Both Positive Grid’s BIAS Amp 2 and AmpliTube 5 feature custom IR loaders. There’s a way to transport all that real-world personalisation to the software universe without even having to carefully mic-up each time you want to record guitar. We’re not saying that if you’ve already fashioned a custom tone using physical amps, cabinets and recording microphones in a space that you know produces a solid tone, then you’re excluded from this software ecosystem. Rather than being a pale imitation of physical amplification then, the contrary creative benefits that the virtual world now affords way exceed what was possible in the solely physical world.

While we’re not able to get inside its virtual amps in the same level of component-switching detail, we are offered the opportunity to fashion some interesting combinations via the mixing and matching of amps, cabs, effects and – all new in version 5 – a top-down routing pathway that allows up to 57 simultaneous virtual elements to work in tandem to make entirely new sounds.

The creative benefits that the virtual world now affords way exceed what was possible in the solely physical worldĪ top-down, drag-and-drop signal chain is something also offered by IK Multimedia’s expansive suite AmpliTube 5. Obviously, doing this with a real amplifier would take days, be rife with difficulties and require a significant amount of mechanical know-how BIAS Amp 2’s simple drag-and-drop interface allows you to quickly rip out the innards of the virtual amp and build something potentially impossible in the real world. However, the software’s key USP is the way in which it allows the user the ability to take apart the inner workings of a virtual amplifier at a component level, encouraging users to re-arrange switch tubes, preamps, transformers and a whole lot more. Take BIAS Amp 2 from Positive Grid, a software amplification designer which contains remarkably accurate models of a range of choice amps.

Bias guitar amp software