Is the Quad Cortex Lacking in Effects? Could it Replace your Pedals?

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One of the things I have sort of seen pop up is that the Quad Cortex is lacking in effects, so I wanted to take a fair look and consider - could the Quad Cortex replace a pedalboard? If you're using the QC, which pedals did you have to keep?
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Опубликовано:

12 сен 2024

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Комментарии : 90

@joemiller9856 Год назад

It’s probably a good idea to look at the Quad Cortex as a platform. It has tons of power so what is missing can probably be achieved building it as you have demonstrated John. Traditional pedals are best of breed boxes that are strung together on a board. Each of these boxes are likely to exceed the capability on a per function basis but there isn’t the overall flexibility and then you have to deal with all the damn patch cables, switchers and power issues, etc. that are much more elegantly dealt with with a platform modeler. Totally agree that we are still in a hybrid world but I think one should strive to really question how import pant that one wacko effect is that would cause you to include it on your “board”. For me… I am looking to settle into a modeler that will cover the bases and focus more on developing my artistry rather than go down the rabbit hole of chasing the last 1% of functionally in an effect. Whatever gets in the way of that raises a flag IMHO.

@BobbyCulpepper.srv3fender Год назад

I don't think it has as much power as you think. Captures and delays eat up a ton of power. And you have to add extra blocks to do what helix has built into to it's blocks

@buddehaole Год назад

I guess the challenge really is to build the pedal board that you would use to compete with it...and add up the cost. Board, cables, power supply, switcher, pedals, etc. Everyone mentions Stymon but they are $350-$480 per pedal. There is your next video you get $1900 budget.

@PerishableDave Год назад

I spent some time thinking about this for my own needs. I could easily get the tone that I want from a pedal board for under $1900, but the QC (and other modeling devices) give you more flexibility. Also, worth mentioning that if you're playing on headphones or going direct to FOH it replaces the amp as well, which is another significant chunk of change.

@plee822 Год назад

Yeah, I agree that it does the basic food groups adequately. I use my QC as a platform for amp sims, drives and DI to a soundboard/PA. Love all the I/O options and the processing power makes it a Swiss Army knife in terms of being a “hub” for most situations. But in terms of the “character pedals” that I use for ambient music, I have an external board with a microcosm, DD500, and Big Sky connected to the QC via the effects loop. Also, enjoyed the creative way you created that delay sound.

@NeilJacksonGuitar Год назад

Just curious, how do you power that board? I'll have a similar setup soon with a DD500 and a Zoia with the QC and I've been wondering how to power all these juice-hungry pedals lol

@plee822 Год назад

@@NeilJacksonGuitar Hi Neil, since I have more of a modular set up, I actually don’t have my QC on my board. That’s because I sometimes just take the QC by itself for a gig, use it with my acoustic board, or use it as an interface at my desk. As a result, I use the standard power supply for the QC and a Strymon Ojai for my board. However, I did some research for an “all-in-one” board with the QC. In that case, I would use the Ojai R30 with the Cioks Crux. The Crux (very small) can convert a 24v to the proper voltage for the QC and can be powered by the 24v THRU in the Ojai R30 or even the Zuma. I have not tested this myself, but I reached out to Cioks and they confirmed this would work.

@hughesp Год назад

I picked up a QC a couple weeks ago - playing in a function band that requires silent stage. Had an hx stomp, and found myself tweaking amp sounds all of the time. In the QC, I captured my real amps and drive pedals that I have used for years and it was instantly a much more comfortable and better sounding experience. For a function type band, it has everything I could need fx wise, and the feel/sound of amps &captures is the main selling point for me (along with ease of editing). I feel like I might want more options if I were primarily using this as a studio tool, but for live use, it is pretty great! My biggest “missing” piece right now would be a reverse delay, as there is no way to recreate that currently.

