Fractal Audio has been challenged, or so it seems.

BIAS FX sounds amazing, i dont know why some of you guys cant realice that BIAS is a true contender in the amp modeling world.

Thanks to Apple and Steve Jobs we now have amazing application for guitar on mobile devices, i mean.. hearing tones that inspire me plugged in to an iphone is just amazing, such small device is more powerfull them most devices i have for my guitar.

BIAS is leading the guitar tones on mobile devices right now, nothing comes close to it just like Axe FX II is leading the hardware segment.
 
I have no problem with it, except it only sounds OK in a certain "genre". I have heard many clips..............Because I was curious of course, pretty normal. Not my cup of tea for music, but I wouldn't knock it for that. But versatility is key and versatile it isn't, YET anyway.

Sorry but I also have no desire to play music on my phone-just would rather not do that. Of course that's my personal choice and I know I am in the minority in this iPhone-mac Ios oriented world.

YES, I have a windows phone, PC and laptop. OK,I 'm in the other crowd. But that's cool. For anyone who enjoys iPhone music playing, etc., I think it's great. So all is well in my strange world today :)
 
I have no problem with it, except it only sounds OK in a certain "genre". I have heard many clips..............Because I was curious of course, pretty normal. Not my cup of tea for music, but I wouldn't knock it for that. But versatility is key and versatile it isn't, YET anyway.

Sorry but I also have no desire to play music on my phone-just would rather not do that. Of course that's my personal choice and I know I am in the minority in this iPhone-mac Ios oriented world.

YES, I have a windows phone, PC and laptop. OK,I 'm in the other crowd. But that's cool. For anyone who enjoys iPhone music playing, etc., I think it's great. So all is well in my strange world today :)

Well, for me, grabing my guitar, a cable, plug and just go outside sit and play a bit with out the hazzle of moving amps and stuff arround is priceless and even more when the tones are so great and inspiring!
 
You know you have already won the battle when everyone compares themselves to you... ie: HP printers, Iphone, ProTools, list goes on and on..

For what bias is, it's interface is kick ass, no doubt about it. Sounds are not terrible, very passable, and getting better. I found myself bouncing around downloading custom amps, and rig setups, like a kid in a candy store. Last time I remember doing something like that was when the pod came out, and their online stuff.

I never use axe exchange, it's too clunky, too hard to use IMHO.
 
Well, for me, grabing my guitar, a cable, plug and just go outside sit and play a bit with out the hazzle of moving amps and stuff arround is priceless and even more when the tones are so great and inspiring!

Hey - it's all good ...that's why I said I am in the minority on this........see-I just grab my acoustic guitar and go outside.
 
I think the Fractal Axe FX is just as portable as a phone software pretty much. Only advantage phone has is it's battery powered, and you have to plug the Fractal into a wall.

But to me it's not much hassle to just grab a guitar, a fractal rack, and a pair of headphones and you are all set as long as there's a outlet to plug in.

I'm not big on phones, and never plan to be. I didn't even get my 1st smartphone until about 6 months ago, and I'm 40.

To me the fractal is not that heavy, to me it's portable. It's way less light than walking down the street with a guitar in one hand and a small combo amp in the other, which I have done many, many times in the past.

I would take Fractal over BIAS any day.

And in the future... maybe there will be a way to battery power the fractal.

Or, maybe there will be Fractal software that can work on the phone, maybe with the use of a Ilok to prevent theft.

I will take quality over convenience any day.

And Fractal is the best in quality, and I don't ever see that changing ever in the future, I think Fractal will always maintain a leading edge in modeler technology.

Everyone else will just be close but not quite as good.

And I would never want to sacrifice even the smallest fraction of quality, ever, for any reason.

Fractal is for users that won't settle for anything else other than the very best.

That's why there's Ferraris and Rolls Royce cars, some consumers demand the very best at any cost. Same with Rolls Royce, sure it's a big gas guzzling car, especially the old 60's models, Silver Spirits etc, but those are the handmade best of the best cars, attention to details etc. And that's why people paid $250k for them.

Again, debates about what product should one buy are silly... everyone has their own individual needs and desires.

