Is TONEX More Accurate than a Quad Cortex? 

Okay look I just got the quad cortex so I'm not ready to accept this

It's the closest and it even has a free version. Fantastic for guitar players.

tonex is closer than QC with the captures. I own both. There are also forums with waveform studies that show the same result. Tonex within amplitube 5 is pretty sweet. Tonex hardware will be coming out as well.

Thanks for making this - really interesting and well done. Yes, more tonex stuff would be great. And putting any captures on Tonenet would be the icing on the cake!

Definitely a usable and very accurate tone out of ToneX. No idea what the cost of the software is, but it has to be way less expensive than a QC, so I say it's a win for IK.

All good. I felt the tonex "may" have had just a touch less gain. A little more high end content on the QC? Both in comparison to the Mesa. I'm guessing. All are good. I preferred the QC for low lead lines, preferred the Tonex for the last one.

I owned a Kemper…owned. ToneX is just stunning & in a studio environment …priceless

Interesting video, but is "accuracy" even a concern when you have so many tones available, and so many ways to tweak them?

What i've seen from other videos is that tonex is reducing the gain and ultra bottom end a little which is easily fixed by turning up the gain and depth in the amp model. It also showed that when 0 tested, the tone-x come much closer to the original amp (with the advanced model) Maybe it's amp depended.

Don't tempt me with all that gear. I'm trying to make the most of my pod go 😊

For me, its sounds pretty close. Its only less gain, than the amp in the capture, and it has a knob just for adjusting that. The character is all there. 👌🏽

To my ears, the ToneX is a little brighter/ “thinner” with less gain… and the QC seems to capture the original well and even adds a more robust bottom end.. )which is a welcome addition in my opinion)

Sounds great! Some very nice and tasty phrasing there in your playing!

I tried Tonex after seeing your last video and was so impressed I shelled out on the Axe I/O bundle with AT5 Max and Tonex Max. The sounds are great but the UI is pretty bad and like you I cannot connect to Tonenet which is a shame. I would love to try your Mesa profile. Now if only I could use these amps live, like, in a small pedalboard size box with say between 3 and 8 footswitches.

Awesome sounding Strat!

In this comparison, I thought the QC sounded very close to the Mesa. The ToneX sounded a little quieter and compressed.

Amazing tones!

Quad Cortex sounds more accurate in my opinion in these examples. There is some aliasing heard in the Tonex (it sounds a bit brighter and more biting, in a not so pleasant way).

great demo and tasty playing

What I would like to mention/add here for folks saying QC captured better than TONEX is that, because of how re-amp works in TONEX, it is inevitable to go through some circuitry ie: DA converter and re-amp box (this case radial) and the quality of the capture varies depending on the quality of those gears. So the difference you’re hearing may not be necessarily the difference between how they capture. That’s the trade off of TONEX for not paying for the hardware initially: you would have to chose hardwares if you want to capture by yourself. True benefit for me of TONEX is that how easy and affordable it is to start using it with someone else’s captures and get awesome tone without breaking your bank, not necessarily capturing tones yourself. That is all what majority of people who can’t afford a real hardware(nice amps, cabs, mics, preamps etc) need I think. I would use TONEX for home recording and QC for live use for its portability and reliability

You mention the price difference and that benefit can't be understated.

Why not do spectral and waveform analysis to compare them? If the waveforms are identical, then the sound you hear will be identical. Unless you do a double blind test and can get 9/10 tests correct then we don’t even know if the differences are of a noticeable magnitude.

Both captures sound good and are serviceable. However, both sound a bit rolled off vs the amp. I wonder if this is possibly a function of the mic?

Thanks for doing this test. After listening to the comparison I think the Quad Cortex is sounding more like the amp. I think the TONEX is sounding a little thin, is it possible to improved it with some tweeking?

To me TONEX is lacking a little of this low end punch/glow around notes ( I can notice that especially when you are picking notes on neck pickup 9:30-9:50 ) which is audible in both Mesa and QC. I wonder if this could've been compensated with Depth control on the Tonex or maybe that would sound rather a little fake ? Anyway, thank you for doing these comparsions.

The Quad Cortex is the only one whose dynamic is identical to the Mesa. I hold my ipad pro in my hands, it vibrates with the QC as with the Mesa.The Xtone does not vibrate. It means that in terms of feeling when playing the QC is far superior. Of course it might be due to the way you captured the sound. I did not only listen on a tab :-) Thank you!

I agree. 2 days ago i did my first capture of my trusty JCM 800 and it works well. Just used my interface and a Palmer Daccapo Reampbox. Awesome! I will try next time to capture a stomp pedal like my ryra clone. Think its still not possible to get a pedal into the Tonex Software, which is a bit strange. Someone said, you need Amplitube to do this. Other than than i see a future to do this "cloning" without having expensive hardware like kemper and qc. Thanks for sharing and greetz. Carsten ✌🏼

I have no idea what it is, the tonex has a more accurate EQ profile, but somehow the high mids distort in a weird way. This is not the first video that I've noticed this on. However, it's incredible how good this is, for the price.