@danielwoodcock8684 Год назад

I agree 100% that the QC is lacking some functionality. To that, to keep the board small-ish, I am using the QC and HX Stomp together. The signal path is Fuzz Pedal > HXS Input > HXS FX Send (mono) > Input of QC > Send 1 QC > HXS Left Return > HXS Stereo Mods/Dly/Rvb, etc > HXS Out 1 & 2 > QC Return 1 & 2 > QC Looper, etc. This gives me the ability to use the HXS for some of the pre-drive/amp interesting effects, then use the QC for all of the drive/amp/etc stuff that it’s great for, and the patch in the stereo modulation and time effects that Helix does so well at, and then bring it all back to the QC for it’s great looper.

@loopie007 Год назад

I love how John says the word "Posh". He actually pauses slightly and highlights the word making it more "Posh". 🙂

@Ozman77 Год назад

i agree with your assessment, i honestly think in 98% of live mixes the QC is more than enough. how often in a live set can you really tell from the crowd if you're playing a tape delay or a digital delay. In the studio or at home i connect to my new H900, live it's just the QC

@debrincatj Год назад

Yep, I have done it. The QC + a volume pedal is all that I use now vs my old 40lb pedalboard. I primarily play P&W, and plenty of verb and delay for that style of playing. I captured my KTR, Duke of Tone, OCD and Mostortion and have that all available to me.

@taylormesa Год назад

Same here,totally happy with the QC!

@bernie_smith Год назад

Yep, me too. QC and Volume pedal alone. Still debating whether or not to have my KOT on the board as well, but at the moment it's not on there. I am mainly P&W too. Anyone in the UK want a pristine Cornford Carrera in a flight case??

@lukather1 Год назад

Lol make me laugh people who say they’re trolly happy with the quad ! Had mine 6 weeks ! Over hyped great screen ease of use - Axefx allll dayyyyyy long 😊

@taylormesa Год назад

@@lukather1 another thing I hated about my Fractal experience (Ax8 and AxeIII) was their toxic community.

@brendanpmaclean Год назад

@@bernie_smith 😂 No, does anybody want to buy an FM3?!

@BeachJazzMusic Год назад

I plugged the outputs of the QC into my Strymon Timeline and Big Sky just to see what the difference was. With some tweaking the QC held up pretty well but there's something about Strymon time based effects that the others don't have except Fractal. Probably because the owners that started the companies were roommates in college studying DSP design. That said none of them have a spring that is as good as an original hand wired six spring tube reverb that was built into a mid-60's Blackface Fender. From what I've heard, spring reverb is the hardest to emulate. For a gigging situation the Quad is probably the easiest to deal with and you can put it in a brief case.

@tonepilot Год назад

Yup, it’s my main rig now. I’ve added on a Morningstar MC6 to help manage it. I’ve also added on an OCD and a fuzz but haven’t used them yet.

@tommurrayGTR Год назад

I agree with a lot of this, but I think the most important thing with any modeller is the feel and I think QC is only bested by Fractal when it comes to that. To my ears Helix sounds like a pedal, QC sounds like a real amp. Helix has far more varied / quality effects, but for me I've always been more of a simple delay, reverb fan and I think the QC does that well enough, but there's room for improvements. It is annoying that the development is so bloody slow, but I reckon when they finally release the update that allows plug ins to be used on the QC the conversation is going to change dramatically.

@rand0mturk3y Год назад

Qc has replaced my pedalboard, only thing it doesn't really do is weirder oscillating fuzz pedals like fuzz factory. After digging through a load of fuzz pedal captures I've found a few that I'm fairly happy with, enough to not bother bringing fuzz pedals to gigs.

@Keplerf-vn2ld Год назад

For the price the QC is really really lacking. I'm glad I canceled my pre-order.