Some people can be happy with the cheap price of the Bias and the mobile freedom it gives in a phone app, others will never sacrifice the quality of a Fractal for that convenience and lesser than tone as well.

I guess a mobile device would be useful in a practice situation when you are a passenger in a car on a long trip and you want to record some quick ideas, but I see it as never becoming much useful for anything outside of that.

Phones are just not going to ever be adequate for ever doing any kind of high end work. Ever.

For one their screens are way too small. I like to work on 40" or larger computer screens whether I am doing audio recording or video editing etc.

Phones are never going to replace Desktop PCs for reasons such as that for people that are truly serious about that stuff, just as they will also never replace hardware that we musicians have to use.

I think the majority of people use the Fractal as a recording device more so than as a actual amp to play with anyway.

I would say 55% of people probably use the Fractal for mostly recording.
And 45% of people use it live more so than they do for recording.
Of course both camps use it for both uses, but I am just saying I think it's main original intended purpose was to make it so that guitarists can easily record tones that sound like the recorded tones we hear on our favorite CDs.

Even though some people on the forum as of late have been speculating that Fractal is now going more for the amp in the room tone, than the polished recorded studio tone you heard on CDs, many say the Ultra was more like that, but somewhere in Axe 2 they say that started changing.

I don't know.

I think FW19 sounds better than anything ever before, but I hope the Axe Fx don't change more towards the amp in the room tone instead of the tones that we hear on all the classic CDs.

I think recorded processed tones we grew up listening to on our favorite CDs are a million times better than any raw amp in the room tone.
 
OK.....LOL

I gotta say. I've taken a laptop only rig before, and while it seems like it should be less of a pain, it's not. My Axe rig is, by far, easier to deal with, and setup than that laptop setup was. With my Axe rig, everything is already plugged in, inside my rack, and I just give them an XLR cable, and I use a wireless, breakdown is just as simple, and it goes back in the way it came out.

The laptop rig pretty much had to be set up from scratch every time. When you have a limited setup time, everything wound up set all crazy on top of a case, so that it looked like someone threw up cables on my laptop desk, and inevitably it was a tangled mess to put away during breakdown. Setting it up again was a no go until I had time to go back in the box and reorganize it after we broke our set down, which could be awhile if I didn't have immediate access to my gear after the gig.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Read reviews saying the latency on the BIAS product made it unusable

I dont know, but the latency feels fine to me, does not affect my playing one bit, i dont actually thinks is any worst then using an interface with the computer and a pluging.
 
I use the Positive Grid stuff alot - really like it.
But as for the guys in the video, I really wish I could have called in an F-15 strike on their house to make it stop. Man, if I were out with them for a beer I'd kill them...or batter them with a Pod XT Live or something.
 
I've been waiting for this thread to die. It's been posted many times before and discussed just like this. Both modelers are great at what they were designed to do.

However marketing a product by bashing another is inappropriate. Steve does not work for Positive Grid but I'm sure he got it for free in exchange for shooting a video. So the message here seems to be that the Axe-Fx is "too expensive" and it sounds "as good or worse than BIAS". I hope Steve is not a middleman to something Positive Grid told him to say. Freedom of speech is okay. Guerilla marketing is wrong.

The fact is that IR technology is capable of producing extremely realistic tones. The amp modeling itself is not even near Axe-Fx quality on the BIAS. There's literally no competition. However using a good sounding IR will make it sound good. The IR choice for the Axe-Fx clip in that video was bad and the preset was badly tweaked.

I'm sure all of us who have tried BIAS know the functionality of the EQ section in the amp modeling. The EQ knobs do not work.
 
You know you have already won the battle when everyone compares themselves to you... ie: HP printers, Iphone, ProTools, list goes on and on..

For what bias is, it's interface is kick ass, no doubt about it. Sounds are not terrible, very passable, and getting better. I found myself bouncing around downloading custom amps, and rig setups, like a kid in a candy store. Last time I remember doing something like that was when the pod came out, and their online stuff.

I never use axe exchange, it's too clunky, too hard to use IMHO.
... I've never seen anyone saying something good about HP printers ever. HP is the ultimate evil that you have to deal with for the lack of alternatives.
Sure, HP has "won", but nobody ever made a comparison with HP for the quality of their products...
I mean, there is a reason why HP is in the top-10 of the most hated companies in America. Note: Microsoft is not in that list...