In my studio, compared to the Mesa, ToneX lacks a little bit of gain, and the Quad Cortex has a tad too much gain. I guess, this can be fix on either machine with setting the inputs/outputs of the captures. Having said that, with the Quad, I always have to play with the levels before reaching the real "gain" structure. It never works on the first try.

I'm on day 3 with the QC, is anybody else noticing there is a lack of dynamics and saturation despite plenty of gain when going from playing rhythm to play a lead part?

The Tonex sounded smoother to my ears. The Cortex sounded harsh?

I've noticed ToneX needs a slight bump in gain (and/or bass) post capture. After some minor EQ and gain tweaks, the captures sound very good. I've seen some say the same thing about QC. The captures aren't perfect but they get very close to the core character of the sound, and they can be tweaked from there. I haven't heard of any system currently that nails the tone 100% without any tweaking afterwards. And apparently the Kemper had a cocked wah thing that it would impart of the sound.

at bedroom levels almost anything will sound great. to get an idea of dynamics you really have to get it into a louder environment

I think we have way past the law of diminishing returns when it comes to the newer better thing as far as simulations go.....anything further is just for the whole nerdy guitaristic consumption....pretty much anything these days sounds great and we reached the point that we have an endless buffet of..high quality goodies and we dont know what to eat.....

I've played around with Tonex quite a bit and the results of the amp sounds are impressive. Same Level as the Guitar ML Proteus but mich easier to capture. I think the process of creating the AI model is based on the same technological papers ( co created by some neural DSP guys ) But the Tonex user interface when browsing presets or using the amps is very unintuitive and without amplitude there's not really a way to get a compete guitar tone with effects and all. I don't really enjoy working with the software. Looking forward to a hardware version though.

For someone like me who isn't going to do any amp capturing and only plays in my personal music room, the Tonex is incredible. If I had multiple tube amps and gigged I'd want the QC or the Kemper. I could load up my amps on it and throw it in a back pack and go play a show. Since I only play at home, I bought this for about $1500 cheaper than those. I have over a thousand amps with negligible difference in sound quality through my cab. Absolutely mind bending.

Do you anticipate Kemper entering the plug-in arena anytime soon? It seems like it’s been forever since they’ve done anything new, and I wonder if they would attempt to enter the space that IK is in now.

Tonex sounds closest. QC has a weird high end. Using my air pods pro for monitoring

This is a unique game changer. I'm struggling with latency through the DAW, though. Even slight latency is unacceptable for playing. Same with Helix Native, obviously or any plug-in except Unison in Apollo.

Neither of them sounded identical like the messa, but QC came closer. Tone x has a wooly, less dynamic sound. It's a cheaper option, but not a like for like. Also a much more complicated set up. But purely as a cheaper option it sounds good enough to record some guitar... But I wouldn't think it's on the same level of quality as the QC purely from a audio perspective, but the price of each is obviously worlds apart!

Great video. I have free advanced toneX captures. Really sounds real sometimes to a fault. Just look for A Recto, A Hartke, or A Champ in the tonehub for basement tones for free.

Tonex is the most accurate, already proved in a different video where he did a very unique null comparison i.e. inverted the capture wave and played it against source recording. Any sound heard is the difference - Kemper worst, QC next Tonex had the least differences.

In your example I definitely have to say that I like ToneX more than the QC. It sounds like there's a bit of low-mid/mid resonance going on with the QC capture that sound pretty annoying. I have heard other examples where I prefer the QC, but I think they are pretty much on-par with each other. Both are definitely better than the Kemper though. In every comparison I've heard the Kemper sounds much more squashed and doesn't have the same open and dynamic sound that ToneX and QC has. Since ToneX is so much cheaper and more accessible than both the QC and Kemper, it's the clear winner IMO. You can either use it as it's own standalone software or load the profiles in Amplitube, it's available in most plug-in formats for both PC and Mac, and now there is the new ToneX pedal that is a 1/4 the price of a Kemper or QC. Even though I love my Neural DSP plug-ins and think that they are a great developer, IK Multimedia is definitely leading the race in amp profiling for now.

Listening on my studio monitors… Tonex seems more accurate than the quad cortex (which appears to also introduce more gain).

There's a gnats danglies between them all.

Outstanding for the price! Not better than QC though.

Tonex sound is so close

The future is plugins with some external hardware mimicking an amp face

I’m left thinking… that’s a great sounding amp. 😊

John, please do a feature on the Vox Stomplab.

Both captures were fuzzy in the high end (in a bad way)

Can you just capture the output of a preamp? I did stuff like that with the QC and then you can experiment with different IRs in the DAW. It would take down the cost of entry even more as you don't have to have a microphone or even a speaker cab.

May I ask you a recommendation for a Helix amp which can do hi gain without getting "too much metal genre" ?

Can you use Tone X live? No! However, I believe maybe IK Multimedia has a Tone X pedal coming forth... In any case, I prefer the QC.

I dunno wouldn't a null test be the best?

