New to guitar and new to BIAS also
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Hey all
Drummer for years , decided to try to learn guitar a little.
I have access to this program on my laptop and the metal or insane presets sound really messy ( pardon my lack of correct terminology ) - Currently I am using a cheap-ar$e learners strat copy/ knock off...... so my question is could the garbage pick ups in this guitar have an impact on how BIAS plays/ sounds back through my headphones?
Will a mid range guitar as I am planning to get , with dual humbuckers , something like model from Ibanez Standard RG range for example make a vast difference in BIAS FX2 ?
Appreciate any info, tips - thanks
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Pickups always make a difference, but an inexpensive guitar doesn't necessarily mean garbage pickups. Entry-level guitars are much better today than years ago. Even if pickups do sound bad, it is frequently because of how they are setup, and not the quality. Pickups (or the guitar in general) don't always come from the store with a proper setup (especially if bought online), and even if so, the ideal height is subjective anyway, and the factory recommendations are just a starting point. You could buy a $3000 guitar, and if the pickups have a bad setup from the store, it can sound like garbage.
So, learning how to adjust pickup height to your liking is an essential skill to learn. Too many people just trust how the guitar was when they bought it, and end-up playing a messed-up setup for years. Or, they pay for a shop to upgrade their pickups, when all they needed to do was adjust their existing ones (for free).
Also, headphones are just as important as pickups -- both are transducers, on the opposite ends of the circuit. Low-quality headphones can have more of a negative effect than inexpensive pickups. Generally, over-the-ear headphones tend to work better, and I prefer open or semi-open headphones (fully-closed tend to make things a bit boxy for me). In-ear or on-ear headphones can be too thin sounding for guitar, especially with dirty tones.
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@blueingreen lets not forget if he is a beginner and he is talking high gain metal presets sounding messy....it might just be because he id a beginner....as we all know muting strings and learning to control feedback is an art in itself,,,,
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@pinhead37 Good comments in the response above about pickups and I’d add that you mention having a strat copy, which to me means you have a single coil pickup in the bridge. High gain usually sounds much better with humbucker pickups, so that could be contributing to your ‘messy’ sound. So if you like high gain, getting a guitar with a humbucker at the bridge is what you should do. Once you have that, working with pickup height and then the amp’s gain, bass, mid treble controls to dial everything in would be next step. The Ibanez RG line are great guitars as are ones from Charvel, Jackson and other brands.
The comment above about headphones is also correct. I have the Positive Grid Spark amp that I usually only use with headphones. I have tried something like 10 headphones with it and most of the headphones sound like crap with it as it seems every supplier has their own opinion of how to tweak frequency response vs giving you flat response. I found the Prosonsus HD-9 sounds very good with the Spark amp (and I ended up buying these before I noticed that PG had a bundle option of getting the Spark with these headphones). Also if you are mainly using headphones with bias, make sure you tweak the amp settings while using the headphones vs out from a DAW to monitors for example.
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Thanks for the information fellas
Trust me , I truly don't expect Bias to make me a better guitarist ( yet ), I just figured that having some decent sounding guitars instead of just the clean sound would help with inspiration, desire to learn and play more. Hence I went to the sounds I like first and then heard the sounds i am getting and its nothing like any example i have heard of BIAS FX2.
I am using Sennheisser HD25 headphones which work well with my e-drums and are over the ear, not buds.
I watched a few youtube Bias FX2 videos, and the guys that can play swith to a particular amp , hit thier first note and it sounds great. I hit one note or even one open string and its dirty as f#k instantly. Again, I am the furthest thing from a guitar player you can probably get at the moment but I didn't expect that soundhence my assumption its my El cheap starter guitar.
I'm usung a Shure MV1 interface but gunna switch that out to a Scarlet Solo.
I can already play Smoke on the Water, cool huh !! That's a joke by the way to lighten up this mega post ....
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Update - changed from Shure MV1 interface to Scarlett Solo - big difference straight away.
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@pinhead37 Interesting -- I wonder if the Shure interface is defective or some setting is off? I've never used their audio devices before (mainly use MOTU & PreSonus), but given that they're a fairly trusted/reputable microphone brand, I'd think that their audio devices would be decent too.
Unless it was a matter of the driver's buffer size, and the Shure's size was set was too low, which can cause static/popping/clicking sounds. In BIAS-FX's "Audio Settings", are you using the same Audio Buffer Size and Sample Rate for both interfaces?
