Hi I'm Ola and today I'm checking out the new Bias Amp 2 plugin from
Positive Grid
Song *Feared - The Mare*
Now I made a video of the original Bias plug-in about three years ago and now
Positive Grid has released a new version called Bias Amp 2.
So what's cool about
the original Bias Amp is that you can design your own amplifier modeler where
you change out and configure the preamps, the tone stacks, poweramp, cab section and so on.
A smorgasbord for the tweaking nerd basically. Now in version 2 of Bias,
Positive Grid has supposedly upped their game and let's see here I have a list:
Improved dynamic touch response,
improved low to mid gain tones,
added tube types and amp packs,
saturation control,
bass guitar amp pack,
teamed up with Celestion for cabinet impulse responses,
new RTA frequency analyzing EQ,
100 new custom amps in the tonecloud,
new amp match with automatic amp dialing after audio file.
New amp match with automatic amp dialing after audio file?
What?
Why is this feature listed last? This should be like the top feature for this plugin.
Ok that got me kind of excited, I'm gonna put this up to the test and try and see
if Bias Amp 2 can amp match one of my Satan tones from one of my Feared albums
but let me start with hooking everything up.
So now I have everything hooked up,
I have the Solar A1.6 ET Artist hooked up into my Apollo 8. So I would say the
interface looks very familiar. You just click on the different
parts here and just change whatever you need to change and edit. You can also
click here if you want to quickly change between the different settings of the
preamp or the parametric EQ, here you have different tone stack that you can
choose from, power amp, transformer, cabinet, parametric EQ, and the amp match.
But obviously you can click on each and every one of these and you have the
full-fledged editing possibilities.
So up here you have the tonecloud and this is where you would find already
made amp models uploaded by other users.
Here you have Allan Marcus, a good friend of mine, and that's me! Let's click!
Rectomatch, this is the preset I made for the first Bias desktop video.
This is really loud.
Too loud watch out!
This is so loud that I nearly blew my speakers.
Something is wrong with the preset...
So let me try out a couple of presets.
Blues! That's my thing!
There you go! That's blues for you!
69 Supra lead.
High gain, British rock
Monster! Guess that's a Diezel.
Metal:
5153...
I really like this triple treadplate preset,
So let me tweak it a little bit.
So one thing that Positive Grid added were two
different preamp tubes so you have the 12ay7 and the 12bh7 which are
supposed to be able to handle more gain.
Oh look! The gain knob says 11.
It's just like that movie with the band and
the Marshall stacks that go to 11...
I think it was called the Matrix.
Yeah that sounds awesome.
There are so many parameters to change here let's
just go to the tone stack section. So this is basically the bass, middle and
the treble of an amplifier and obviously depending on which type of amp the bass,
middle and treble are located in different frequencies. So let's
try this one
Power Amp section! And here we have new power and tubes as well, I think the
6550 and the kt88 are new...
Nice!
We're getting somewhere guys!
Awesome!
Transformer: British style, American style, I guess it's Marshall or Mesa in this case.
Dynamic tone.
Okay it became a less dynamic...
Rectifier type. Hard and soft.
Soft...
okay
Cool!
Then we have the cabinet section and obviously as you can see you
have a bunch of different speakers to choose from and you also have different
microphones so you can choose between the sm57 and the c-1,3 you see there okay
So you can change between them and then just change the placement
Yeah sounds good!
So Positive Grid has teamed up with
Celestion for Bias Amp 2. You can check out different cabinets with
different classic Celestion speakers. Let's check out some modern vintage,
Neo-creamback! Okay let's try that!
That's pretty cool!
IR loader: you can upload your own impulse
responses and I have already done this.
So there you have that!
Okay let me save this real quick.
Save as new...
Metal
Ola tread...
Ola makes...
tonna sense.
Good
Now we're coming
to the part that makes me really excited and that is the amp match part
now supposedly Bias Amp can profile or match an already existing audio file of
guitar. I have so many of them from my previous Feared
albums and the Haunted. Amp Match 1 out of 3
Prepare the audio!
I have a real amp or I have a solo guitar track.
I HAVE A SOLO GUITAR TRACK.
NEXT!
Click the Browse file.
I have prepared a file.
FUROR!
Start capture!
Coffee break!
Alright it's complete!
Next
Connect your guitar to the input of your
audio interface.
Oh how convenient because my guitar is already plugged in
Capture the sound of your instrument.
Start capture.
Complete
Enter preset Name.
Fresh...
Great name Ola
Okay here we go
Let's listen to the original file.
And then the amp match.
Okay so obviously the clip of the audio signal was recorded with a seven string
and this is a six string so that's a bit of a difference there but otherwise I
think it sounds close. So let me tweak this real quick.
Let's go for the super gainy preamp tube.
We're getting there...
That sounds killer. Let's bring some of that bass back.
BARK yeah that sounds awesome to be honest!
So one thing here that I can
immediately tell and what I consider what makes or breaks an amp modeler,
whether it's a hardware unit or a plugin, is how the high-end sounds for distorted
sounds and with a lot of modelers the high-end is where you can hear if it's
modeled good or not. Usually the high-end becomes very flat in some cases but here
in Bias Amp 2 it actually sounds genuine for a modeler.
The impulse response used makes a big difference but how the different knobs
respond, makes a lot of sense. What I've done here, and it didn't really
take that long for me to hook this up, it sounds awesome. With that said I must
say that the absolute winner for the plugin is the amp matching segment now
this is what I think will be the real selling point for Bias Amp 2. It makes it
really easy to match an already recorded signal or your amplifier and
you don't have to tweak that much afterwards to get close to the reference sound.
I must say well done Positive Grid!
I'll upload these presets made in
this video to the tonecloud. And if you want to know what I'm using to record
these videos, check the description down below
Don't forget to subscribe to my
Youtube channel. Leave a comment!
Thank you so much for watching and *bark* off