I've been waiting for this thread to die. It's been posted many times before and discussed just like this. Both modelers are great at what they were designed to do.

However marketing a product by bashing another is inappropriate. Steve does not work for Positive Grid but I'm sure he got it for free in exchange for shooting a video. So the message here seems to be that the Axe-Fx is "too expensive" and it sounds "as good or worse than BIAS". I hope Steve is not a middleman to something Positive Grid told him to say. Freedom of speech is okay. Guerilla marketing is wrong.

The fact is that IR technology is capable of producing extremely realistic tones. The amp modeling itself is not even near Axe-Fx quality on the BIAS. There's literally no competition. However using a good sounding IR will make it sound good. The IR choice for the Axe-Fx clip in that video was bad and the preset was badly tweaked.

I'm sure all of us who have tried BIAS know the functionality of the EQ section in the amp modeling. The EQ knobs do not work.
I don't think he was bashing the Axe in any way. It was more like "you know, you can get something comparable for a tiny fraction of the cost" ... this is not exactly bashing in my book. Maybe a bit hyperbole, but definitely not bashing.

Read reviews saying the latency on the BIAS product made it unusable
Well, it's a software modeller. If you can't live with latency, there is no other choice but to go hardware. I personally don't care for the latency, simply because I prefer playing "dry" when recording and only listen to the acoustic sound of my instrument - since any amount of distortion and amplification tends to mask sloppy playing. And when I'm recording, I definitely don't want sloppy playing.

I use BIAS for quick demo recordings. plugin modellers are just so damn convenient... plug in your guitar, record dry, reamp directly in the DAW.

... but I would never think of using BIAS in any live environment when I have an Axe (I have seen other guitarists with a laptop on stage though...). That would be insane.
 
Last edited:
But, just how sure are you?

I'm not sure and I have no information but that was just the impression I got. It's a common thing nowadays. These guys like Ola, Fluff and Steve influence the internet a lot which means that they create GAS. The best way to notice a video that's been paid/endorsed is that the review only goes through the positives (pun) and not the negatives. Why do you think that is? :)

But in the spirit of not being biased (pun) I can give an honest review of both units as a versus. (+) for positive (-) for negative.

BIAS

(+) extremely affordable
(+) really good for metal
(+) a VST so you can tweak your tones easily after tracking
(+) easy and fast preset sharing

(-) you can get a good tone with it but it's not easy, the EQ section doesn't work like on real amps, tone matching will get you the best out of the bias
(-) mid gain, vintage tones and Marshall amps are the weak point, personally I didn't even find an "edge" of breakup.
(-) doesn't feel like playing a real amp

AXE-FX II

(+) affordable, yes it is. you get amp sims that are at this point identical to real amps. you don't get anything close to that accuracy with bias. So with the price of one tube head you get over 200 inaudibly similar amp sims.
(+) highest quality of amp modeling ever to have existed
(+) all the versatility you can imagine including effects and usage of effects for guitars in ways that was never done before the Axe-Fx.
(+) feels like playing a real life amp
(+) you can use ML IRs with it :lol

...

Well sure that was quite biased (pun) of me but I hope my point came across. BIAS is definitely capable of creating tones that sound good. The problem I have with it is that it's a lot of work. All clips that I post have different patches that literally take me less than a minute to create. Amp + good IR = I'm ready. I honestly hoped BIAS would've been just like that but honestly I prefer the Overloud TH2 amp modeling and you can use IRs with that modeler. The interface of the TH2 is bad and not even nearly as usable as BIAS but tonewise I didn't feel like BIAS was an upgrade.

So for the djent genre BIAS is really good. Cheap and usable for your djent albums, metal albums etc. because the IR is 90% of your tone with high gain. But the conversation with the Axe-Fx has been about "can it replace tube amps" for years now. Sadly I think BIAS's amp modeling will have to be developed for years until they can start that debate.
 
Not bad at all to capturing that Marshall combo tone , i was little bit surprised honestly to hearing that clip.

 
Back
Top Bottom