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BIAS guitar amp app for clean to overdriven sounds?
I've been looking at the BIAS app and am intrigued, as I attempt to link all my music-making into my ipad. I'm mostly looking for amp sounds that are in the clean to overdriven realm - not really into "brewtal" or super-douchebag guitar sounds (think 80's/90's arena rock). I've certainly got enough sound-mangling apps on the ipad to get me into very unusual and noisy territory, if needed.
Is BIAS pretty decent for a convincing take on an amp? Responsive to playing attack? Think Vox and Fender cleanish/overdriven sounds. Not a complete amp snob here, just want something that's not crap. A couple of decent bass amps would be good as well.
Last, is the "Guitar Production Bundle" that includes BIAS, JamUp Pro and Final Touch worth it?
Comments
I tend to play clean, and my 3 favourite amp sims are BIAS (and BIAS FX), Tonestack, and Flying Haggis. BIAS is great for clean to slightly gritty tones, like those from a Fender Twin. Personally I never got on with Jamup, just not nice sounding to my ears.
I would walk past bias amp, and go straight to bias fx. I have both. I have not opened bias amp in a long time, bias fx I use ask the time. Flying haggis brilliant as a standalone, though.
that's strange because both apps feature the same sound engine.
Jamup's distortion pedals are very good, as is the 68 spring reverb fake, but anything else just spoils the party.
I second the verdict in sound character 100%
would you mind to tell me what DSP engine version is in your app info ?
(I may have accidently updated mine to a false one)
@Telefunky I don't think BIAS and Jamup do share the same sound engine - I'm happy to be corrected if I'm wrong, but do you have a source for that info? Last time I tested them side-by-side (same amp etc) they sounded very different to each other. I deleted Jamup long ago, so can't easily re-test.
You dont need jamup if you have bias fx. Really there are just two guitar amp sims worth buying, bias fx and tonestack. Or well bias amp as well if you want to build your own amps for bias fx
jamup at least used to have a way inferior sound engine to bias fx, but i have some vague memory that it had some update to it. But im not 100% sure about its update and no idea if it was just a small upgrade or if it now has the same engine as bias
Hmmm this is useful. Lots to consider. Would Tonestack meet my criteria?
For what you're trying to accomplish, I recommend BIAS FX and AmpliTube. As others have mentioned, Flying Haggis offers some very convincing tones as well. You'll need to pony up some additional dough for some of AmpliTube's IAP amps, but sales are frequent and they really are high-quality.
(For the record, I believe IK Multimedia has an iOS in-app sale going on right now.)
EDIT: Yes, ToneStack is a good choice as well. The best thing to do is check out YouTube demos from players not being paid by the company to show off their products. This will give you an unbiased (ha!) idea of what the apps look, act, and (most importantly) sound like. As always, trust your ears.
that's why I asked for the DSP engine number which is mentioned under Support information for Jamup and App information in BIAS amp.
They used to be identical for a long time, my current ones are 872 and 844.
I mostly agree with the assessment that the best cleans on iOS are found in BIAS. Actually, all modelers (talking about both software and hardware units like the POD) have traditionally handled higher gain sounds more easily than lifelike, believable clean tones. If I were collecting my favorite clean tones from all of iOS, however, it would be all in one app. I'd probably prefer BIAS for glassy Fender cleans and Dumble tones, and "Vox"-like tones would probably come from Flying Haggis. (The Vox AC30 is such a strange beast for modelers - even Vox's own digital modeling amps, like the Valvetronix series, don't come close in my opinion, while they made a budget solid state amp - the Pathfinder 15 - that largely nailed it).
But while modeling software on iOS is very affordable and super portable/convenient, I don't think I would use it anymore for recording purposes. Using external modelers or direct boxes (if you have any, of course) are a lot more predictable tone-wise, many of them can accept dirt pedals in front of them (which iOS modelers really cannot), and offer lower latency recording, provided the interface you run them through is not introducing latency. I don't have a high-end needs by any stretch, so I get "good enough" results running a pedal like the Tech21 Character Series into my Behringer UCA202. The Tech21 Liverpool, to my ears, is a better Vox emulator than BIAS or anything else I've tried on iOS, and I don't have to use half of my iPad's resources to generate it AND then still operate a DAW.
