AXE-FX vs BIAS Comparison

ML SOUND LAB said:
More like... let's think about why there are these nice looking pictures taking up most of the functional space in their UI. It's there to "sell the effect". Pictures change and people "feel" like they changed the tubes. :)
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Exactly. Thought it's not a necessity, I kinda miss this "feel".
 
ML SOUND LAB said:
More like... let's think about why there are these nice looking pictures taking up most of the functional space in their UI. It's there to "sell the effect". Pictures change and people "feel" like they changed the tubes. :)
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it's been proven through countless studies, sadly the majority listen with their eyes and judge viability/Quality based on price.
 
I never experienced noise from bias or ampkit on ipad with my apogee jam interface. I found them good practice tools. I flip flopped between preferring Bias, Ampkit, or Bias sister Jamup.

That said they all felt quite stiff. They are more fun to listen to than play through.
 
Severed said:
it's been proven through countless studies, sadly the majority listen with their eyes and judge viability/Quality based on price.
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Yup. Which is why clip comparisons are so worthless among guitar tone devices. I'd wager I've heard well over a thousand clip comparison tests over the last decade and have never, ever, seen anyone do it in a good, double blind way (to be fair it is SUPER hard to do well and a pain in the a**); not everyone was meant to do 'science'. :D As a result; someone in the signal chain always knows what is what.

Even IF you did it without the psychological effects due to non-double blind you still are talking about one setting with one set of inputs and get no information regarding other important, but intangible stuff, like feel, user experience, work flow, etc. The person posting the clip may have completely different taste from you too. More often than not, every single clip in a comparison will either sound perfectly usable and vary slightly or more often they'll *all* blow tonally at some fundamental level. And you still would get POST rationalization happening after the data/reveal.

Yet somehow people manage to wring their hands over them and chase other people's sounds, flip gear, etc, to no avail.

The psychology in device comparison is just ridiculous though; anyone with the motivation to do it is, by necessity, not impartial. And as listeners we just can't help ourselves. ;)
 
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The video comparison will probably happen next week since I want to make sure everything gets covered. Here are my overall opinions on the BIAS.

1) BIAS is a great product for hobbyist use. You can tweak really convincing sounds out of it. I would personally not recommend it for professional use for a few reasons that I will probably discuss more later on.

2) The amp panel EQ is IMO a weak link in BIAS. I'm not saying that it sounds like COSM modeling but it's similar in that you turn the EQ knobs only to find a place where the amp sounds real and not f.ex. raising the treble knob if you want more treble. Same goes for gain and master knobs. So as far as "just like a real amp" statements go it's nowhere near that level. It doesn't mean that it sounds bad. However BIAS is simply a great reminder of why Axe-Fx is getting the attention it's getting and it's well deserved.

3) The advanced settings kind of create an illusion of "see how much detail we've put in the amp modeling" but I'm kind of starting to feel that maybe that's the whole purpose. Don't get me wrong, I like the graphics and the controls are definitely changing the tone. I just feel like they put these options in there so they can state in their specs that they have these "same functions as really expensive modelers".

4) The cabinet modeling is using better sounds than f.ex. Guitar Rig or Amplitube but the mic movement control is just like on Amplitube. It's most likely one IR and then you have some broad EQ that's changing the sounds. Still I think the IRs they used are better than most default IRs in other VSTs and that's IMO a big compliment coming from me. :) However I don't think the bass cabinet IRs have anything to do with real life cabs. :D I suggest running white noise through your BIAS to see the IR graphs if you want to know what I mean with this. :)

5) Amp matching is what makes BIAS a usable tool even for professional studio use. Well it's nothing more than match EQ which I was personally doing way before Kemper or Axe-Fx had these functions. However having it inside the modeler makes it really fast to use. So I would say it's nothing new but it's a really good option to have and that will give you the most realistic guitar sounds with BIAS.

So overall it's definitely worth the price. I suggest everyone to use the BIAS match EQ to get the sounds that you want for the quickest use case. Personally I wouldn't rely on BIAS without the match EQ.
 
