are configured via the smartphone app “BOSS TONE STUDIO.” After going through all the effort of crafting your sound, you might wish you could output it somewhere other than the headphones—but with the WAZA-AIR, the sound you create can only be enjoyed within the headphones. That might be a slight downside.

Oh, and another key feature of the WAZA-AIR is its immersive sound created using 3D audio technology and a gyro sensor. It’s certainly interesting that the way the sound is heard changes בהתאם to your body movements, allowing you to enjoy a sense of presence as if you were in a studio or on stage. However, when you want to focus on practicing, that realism might actually feel a bit distracting. That said, when you just want to have fun playing guitar, it’s a very enjoyable feature.

In this way, the WAZA-AIR

• allows you to easily create a practice environment for guitar
• provides a stress-free setup free from cables
• and delivers sufficient sound quality

making it, at present, one of the best home practice tools available for electric guitar.

Especially for those who come home late due to work or studies, want to practice while being considerate of others, and want to be able to pick up the guitar more casually, it would not be an exaggeration to call this a must-have item.

Compared to other home practice tools, it is somewhat expensive, but if you think of it not as buying a device, but as buying the ultimate practice environment, it is by no means an overpriced purchase.

Additionally, it was recently announced that a bass-focused variation, the “WAZA-AIR BASS,” will also be released.

BOSS / WAZA-AIR BASS

I sincerely hope that as many people as possible can obtain a better home practice environment and rediscover the joy of playing musical instruments.

Thank you very much for reading until the end.

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