Great video! I wanted to ask you a question: why do I always see the volume of the QC at maximum in professional bands' racks? What volume is appropriate to set the QC to maximum? At what volume do you reduce the preset output? Thanks in advance. NEW sub! PD:Oh my God, traveling with all that equipment must be stressful in case something happens to it...
Hey! Fair question! The physical volume knob out the outside of the unit is more of an attenuation knob rather than volume. I find its best practice to set it to full volume and then set your final intended volume digitally inside the unit. This also makes repeating the exact volume and gain staging must easier, just set the knob to 100% and you should be set!
I bought the ew-dp and unfortunately something is going with the volume pot. I thought I had a scratchy pot but it does the same thing on my other guitars. It sounds great but this isn’t going to work.
Yeah I was considering that, but with this minimal set up the DC7 really does cover all of our needs. If we were using extra pedals or using a wireless unit that required more power draw I would have grabbed the Crux also
The only thing we didn’t shrink down is in ear and stage box/monitoring console set up. Theyre about as compact as we can get them at this point! We just slid those racks out of the god case and traveled with them in pelicans of their own. I’ll cover them in the full god rack video!
So I bought the EW DP after watching your video. Then I realised it sounds quite different from cable, sounded a little bit compressed, loses a little presence. Not sure if it's output impedance not right? Do you guys encounter it? Pls enlighten me.
The biggest difference I have noticed is that I had to spend a bit more time dialing in the gain staging and output from the receiver to get closer to the level of hitting the QC's input directly with a cable. Outside of that Ive not had any other issues audio wise! What amp/modeler are you using it in front of?
It worked great! We even used this exact set up again to do 2 fly dates in the UK last month and it worked perfect. We’re planning to do it again for our Australian tour in September!
For the Shure family in the room, the SLXD15 is the equivalent of”on camera” device in Shure world! … SLXD5 receiver is a small body pack you can mount on a pedal board and the SLXD1 transmitter is a solid body pack. Does the same thing and is super compact! … curious on the build quality of the transmitters for Sennheiser? The SLXD transmitter is a bit plastic-y
Hey man, Cioks released an extender called the Cioks Crux. It's an extender that literally has a sinlge 12v 3a outlet, perfect for Quad Cortex. So you don't have to waste 3 other plugs just to power up your QC. Cheers, great video.
Yup! It just didn’t make sense for this build where space was already so limited on the underside of the tiny board and all I need to power is the QC and the tiny wireless unit. We won’t be adding anything else to these pedalboards so there no worries on using the multiple outputs! The Crux is a genius add of for bigger set ups for sure though!
Super insightful to see this side of things even as a hobbyist! I still remember the stream when you built your old Kemper set up, so would be interesting to see the changes. I'm going to behave as you have a habit of making me part with my money 🤣
Considered it, but I love being in the Sennheiser ecosystem. We use all Sennheiser gear in our A rig, just makes it easier bouncing back and forth, the transmitter packs use the same connectors types and such so we can easily just go between and share supplies for both. The EW-D line also has a really awesome app that allows you to manage all of the frequencies and connectivity in one spot as well. So yeah, it just comes down to convenience and really loving what Sennheiser does. I’d love to see them make a higher end, purpose built instrument wireless in a similar form factor to this!
I considered it, but with the small nature of this build I didnt want to take up any extra real estate on the bottom of the board. The DC7 is able to easily power the QC and the tiny wireless units we used here, if we need to use any other extra external pedals I'd definitely have grabbed the Crux also!
The Sennheiser EW-DP looks like a secret weapon for most guitarists. What cable did you use to connect the 3.5" to the input on the QC? Could you send a link for that? Are there any impedance issues there?
Yeah it’s super cool, we’ve used this set again since to do 2 fly dates in the UK in May and we’ll be using them again on an Australian tour next month! The EW-DP comes with a 1/8” to xlr cable that we use, but you could also you an 1/8” to 1/4” cable like you would use for the Sennheiser instrument wireless packs as well! No impedance issues that I’ve noticed, but you could adjust the impedance settings in the I/o settings in the QC if necessary!
@@ChrisDavisTGI One more question - do you power the Sennheiser on the pedalboard or are you using the rechargeable battery? I see that it takes usb power as well.. just wondering how you all do it ;). Thanks again!