Severed said:
So not to derail the thread but why is this comparison so important?
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Important may be a strong word to use for anything music gear related. :lol

Why would we not be talking about this? Maybe this forum is the wrong place for this and I hope no one is taking this like people at FAS would be in any way worried of BIAS as a threat. Personally I've heard it maybe a few times too many especially in the metal scene that people are questioning the need for an Axe-Fx "now that we have BIAS". For me that just seems like people may not quite understand how hard modeling a guitar amp really is and at this point there is IMO only one company that has been able to do it well enough to replace real tube amps. Sure you can use match EQ tricks to get almost any modeler to sound good... yes I also mean the K modeler when I talk about match EQ. :lol

Over 50 posts kind of speaks for itself that it's something that people are interested in. If you're not interested then there are other threads you can read. :)
 
Thanks. I just had not even heard of this BIAS until I read the thread here so I didn't get what the hoopla was all about. Nothing more :)
 
ML SOUND LAB said:
The video comparison will probably happen next week since I want to make sure everything gets covered. Here are my overall opinions on the BIAS.

1) BIAS is a great product for hobbyist use. You can tweak really convincing sounds out of it. I would personally not recommend it for professional use for a few reasons that I will probably discuss more later on.

2) The amp panel EQ is IMO a weak link in BIAS. I'm not saying that it sounds like COSM modeling but it's similar in that you turn the EQ knobs only to find a place where the amp sounds real and not f.ex. raising the treble knob if you want more treble. Same goes for gain and master knobs. So as far as "just like a real amp" statements go it's nowhere near that level. It doesn't mean that it sounds bad. However BIAS is simply a great reminder of why Axe-Fx is getting the attention it's getting and it's well deserved.

3) The advanced settings kind of create an illusion of "see how much detail we've put in the amp modeling" but I'm kind of starting to feel that maybe that's the whole purpose. Don't get me wrong, I like the graphics and the controls are definitely changing the tone. I just feel like they put these options in there so they can state in their specs that they have these "same functions as really expensive modelers".

4) The cabinet modeling is using better sounds than f.ex. Guitar Rig or Amplitube but the mic movement control is just like on Amplitube. It's most likely one IR and then you have some broad EQ that's changing the sounds. Still I think the IRs they used are better than most default IRs in other VSTs and that's IMO a big compliment coming from me. :) However I don't think the bass cabinet IRs have anything to do with real life cabs. :D I suggest running white noise through your BIAS to see the IR graphs if you want to know what I mean with this. :)

5) Amp matching is what makes BIAS a usable tool even for professional studio use. Well it's nothing more than match EQ which I was personally doing way before Kemper or Axe-Fx had these functions. However having it inside the modeler makes it really fast to use. So I would say it's nothing new but it's a really good option to have and that will give you the most realistic guitar sounds with BIAS.

So overall it's definitely worth the price. I suggest everyone to use the BIAS match EQ to get the sounds that you want for the quickest use case. Personally I wouldn't rely on BIAS without the match EQ.
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Another problem 'which you didn't have but many do" is latency. Someone like myself would have to spend more money to lower it when using Bias, which is not something I want to do since I don't have the issue now when recording.
 
Severed said:
Thanks. I just had not even heard of this BIAS until I read the thread here so I didn't get what the hoopla was all about. Nothing more :)
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Sure. I do realize that this is also quite extensive promotion for them although we're not saying too many kind words. :D
 
I just got to try out the Bias. I gotta say, after owning an Axe for a while, the Bias definitely feels uninspiring. I do enjoy the GUI, but the sound and feel doesn't compare much. I didn't get a buzz out of my interface (Apollo twin) but who knows about that.

The ONLY thing I kinda enjoyed about the Bias is how the tube sounds changed when you selected different ones. The Axe's are so minimal, I never touch them. I think I understand the logic of why they don't change much for the axe, but I still enjoy selecting an EL34 tube for a rectifier and hearing it sound like an EL34 tube in a rectifier. That's just my 2 cents.
 
indeloon85 said:
I just got to try out the Bias. I gotta say, after owning an Axe for a while, the Bias definitely feels uninspiring. I do enjoy the GUI, but the sound and feel doesn't compare much. I didn't get a buzz out of my interface (Apollo twin) but who knows about that.

The ONLY thing I kinda enjoyed about the Bias is how the tube sounds changed when you selected different ones. The Axe's are so minimal, I never touch them. I think I understand the logic of why they don't change much for the axe, but I still enjoy selecting an EL34 tube for a rectifier and hearing it sound like an EL34 tube in a rectifier. That's just my 2 cents.
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I guess once again it comes down to realism. In real life the sound/tone doesn't change that much IIRC mentioned by Cliff. I did like the fact that those advanced parameters changed the sound a lot but I enjoy realism even more. :D
 
Hey Clark. How does the VIAS stand up to rolling off the volume knob to clean up on mid to high gain amps? I really love how the Axe does this and is one of the reasons that it shines at replicating real amps.
 
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