This sounds pretty good for the amount of time you took on your capture. I'm sure you could have tweaked it even more if you wanted to be super anal and make closer to and/or exact to your amp. Not bad at all especially considering the cost difference between the QC or Kemper. I like the ideal of having it right in the DAW as well. I have the Quad Cortex and some of their Neural VST amp plugins and hoping the core 2.0 lets me use the VST's I paid for within the QC as well as a GUI desktop editor. I got my QC primarily to record without loud volume levels of micing a cab and cranking up the amp. I'd think the Tonex device price point is low enough even if you want to just use it for a DI/Reamp purpose and record the traditional way. Its always a good idea to have a DI anyway.

I am a big fan of ToneX but QC sounds much better in the comparison section of the video. Way more dynamics and clarity. ToneX is just dull compared to QC. May be it is about the capturing process applied, but QC is the clear winner here.

Qc sounded like it felt better to play...tonex sounded good tho, maybe have to work a bit harder using that tone...for me anyways.

Yes ToneX give better results than the QC, but it’s normal as a PC/Mac has so much more power than QC sharc dsp… and the ToneX neural networks is state in the art from last DeepMind research and other big names of the discipline. I have tried both the QC and ToneX and in advanced mode ToneX is just better, in playing and recording. The feel is here. Impressive for a $150 plugin…!!!

The real amp has fuller lows and more sustain to my ear than the X and quad. Will the average listener notice on a recording or live? No. Profiling is a neat idea but kind of surplus to requirements if you have the real thing.

Amp best, QC second, Tonex third. Difference between Tonex and QC imo is not as much as difference between amp vs both of them

Can you gig with the Tonex?

I feel hollow bass from QC. ToneX sounds fuller to me.

Proteus by GuitarML is free and open source.

A hand written note is more accurate at "capturing" tone than the QC.

Quad cortex literally sounds better than the real amp....tonex is SUPER hollow with now body. Just a bunch of highs.

ToneX is def more accurate than any other I've tried, when captures are done well at high resolution/quality. However, today I was disappointed with a test of using a ToneX Amp only capture out into my Fryette PS2 into my Cab. They will have to fix this before putting ToneX into a pedal/pedalboard unit before I would buy it. Today I tested running from an output of my DAW at line level to the Line level input of my Fryette PS2... I sent amp only of the amp into ToneX and out to a Cab. I own the real physical version of this amp and use it daily , sending it's speaker output into the Fryette PS2 and out to the same real cab. Thus, I know its tone very well. The results were not good. There was SOME semblance of similarity, but in all it was very muddy and two dimensional sounding. More like a bad recording than an actual amp going into a cab. To be fair, this description is one I use for Helix and other profilers as well. Going into a real amp/cab they never sound like a REAL amp going into a cab. They always sound more 2 dimensional and more like a decent to good recording of the amp. I don't think the problem is the Fryette PS2 line in. I've tested it various times running analog pedals into it and into the cab with some great results. Something about the way ToneX communicates the tone of the captured amp, is best suited for studio monitors rather than actual amp speaker cabinet. Again, I'll emphasize I used the AMP only version of this amp, the Wangs Mini 5, and it sounds and plays very close to the real thing when running through cab emulation and my studio monitors. It just sounds like garbage out through a PS2. Would be good for IK Multimedia to have a mode that specifically geared for for going out to real amp/cab power section.

Amp sounds best of course, as it should. I think both tonex and quad aas a little off the mark, but of the 2 I liked the TONEX better. Great demo.

[update] Quad cortex is more saturated and has high pitch noises that bother me when I do the captures. Always have to shave them with low pass filter… ToneX is more accurate

in software all can better do. but developer want sell hardware and higher prices. also copy protect is more safe. so they do hardware. of course windows or Mac is not good for low audio latency you get sometimes random crackle. so there need more do linux versions for a low audio latency linux. also USB is not good. or live with it and think about that vinyl crackle much more 😉 a low latency Linux is ubuntu studio. but if you use USB help not much

i only hear a difference when playing chords

зудящий звук (скрежет ПК) QC сильно выперает и это не красиво.

No.

The ToneX sounds similar, but slightly more sterile/dry, much like old school active pickups compared to passive when soloed. Neither have the heft or bloom of the Mesa, but in a mix I suspect that difference is negligible to imperceptible. Granted these observations are done after YT compression & may not reflect the in the room feel or sound, where speakers moving air will always make a difference to the player.

LOL according to this video TONEX is much more closer, actually is the same as the real Mesa...

the toneX has a slower attack in this comparison imho.. exaggerating it seems a fade in

Come on. Everything is in the fingers, these days, stop blaming the tone...

I think the Tonex is just as convincing as the Quad Cortex

vs, vs , vs ?? Buy the real thing , valve amp ! simple things ,,, not these digital boxes ,, now the role of electric guitar and guitar players is over it's dead thing , when digital traps are on the market

Better than QC

ToneX needs more depth... Quad Cortex's tone close to real amp.

Do the null test, the hearing of untrained people means nothing. Reverse polarity of the original tube amp reveals who is more accurate. Tonex wins.