@DToneQuest Год назад

I went from a all strymon board (volante, dig, iridium, ola, flint, riverside, compadre, multiswitch plus x2) , dunlop volume/expression, wah and a SA Kingmaker ...to a hybrid board to just the QC I do like the single pedals allot and will have two boards now. The QC flexibility is great and everything plus captures is all I need for what i do live. I look forward to future effects to play with however and I am deciding if i will have a pedalboard without qc to go into my fillmore 50 or a hybrid large board that i can use for recording or special needs

@bestboy897 Год назад

that kirk hammett shoutout lool

@alexwong7 Год назад

My main gigging rig is really just the QC with an H9. The H9 gives me better reverbs and modulations and I'm happy that between the H9 and QC I can cover everything I need. The only thing I'd love to replicate with that rig is the Bigsky Cloud reverb. On my home board, I have a QC with Zio, Deco, H9, freqout and Bigsky. Fun for recording but overkill for gigging for me.

@ivonyjanos1710 Год назад

do you use the H9 in the QC effect loop, or do you connect it to the output after the QC and on to the amplifier?Thanks

@alexwong7 Год назад

@@ivonyjanos1710 In stereo in the loop for me. It benefits from different positionins in the chain. It's a suprisingly good fuzz at the start of a chain or reverb at the end.

@IamMusicNerd 11 месяцев назад

Kind of surprised they do not have any true Octave or Fuzz effects. You can get close with the drive pedals and pitch shifters, but not the same.

@pfmusic1636 Год назад

The reason I bought the helix over the kemper was I needed more versatile effects since at that point I was playing live amps. It didn’t matter that the amps weren’t as “good.” It’s hard for me to buy something based on promises. If it doesn’t have the functionality I want now I won’t buy it for its potential use in the future.

@imscaredofmoney Год назад

I'd love to see you make a video about creating an Allan Holdsworth type preset with the QC

@Left_Hand_Path Год назад

I run the QC as my amp and almost all of my effects in my band for the exception of a boutique HM-2 pedal I use that the QC just could not capture because it’s a fuzz variety of a HM-2. Besides the shortcomings in the fuzz and capturing fuzz, I love the QC!

@Juppi13 Год назад

Did i miss something or why is nobody talking about these horrible glitches and stutters?

@MrKiammi Год назад

No why should we replace pedals we love, but yes we can, Personally i replaced the amps and cabs but pedals wise, why not have the best of both world and go the hybrid way with your favorite pedals and quad cortex . It sounds perfect with all your pedals. I just purchased the meris lvx and It fits perfect with my needs for the functions the quad cortex have along With my vintage fuzz pedals.

@oleijon Год назад

Yes, I´ve done that. TBH, I use it with a Sonuus Voluum but I mainly use the Voluum as volume pedal (and some vanilla compression). It just works for me, I get everything I really need from it and also enough to play around with. I would love a BigSky or a H90 but that is more for home noodling and experimentation, and I use plugins in my computer for that (and one day will hopefullt fully convert to a laptop based rig altogehter.

@oleijon Год назад

I think it is more that I decided that what is in there will be good enough.

@MikeyBakerMusic Год назад

It's already replaced mine. You did a vid recently on using the HX FX and Stomp together; would love to see what you might come up with using the QC and the Stomp. :)

@mrblues1981 Год назад

im selling my helix floor to buy this ,its amazing pedal ,small ,touch screen ,wifi , add preset and pathes from your mob phone in second but i heard helix tones still better then cortex.i love my helix floor but its just too big and i cant have both

@markchristianson31 Год назад

I've been taking that approach since I got mine; there's a LOT you can build with what's already there- harmonic tremolos, cloud verbs, blooming verbs, arpeggiated/pitch-shifted delays. Would like to see you build more custom fx combos. Most of the things the QC can't do at all yet are covered by the Meris LVX (reverse, swell, bit-crunch, granular dla, etc...) so right now that's the only other pedal I've got looped in.

