Power Amp Bias - So Much Goodness Here

Stratoblaster

Fractal Fanatic
Over the last several months I've been regularly tuning the "Power Amp Bias" control on all of my presets. It's probably my favorite control to add 'squish' to the feel and really adds a lot of sweetness to the distortion character. It's one of those fine-tuning parameters that really makes me go 'ohhhhh yea' when dialed in right.

A lot of amps default to -0.100 and I usually raise it to around ~0.300->~0.500 or so if I like what I hear/feel, depending on the amp and what I'm looking for; I love how effective this simple, single control is to the overall feel and tone vs playing with the sag, power supply stiffness, negative feedback, etc. I do experiment with all of those but find the "Power Amp Bias" gets me where I want most of the time adjusting that one control.

One of my 'go-to' parameters for sure; I love the effect of that parameter and consider it a bit of 'secret sauce'. I usually use a fair bit of power amp distortion and that control complements it soooooo well.

Anyone else fool around with this regularly in their presets?
 
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Not one I’ve learned to play with yet, but will. Appreciate the tip. How does it affect the ability to roll off the volume to clean things up?
 
Not one I’ve learned to play with yet, but will. Appreciate the tip. How does it affect the ability to roll off the volume to clean things up?

I use guitar volume a fair bit and haven't noticed any real change in that manner.

Over the last few months I've been experimenting with an expression pedal connected to the "Input Trim" to clean things up or drive the amp harder.
When you switch to a preset the "Input Trim" is set to where I use it 90% of the time. The expression pedal can go +/- that default so it's very flexible. In some ways better and more effective then using the guitar volume control...it's an interesting option.
 
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Over the last several months I've been regularly tuning the "Power Amp Bias" control on all of my presets. It's probably my favorite control to add 'squish' to the feel and really adds a lot of sweetness to the distortion character. It's one of those fine-tuning parameters that really makes me go 'ohhhhh yea' when dialed in right.

A lot of amps default to -0.100 and I usually raise it to around ~0.300->~0.500 or so if I like what I hear/feel, depending on the amp and what I'm looking for; I love how effective this simple, single control is to the overall feel and tone vs playing with the sag, power supply stiffness, negative feedback, etc. I do experiment with all of those but find the "Power Amp Bias" gets me where I want most of the time adjusting that one control.

One of my 'go-to' parameters for sure; I love the effect of that parameter and consider it a bit of 'secret sauce'. I usually use a fair bit of power amp distortion and that control complements it soooooo well.

Anyone else fool around with this regularly in their presets?
I'm using the bias. Also I've noticed, that on the FM3, the hotter the bias, the more midrange you're getting. But full on doesn't sound as good, I'm using it around 0.7, also, the power amp hardness makes a difference. It also adds some mids, that one is sometimes missing to make the sound just superb when playing together with a guy using a tube amp :D
 
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