You can even use an IR loader on the iPad to run cabinet simulation, and then you could theoretically run a traditional gain pedal of your choice as your preamp and EQ shaper into the iPad. But this is also very resource-hungry, so one option would be something like the DigiTech CabDryVR ($150).
Wait, what does that mean? You're saying both products had the same DSP for awhile and then they just started developing BIAS further than JamUp?
I was really excited when ToneStack came out, but I ended up not getting my money's worth. It's not that ToneStack is bad, but it couldn't match up to the expectations I had from using other effects pedals. Also, I just felt like a lot of the amp models were a bit thin, and the latency was an ongoing problem, though there are settings adjustments I'm sure you can make to address both of those problems. It's a great package if you want all those amps and effects and don't have them anywhere else, but it's pretty easy to spend a fair amount of money on that that might be better spent somewhere else.
For example, you could've easily spent $100+ buying ToneStack or BIAS and all the expansions, but then at that point, you could have bought something like the DigiTech RP360, which has dozens of amp models and effects, and doubles as a USB audio source, plus a nice physical piece of hardware you could use to practice with headphones or play into an amp.
Oh btw here are some free guitar amp(not just cab) impulse responses https://linuxmusicians.com/viewtopic.php?t=16857 . I think most of the links at op didnt work, but at least one did. I gave it a go using a voodoo octaver fuzz pedal in front of audio interface and managed to get pretty nice fuzz sounds with it. You can load them on free app called fiddlicator. It also has eq, reverb and delays. But because this is an impulse response, it just plays with the settings that the amp had when impulse was created
Thanks for all of the responses and info. I've done the amp modeler thing on computer and had a couple of 1st and 2nd generation floor unit modelers as well, so I'm aware of the pitfalls in trying to ape an experience with so many variables. Not sure how I'll go on this.
I have Tonestack. I like it okay but I don't think I'll put any more money into IAPs; there's just not that much variation across the different models for me to justify spending more. One nice thing about it is that you can have two different amp-cab-fx chains going, and you can also include external inter-app fx into your Tonestack patches also.
For clean sounds in Tonestack check this video. It's pretty good:
I vote for Flying Haggis for your purposes. It sounds great, is iPad-friendly, and has an astonishingly small footprint.
Give it a try; you will not be disappointed. Seriously.
Might get the Flying Haggis just for its name alone.
I have no idea because I've stopped updating long time ago, but may have accidently hit the update button once.
Usually I always played the BIAS amps in JamUp, such an 'amp' is just a few lines of XML data and JamUp had slightly less CPU load.
There was no difference whatsoever in sound and response.
I wanted to avoid the DSP engine which comes with BIAS FX under all circumstances.
There are reasonable hints that it's quite different from the original 2nd generation about the time BIAS amp was released.
(the 1st generation before BIAS appeared was crappy indead)
Hasn't been updated since 2014. Is that a concern?
Nah. It's already 64bit, and has been working great with no need for updates.
I think you could try to test Bias sound for free. Bias Pedal has six different amps and it's a free app from Positive Grid. This one has the same DSP so you could clarify for yourself does it well for you.
I'll throw AmpliTube Fender 2 into the mix. To my ears, that collection has a very convincing growl in the overdriven sounds and responds to my touch and attack in a very realistic way. Having said that, ALL the apps mentioned above are excellent for what you're looking to do.
+1 flying haggis.
I recalled it worked fine with AudioBus, perhaps not IAA and almost certainly not AU. But I actually thought it behaved and sounded the most like playing an actual tube combo amp. There's really only one preamp offered, but it has compression, drive, and delay/reverb effects built in, and with the selection of about a half-dozen different cabinet sizes, I thought it could sound like everything from a Fender Champ to Vox AC30 to a Marshall 4x12 half stack.
In the fine internet tradition of recommending something completely different than what you actually inquired about, I strongly advise you to explore the Joyo American Sound and/or AC Tone pedals. 30-40 dollars and they sound better than any software I've ever tried. If you want to support the folks who actually designed them, get the Tech 21 Blonde and/or Liverpool.
I have the Hotone British Invasion pedal/amp which does the Vox thing very convincingly, but would like to have something inside the iPad too.
All I need with flying haggis is a pitch shifter anyone recommend a good AU app?