I’m not a guitar amp nut; I have little appreciation for old-and-moldy audio components and purist babble (oh yes, I know! “Vacuum tubes! Blah blah blah!”) But a look at the promo video for Positive Grid’s new Bias iPad app has even me drooling.
The acute irony of creating vacuum-tube tonal quality on digital circuitry aside, Bias looks like the kind of audio engineering app filled with options that can easily seduce one into diving in and exploring its audio wizardry.
Here’s a list of swappable ingredients, straight from the press release: “preamp tube types, edit preamp voicing, adjust bias, audition various transformer types, swap out loudspeakers and cabinets, move microphone placement and much, much more.” Not satisfied with your own concoction? Log in to the cloud and download amps created by others.
And yes, Bias is apparently able to replicate “a complete virtual collection of the most coveted and unique guitar amps of all time–some dating as far back as the 1940s,” though how well is not the subject of this post.
As expected of a serious musician’s tool, Bias is Audiobus compatible, and can mix with other Audiobus-compatible apps. On the hardware side, it integrates with Griffin’s StudioConnect and GuitarConnect Pro.
About the only downside is $20 — or that may be an upside, considering the app’s abundance of options and that its contemporaries are the same price anyway.
Source: Positive Grid
