BIAS Distortion Tone Match Distortion Pedal Review

Not useless, but disapointed

I ordered this when it was first coming out primarily for the tone editing software and its seemingly endless versatility. Little did I know how much better my money could be spent on multiple better pedals instead of one of these things... The software has a neat design but in all functionality the tones all sound paper thin and like something out of a multieffect stompbox that… read more would cost a third of the price. After trial and error with trying to shape a tone, I think I used it for 1 gig and took it off my board afterwards. I still occasionally use it for casual jam sessions only because of the 3 banks on one distortion pedal (I usually have them set in escalation like crunch/dist/fuzz). But this is just for convenience. If I'm playing a serious gig or recording, I'd rather use multiple pedals that nail the tones I want than working with this thing. To sum it up in one sentence, you'll spend more time trying to make a bad tone work than working with a good tone.

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NOT ready for prime time!!

I was really looking forward to this pedal (lots of hype on the web). Hardly any of the presets that are on the could will work on this pedal (harmonic noises and squeals are all you get), I tried to edit the presets and lower the output stage and tweak the eq with no luck. I had to restore factory settings and reboot/power unit to get it working again. At first I though I had… read more a bad pedal so sweetwater let me exchange for another. Same issue. I decided to use it live with some of the factory presets..... the LEDs dark after halfway thru a song, I had to restart the unit. Maybe down the road after many firmware upgrades this pedal might work, but for now its nothing but an expensive paper weight that I refuse to use!!!

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Look elsewhere

This pedal gave me nothing but trouble. It didn't even sound decent on the stock settings. I couldn't decide on a distortion pedal so with this I thought ok I should be able to come up with something I like. I couldn't get it to connect to my ipad or computer. so theres a waste. So I thought ok tons of sounds right on the pedal itself. All sounded terrible. I checked running… read more it direct. through an amp. then through my line 6 helix into a stage source speaker. save your money and look else where.

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LONG REVIEW... A learning tool as well as a pedal

I preordered this pedal hoping for a possible way to get the tones I have from Positive Grid in my DAW into a real amp to play live with, without purchasing the Bias Head/Bias Rack. I love the clean channel on my tube amp but the overdrive channel was a little lacking. This pedal is exactly what I was looking for in terms of adding different sound to my amp... it really delivers… read more a ton of flexibility for me. Having the opportunity to virtually change and configure the inner guts of a pedal, and hearing an immediate change in sound has helped me understand some of the things under the hood of these stomp boxes that I otherwise wouldn't have the opportunity to listen to and compare. Hearing the difference between options in the power section of the pedal and tweaking all the settings to do A/B comparisons helps me begin to understand on a level that previously was reserved only for players who have had their hands on many different pedals over time. Playing with boost settings and putting it before or after without having to rip apart your pedal board is really nice, and again can give a quick comparison very easily in order to find the tone that you are looking for. Setting a pedal to a bank, and the setting the same pedal with minor changes to another bank and flipping back and forth between the two helps me hear what does what as far as tweaks go, and being able to revert back to stock settings is great if I get too far away from something that sounds good. Rediscovering a favorite setting doesn't take the time and effort that it used to. Just save it, save it as a new pedal and give it a v2 title, or rewrite the factory setting... if you screw it up just factory reset the pedal and you're good to go. I love being able to sit on the couch in my basement studio and adjust settings in the iOS app without having to bend over to the floor to mess with my pedalboard or be in front of my amp to twist knobs. I can go from clean to dirty and quiet to loud with my rig 15 ft away with the iOS app which is great for working on new ideas while relaxing. Things that could be addressed:The hardware seems mostly solid so far, but I question the strength of the preset select button. It is used to change presets, save presets, and select between bank 1 and 2. It gets a ton of use but it doesn't feel very strong. I feel like I can detect a bit of flex in it and I consider that the weak point of the build. Connecting to the pedal with the iOS app is easy. Changing settings in the app is cake. Downloading a tone from tonecloud in the app while connected to the pedal hasn't given me anything more than a headache and some loud squelch when the tone is previewed or saved to the pedal. The same thing happens no matter who the tone creator is, so I believe it's a software glitch. Hopefully an update corrects this in the future. For now, a workaround is to download a tone from the tonecloud without being connected to the pedal, make a few changes, save it as a new pedal with a new name, and then connect the pedal through the app and load it onto the pedal. You can add a noise gate to individual pedals. This is a great feature that I couldn't find any info about before I received the pedal in my hand. The desktop and iOS versions of bias pedal have the noise gate function but I wasn't sure the pedal would offer it. It does. The thing is, sometimes the presets don't seem to remember that the gate is enabled. If I run across that, I just cycle through some other banks and it fixes itself somehow. There is a redemption code for bias pedal software in the box. This was a great selling point initially, but then Positive Grid gave away the same software for free over the holidays, so it diminished the perceived value of getting software with the pedal purchase. Oh well, I guess.A player like myself will most likely be very satisfied with the pedal. The issue that I have listed don't outweigh the benefits that this pedal brings to me. If that selector knob breaks I guess I'll be screwed but I guess I can hope that it happens within the warranty period hahaha. Looking forward to the delay pedal in physical form! TL;DR- it's cool, has a couple glitches, build quality is acceptable, sound is fantastic.

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