Recording - July 2016 - 50

PLUG-IN OUTLET
Positive Grid BIAS Amp
and BIAS FX
Reviews by Alex Hawley

Positive Grid is a company focused on guitar tone, and innovating
new ways for musicians to create, share, and seamlessly integrate
new tones for the studio and the stage. Positive Grid will be branching
into audio hardware soon with the BIAS Distortion tone-matching distortion pedal and BIAS Head amp-matching amplifier, but for this
issue, we're looking at software. Previously seen in our pages for iOSonly apps like JamUp Pro, the firm's exceptional amp and effects modeling is now available for Macs, PCs, and iOS devices as well.
This review will cover BIAS Amp and BIAS FX, the insanely tweakable and intuitive platform designed for creating guitar tones in your
DAW or on your iOS device. BIAS Amp allows complete customization of legendary amplifiers to create something completely new and
unique. BIAS FX is for creating the pedalboard you've always wanted,
with tons of modeled pedals and customization options.
BIAS Amp
BIAS Amp is focused on creating a custom guitar amp inside and
out; it's the successor to the BIAS app previewed in our August 2014
issue. It is available for desktop or mobile platforms, and features 36
sought-after amp models to get you started. Once you select an amp to
start with, you have the power to tweak the preamp, tone stack, power
amp, transformer, cab, microphone, even microphone placement. The
beauty of this platform is that if (or when) you desire, you have complete power over every tube, every transformer, any detail you can
think of in the signal path. The layout is extremely intuitive, and the
graphics show an accurate representation of the amp you are creating-you can even customize what your amp "looks" like on screen.
One of the things I love most about BIAS Amp is its great selection
of set-and-forget presets. If you don't have time to customize every last
detail of the amp, and you just want to plug and play, BIAS Amp
already has a huge selection of great sounding presets ready to go.
There are a couple of different ways you can decide to run BIAS Amp.
I generally like to print my sounds while tracking, so I create an Aux
channel in Pro Tools with the AAX plug-in on it, and run the output of the
Aux to an audio track to record. However, if you want the power to
reamp later in the process, there's nothing wrong with recording a dry DI
track to give yourself the flexibility to tweak the amp settings as you mix.
Bias Amp is extremely versatile, and it does a lot of things very well.
I've gotten some really lush, dreamscape clean tones (especially after
integrating a pedalboard from BIAS FX-more on that later), and it also
does a really great job of accurately modeling high-gain amplifiers.
With higher distortion tones, I find that amp modeling software can easily get too harsh or thin. BIAS Amp gives so much power to users to sculpt
their own tones that I had no trouble at all creating killer tones drenched in
grit and distortion, while still sounding very full and musical. BIAS Amp
stands apart in terms of pure tone quality and amp realism while playing
through it. The hard-to-place 'feel' of real tube amps is tough to capture in
software emulations, but BIAS Amp has it in spades. It's extremely responsive and dynamic, which helps to feel like a real amp.
One of the coolest features available in the Professional version of
BIAS Amp is Amp Matching. The idea behind amp matching is to start
with your BIAS Amp model, and then input a recording of the amp
you are trying to match it with. It will analyze the two tones, and then
adjust the settings of your BIAS Amp to more accurately reproduce the
target amplifier that you selected.
I tried this with my Marshall JMP 2203, and was very surprised at
how close the amp matching feature got the BIAS model to sound next
to the real thing. I was very happy with how well the low-midrange
50

RECORDING JULY 2016

translated into BIAS Amp, but to my ears the modeled BIAS amp was a bit darker than my target
source, as the attack wasn't translating just right yet.
I made some slight adjustments to the EQ within the
plug-in, to bring out more of the grit and attack in
the 2-4 kHz range. While making the adjustments, I
started to A/B with the target to try and really finetune the modeled tone. The results were very impressive-the combination of the Amp Matching technology with a few minor EQ tweaks created a very
accurate representation of my Marshall JMP 2203.
For best results, try to get as close to the target tone
as possible before using the amp matching feature. If
you have a clean amp selected, well, it's hard to make
a clean amp sound like an overdriven Marshall stack!
Amp Matching essentially provides the ability to take
the tube amps from your studio and save modeled versions. You can then play silently into your DAW without
worrying about setting up the mic and cab, or you can



Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - July 2016

Contents
Recording - July 2016 - Intro
Recording - July 2016 - Cover1
Recording - July 2016 - Cover2
Recording - July 2016 - 1
Recording - July 2016 - 2
Recording - July 2016 - 3
Recording - July 2016 - 4
Recording - July 2016 - 5
Recording - July 2016 - Contents
Recording - July 2016 - 7
Recording - July 2016 - 8
Recording - July 2016 - 9
Recording - July 2016 - 10
Recording - July 2016 - 11
Recording - July 2016 - 12
Recording - July 2016 - 13
Recording - July 2016 - 14
Recording - July 2016 - 15
Recording - July 2016 - 16
Recording - July 2016 - 17
Recording - July 2016 - 18
Recording - July 2016 - 19
Recording - July 2016 - 20
Recording - July 2016 - 21
Recording - July 2016 - 22
Recording - July 2016 - 23
Recording - July 2016 - 24
Recording - July 2016 - 25
Recording - July 2016 - 26
Recording - July 2016 - 27
Recording - July 2016 - 28
Recording - July 2016 - 29
Recording - July 2016 - 30
Recording - July 2016 - 31
Recording - July 2016 - 32
Recording - July 2016 - 33
Recording - July 2016 - 34
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Recording - July 2016 - Cover3
Recording - July 2016 - Cover4
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