@Awesomelvis Год назад

Lengthy comment warning I think it has replaced the board for some and eventually it will for others too. After having mine for a while I've determined that the key element here whether you use the Amp models & cab sims or 4 cable method, is that the capturing of drives is most most important aspect in this case. I've told some friends about this idea that as guitarists we change the drive pedals probably more than anything else for new or altered base tone flavor spicing. So even in 4cm, once you decide on your basic delays, reverbs etc. & you already have your amp tones, the only thing left to make things interesting & change things up is drives & stacking them. With enough dsp room, multiple delays & reverbs can be had along with multiple drives & boosts etc. I argue that the drive pedal is the number one thing switched out but I have just a hunch & no real numbers. Sorry for the lengthy comment, again... lol cheers

@raymondforbes4295 Год назад

For me, I found the harmonizer style effects to be lacking. I used to have an H9 on my board but have recently switched to the H90 to supplement the effects. Other than that I have a talk box (no analog for that), a fuzz, and an Empress Zoia (just because it is so darn fun).

@denskilmusic4408 Год назад

I owned a QC for about 3.5 months and used it for my cover band. It was…merely adequate. I went back to amps and a small pedalboard mostly due to the feel and feedback I was missing. Going hybrid with QC and certain pedals crossed my mind but seemed to mostly defeat the purpose of going ampless with a QC. I made a video on my channel about it 😊

@spawn302 Год назад

I just went hybrid and i love it! I was afraid i wouldnt use my pedalboard anymore but its so fun to tweak an actual pedal in conjuction with the ampsim technology. I use the amp sims, drive, compressor, and cab from the QC but I love my Julia, Empress Reverb, and Strymon Timeline and thankfully they all blend together so well. I live in an apartment and record music as well as play at softer volumes through studio monitors. Ive gigged with it too (not hybrid yet), and its done everything I needed without needing an amp or a huge pedalboard. If i gigged again, I would definitely build a mini board with all my wet effects and modulation.

@Drew_Vernon Год назад

The main reasons QC didn't work for me: - Lack of a hybrid mode - Each mode sharing midi commands rather than having distinct settings for stomp and snapshot mode - Poor signal to noise performance and lack of unity gain when used in 4-cable-method and when putting pedals into the loops - No reverse delay - Poor oscillation effects from the existing delays - At the time, the inability to sync modulation effects to a note value and to tempo - No ability to send midi-clock to other devices - Random bug that still hasn't been solved where the FX loops would lose audio signal, and you have to hard reboot the unit - Ground hum when using the included power supply; this really disrupted a gig we did and was kinda the final straw

@BobbyCulpepper.srv3fender Год назад

Out of curiosity, with the hum problem, did you try the ground lift in the output screen?

@3mstudiospalmdesert Год назад

My fave fuzz which is the Analogman Sunface. I have the low-gain NKT 275 and I've never heard any modeler get anything close. Other than that which I plan on capturing, no pedal board needed. I play rock guitar in a rock band. I don't really need glitch-delays or pitch-shifted echoes.

@chrisdavies9143 Год назад

It handles the basics well but it's a bit underwhelming over and above that. I've been running it with a few strymon mini pedals (Deco, Lex, Flint) but I do think it's mostly down to taste, you could quite happily gig and record with just the QC unless you're into deep sound design.

@juliansedor7101 Год назад

I wanted a Quad Cortex a few years ago. I'm glad I decided to buy a Fractal Audio FM3 instead. It treats me very well.

@miguellauandos1902 Год назад

I think your videos are amazing and really like them. Do you have a complete guitar course available? Thanks again for the great lesson videos.

@sebrura Год назад

Delays are seriously lackluster IMO, esp. considering the price. No ducking, no diffusion, no space echo-ish etc etc etc.

@jaricklosey4607 Год назад

You kind of demonstrated why I never was interested in the QC. $1900 for super basic effects is too much money. Especially with the wait times. That’s kind of how I felt about the headrush products, get you through a gig. But those are half to a quarter of the price. They need to start really amping up their development.