How about going all three to one Quad Cortex? Tune the presets to keep CPU under control and then change scenes from a computer, midi out. You could even bring one QC as a spare but still remove one layer in the case compared to the current build. Ultra compact. (and if you wanna roll the dice, just bring one QC and take it as carry on.)
I wish this option would work for us! We already do the midi switching of scenes from our playback computers, but our presets are too complex to fit all 3 guys onto one unit. We also run guitars in stereo so we’d be short on outputs as well!
Just liked and subscribed! Super informative set up. I'm in a similar set up, but im on a Duo 24 with my SD Powerstage on the board. What cable did you use from your guitar to the transmitter?
We utilize scenes! All of the modelers do the same audio drop out when you switch presets, but scenes fix that! I try to build presets that hold of the sounds for a song or multiple songs within it by taking advantages of the 8 scenes per preset. I have a video coming on this soon!
Man, this is the video I've been looking for. I have recently sold a Shure GLXD16 pedalboard wireless to update my wireless game and have now purchased a Sennheiser EW-D instrument set. Of course that features a 9,5" format, so I have mounted it into my preamp rack. Since I'm quite uncertain whether I should follow this route I seriously consider returning the rack-mounted EW-D unit and purchase the EW-DP unit instead. Your video has me re-thinking my setup AGAIN. :D Thanks for your valuable insights. BTW - Regarding gain staging the EW-D(P) systems - the online manual references three possible unitiy gain settings related to the gain settings on the receiver. Utilizing these settings incoming audio to the transmitter will pass the unit unaffected and with the same level as using an instrument cable.
Im glad you enjoyed the video! Definitely going to look into those gain staging settings! This was such a throw and go build given our time before we had to leave for tour, but we are busting this out for a short trip to the UK soon so its time to get the output dialed in!
Chris, I was watching the Garza podcast with ERRA and JT was talking about how one of the Neural's does both the guitar and bass tones for their set. Is that a thing so you could reduce freight even more? Also, what is the wearhouse/practice space building you were at? Could we get a tour and maybe a live rig rundown for the band? How do you come across buildings like this, that double as storage and practice space?
We could do that for sure! We could even run all 3 of use out of one QC, but navigating CPU load, scene switching for different guitar sounds all get a bit weird in that scenario though. I like having every guy on their own unit to reduce load on the QC itself, then in any emergency we can put two guys through one unit if something goes wrong! The space we rehearse in is actually a facility called Blvckbox Studios in Las Vegas. Its a video production studio as well as recording studio in one building. We shot the Death Grip and Wash It Away music videos with them and recorded drums for our most recent record in their studio! They let us rehearse in their warehouse space before tour which is super kind of them!
Yeah, I need to spend a little more time with it. I noticed the audio peak light coming out and dialed it back until that wasn’t coming on….but I think I need to reassess and check out what it sounds like when it’s “peaking”, it may not actually be clipping like I assumed haha
Thank you very much for sharing your experience brother; precisely considering that the QC can perform many functions... lower tunings, good tones etc... and regarding wireless devices ufff I didn't know the Sennheiser range... I'm going to apply for my band!! Greetings from Chile!
Thanks for checking it out! Glad you were able to learn some stuff from this, it was a really fun process! Big love for Chile, had a great time visiting your country earlier this year, hope to come back soon!
Nice setup and totally unaware of the capabilities of the EW-DP! Super usefull video! You switched from the Behringer/Midas ecosystem to A&H? For monitors only, or is the stagebox used for both monitors and FOH?
The EW-DP is surprisingly awesome for being SO tiny! We switched to A&H just for monitoring, we have a split that we plug all lines into that splits to our stage box as well as analog lines that can tie into a FOH stage box. Since we use a couple different FOH engineers we like to give them the option of what desk they feel most comfortable with so this gives us the most flexibility! I'll be sure to cover all of this in the God Rack video!
This video is awesome and so insightful! Its making me lean towards getting a QC myself! With your IEM setup on fly-ins like this, does that rig get downsized as well?
Unfortunately the IEM gear is about as condensed as it can get for the time being until someone designs smaller units haha. The rack that all of it is in comes out of our God Rack and travels in its own Pelican case. I'll be sure to cover all of that in my video about our God Rack!
I want to see all of this when I get to "meet and greet" you gents at the Worcester Palladium and at Toads in CT. So stoked to see you guys again!!! But really, lets talk nerdy guitar stuff when we meet!