@EEKman71 Год назад

You're my favorite content creator for cortex stuff. I loved that delay you whipped up. I'm a newbie guitar player who probably has no business owning this thing, but figured it was cost effective given my limited space for gear and the price of pedals and supporting equipment. So far I'm overwhelmed but having fun learning. Can you provide tips on how to get a good stereo to be using headphones? They sound awful and I'm not sure why. All tones sound like an am radio in a tunnel. Archetype plugins sound fine through headphones. Maybe I'm using the wrong cables?

@nathan-dudeman 27 дней назад

QC content again please! do it for us :)

@batmandeltaforce Год назад

It does not have enough CC Pedal ports. I use 3 pedals to do all I need a preamp to do. It also does not have enough buttons.

@rjoshi1 Год назад

Simply amazing solo at the beginning.. I would love to get the backing track and solo tab on Patreon! Pretty please?

@Chris_Nouvelli Год назад

I’m torn with the QC. A lot of my absolute favourite players use them (Rabea Massaad, Pete Thorn) but it seems an extraordinary price for something that I fail to see what it does that’s better than the competition. ‘Capturing’ an amp? Game changer. Does it get used much by most people? I highly doubt it. Want to use those expensive Neural DSP plug-ins on it?…

@AndGuitar Год назад

IMO the best feature of the QC is the capture ability. 4+ minutes and done, no powerful PC needed like TONEX and Kemper being the only real competitor in that category. Otherwise, tone wise the top modelers (e.g. Kemper, Helix etc.) all sound great. The other top selling point is the small footprint and the phenomenal UI. None of the top modelers can provide such great tones so quickly with their UI. I can’t wait for 2.0 and future updates, once the QC supports plugin integration, the QC will be the absolute top contender IMO but YMMV. 😊

@Xirrious Год назад

I have never captured my own gear but I use captures in my presets a lot and some of the best sounds I've achieved are with captures. They're awesome.

@JamTagg Год назад

Another thing that needs to be in there is the ability to create multiple parallel paths (loops upon or within loops). You can get around this a bit by creating for example 4 lines with all inputs set to input 1, but sometimes I run out of blocks that way, and why create an amp and cab 4 times in redundancy? Seems stupid and a waste of processing power. Much better to have up to 3 parallel paths. Maybe someone has found a way to do this, but a basic press and hold on an existing parallel path only allows you to modify that path rather than tree off and additional second or third branch. The whole advantage of a multiFX unit like the QC is that you have this added angle of creativity with parallel paths, stereo control, and mixing. You can't do this on a pedalboard w/o a much more complicated and expensive solution. Why not blow the doors off (since the basic functionality is already there) and give us access to multiple parallel paths?!?! John, please pitch this to the folks at NDSP if you can. I know this is a feature that you specifically would get a lot of mileage out of!! ;-)

@sergejkrynycky728 Год назад

Great video! Question! What if want to put down my guitar for a minute and use QC as an audio interface and just listen to music from my Macbook via Spotify, Apple Music or on youtube? Can I do that? Is it just a matter of keeping it connected to my mac via USB, having monitors connected to the two XLR outputs and having the QC turned on?

@EvanShermanMusic Год назад

Am I the only one that feels like the QC has significantly more latency than the Helix? I had to switch back to Helix because of it.

@TheAtheistworld Год назад

Does it have analog dry through?? Or everything goes through dsp, digital conversion?? Thnxx brother ❤

@stevespencer6316 Год назад

Hi John.Good review.. I'm just thinking about getting a Stomp XL. Seen some of your recent comments on buying these units. Could you do an effects review on the XL for a newbe please.

@PaulLembo Год назад

any good modeler can replace a whole pedalboard. I prefer much fractal and line6 to QC however.

@tsachou Год назад

Please John make a capture of Jack’s two rock traditional

@fit2praise Год назад

Nick Johnston played through the QC at Andy Wood’s Woodshed event last summer. I love Nick’s playing so much, but I was disappointed that his use of it didn’t translate very well in a live situation. I don’t know if it’s because of his very dense tracks that he was playing to, or what, but his tone never really punched through live.

@marekbatsaikhan Год назад

Hey, thank you for this! How would the Axe FM3 do on the same topic? ;) ;)

@thegoat11111 Год назад

No!

@hoot9612 Год назад

I choose (have chosen) Fractal. FM3 has replaced every pedal but the drum machine for me. Superb quality as well as quality of amps and effects - right now, not in the possible future. Best gear purchase in years. Regarding QC - promises for the high price - no thank you. It's like Early Access or beta-testing in gaming. All those unrealized promises - already seen that.

@kingfisher7960 Год назад

I honestly could not stand thier community early on and did not pre order one. The fact they added, took away, added, took away thier list of amps and effects was disheartening. I like the idea of mapping out drive pedals but others will add that soon. I went with a Boss GT1000 for floor effects and a Axe FX 3 for anything else.

@BobbyCulpepper.srv3fender Год назад

I'm on day two with my Cortex, and there is soooo much I miss about the helix. There's 3 things I love about the cortex, 1. The screen is big and clear and I can see it without having to squint, 2. The size, it's small and lightweight, 3. The delays and reverbs while there's not that many of them, they do sound more present. The amps feel better, but they don't sound very good, especially the high gain amps, now I know why people are wanting their plugins added. I do like the clean amps. Other than that pretty much everything else is bad. 3 things they need to do before they do anything else is the ability to assign functions and parameters to a footswitches, make it so your able to rename the stomp frames, and add a bass cut switch to the nobels odr-1. I really don't see them doing any significant architectural updates after 2.0, I think that dude Doug is probably pulling his hair out and didn't realize what he was getting into. Maybe he will sell his company to Line 6

@JoelVitu123 Год назад

Could you talk more about your Enriksen amo ?

@michaeldibenedetto1177 Год назад

still no ducking on delays...!

@bestboy897 Год назад

yes and no

@nuendo2496 Год назад

No. Yes.

@JamTagg Год назад

Also, rotary is NOT up to par, functionality, or sound quality!!!

@MOAB-UT Год назад

No.

@XPJV Год назад

All in one devices are not for pro musicians.

@89ji76 Год назад

Could this replace a pedalboard? Yeah sure. Would any reasonable person choose this for the job? I don’t think so.

@davman115 Год назад

One of the most hyped and now overpriced products ever! The Quad Cordex thread on the Gear page promised so much and delivered so little.

@joemiller9856 Год назад

Speaking of overpriced… I think it would be cool to have the ability to get into these upper level platforms at a lower price point and opt into some features like captures later on if you ever need them. Unlocking features like this is common in the software world.

@rosthariton7930 Год назад

@@joemiller9856 Hmm, never thought about that. This might be interesting indeed, imagine being able to choose platform's size (ammount of footswitches): small - 3, medium-6, large - 9.

@joemiller9856 Год назад

@@rosthariton7930 This sounds like you are connecting with the idea of hardware opt ins.... I was actually speaking (below) to the idea of having all the software capabilities in the unit and just paying for an unlock code to access things you need , if you ever need those features down the road thus allowing for a lower entry cost. On the hardware side I made a comment in John's "Do we NEED a Smaller Helix" episode that speak tot he hardware side and having a modular design: "One final idea is to design a modular hardware design. Base unit with the full fledged chipset and functionality , maybe 8 switches well spaced, add on docks for additional switches with hardware slots on the side and the ability to lock the units together. Also add an expression pedal dock unit . This way one can build up units to taste."

@gravyblue Год назад

@Joe Miller crazy talk. The idea of not completly owning something owning something you've bought. Unfortunately cars are going this way, you'll have to pay to activate features that are actually there, and they're not transferable when you sell. Bad times

@gravyblue Год назад

@Joe Miller I bought irs from line 6 to use in my stomp, got a helix and can't transfer them.