@ChrisDavisTGI for you awesome gents I have all the time in the world to talk about anything! It was great getting to chat with you at the Worcester Palladium meet and greet last year, we briefly talked about your patches. It was a pleasure to meet you all and my wife and I are stoked to meet you all again really soon (2 times lol)! That new custom order ESP you just got looks super nice btw! Is that making it on tour?
Love this video bro! I want to copy this exact setup with the exception of having my Seymour Duncan Powerstage 170 on my board to play through my cab for smaller gigs.
Great video! Would be great to see a breakdown of all your gear when you fly/tour. How many guitars/basses your whole band travels with, how you pack and travel with them and what other gear you take with you when touring.
@ChrisDavisTGI dude thats wicked ! I'm just in a small band but it would be handy to have that pedal board setup for my cortex. I thought the same thing about the power supply that it was kinda weak
Very interesting solution using the EW-DP, I didn’t think about that and wondered how I‘m gonna mount the rack EW-D onto a pedalboard. I‘d love to know how those little antennas are gonna hold up if I jump into the crowd and there are a few people between my transmitter and the receiver… Subscribed!
Honestly I think you’ll be ok! The nights that I had the most issues were the nights where there were large LED video walls between me and the unit, those wall put out all sorts of electrical interference. The unit truly does rip, we’re going to keep using it for fly dates moving forward!
@@ChrisDavisTGI Thank you, this started a bunch of new ideas in my head. Seems like I might end up with the EW-DP next to my QC. This also makes the board much smaller than trying to mount the rack EW-D.
If you use a Cioks Crux with the DC7, then you get a single 12v connection to the Quad Cortex. The DC7 has a 12v connection on it that the Crux plugs into which frees up all of the other power outputs on the DC7. No combining parallel adapters together and using up 4 ports to power the QC.
Yup, I considered going this route! But with the tiny board, going without the crux saved us real estate under the board for mounting, and grabbing a couple of the daisy chain cables was cheaper than three crux’s. If we were running more than the QC and wireless off of the DC7 though I would have for sure gone with the crux!
I don’t particularly understand a lot of the technical stuff but it’s seems very interesting! Great job 😀 Wouldn’t mind seeing how you pack personal stuff for tour, what you bring and don’t, stage clothes / items etc
I didnt! I considered it, but it would have been overkill for this use case. With such a tiny pedalboard, I didnt want to give up any extra room on the bottom of the board and the DC7 itself is easily capable of powering the QC's and the tiny Sennheiser wireless units. If we were using other external pedals in this build I'd definitely have used the Crux to expand the load of the DC7!
@@ChrisDavisTGI Thank you so much for replying. This is Luke from Twitch btw. You have no idea how much of an inspiration you are to me. I got the ESP TE and the Quad Cortex because of you. I've already ordered most of this stuff in this video.
I considered it! But with the compact board I was trying save real estate for mounting stuff under the board. If we were trying to power any other pedals from the DC7 then I absolutely would have gone that route, since we didnt need any extra pedals it was much cheaper and easier to get a couple extra daisy chain cables instead of 3 crux's!
Chris, this is amazing! my band went completely digital some time ago and using QC / Darkglass (for bass) stuff. What about the playback? I kinda missed this part PS: Your camera/mic is amazing, what do you use?
Digital is the way for efficiency for sure! We’ve been digital since 2015 in a few different forms, it’s certainly helped us streamline our process! Playback is in a separate rack we flew on this tour. Maybe I should do a full A rig rundown video with the god rack set up and I can include our monitoring and playback set up also 🤔
Forgot the camera part of the question! This is a Sony FX30, the majority of this was shot on a Sigma 18-50mm f 2.8 lens, the shot in my hotel room is a Sony 10mm f 1.8 lens. The mic is a RODE NTG just mounted on top of the camera!
@@ChrisDavisTGI Thanks for your response, legend! simple yet efficient setup :) the only part I was missing is the mic as the sound is pretty cool for a shotgun compact thingy
@@ChrisDavisTGI monitoring and playback setup - is so rare to be highlighted. I remember that once saw a short or a story from While She Sleeps where they did the "what you hear vs what we hear" :)
For sure, and I considered it! It would have been overkill for this set up though where we were trying to keep this as streamlined as possible. It would have been more thing to mount underneath and one more point of failure, it was easier and cheaper to grab a couple extra daisy chain cables. The dc7 option lets us power the QC and the wireless at the same time. The crux still would require the dc7 or something similar as well, so this just felt like the best scenario for this build.
