NeuralDSP Quad Cortex

[werp]

vaguely interested in the neural quad cortex...but I moved an axe fx iii on after about a month...choice overload.
currently still happy with the olde yamaha thr100hd.

[zerocrossing]

I dont have a kempler but i know taste is personal. I think you like the Helix 6 or is that my imagination? Whereas i wouldnt even play the helix if it was given to me free.
I assume one of the four u tried was the new one Gojira? That one sounds better to me than the at least the other Archetypes and is using a newer technology which they will migrate to their older plugins.

Rsp

I hate Line6 amp modelers. Some of the Helix effects are OK. About on par with Guitar Rig. You have me mixed up with someone else. I did try the Gojira. (Cory Wong and Fortin)I wasn’t impressed. I think the Brainworx plugins for UAD sound much better. I bought the FUCHS 50 last Christmas and it’s excellent.

Maybe the new models for the Quad Cortex are better. I hope so, because if they’re similar, I think the hype will backfire on them.

[zvenx]

...........have me mixed up with someone else. I did try the Gojira. (Cory Wong and Fortin)I wasn’t impressed. I think the Brainworx plugins for UAD sound much better. .....

Sorry about the mix up.

yeah if you like the Brainworx stuff (they are on record saying their Native and UAD stuff is the exact same algorithms), we have very different tastes.

rsp

[medienhexer]

Agreed. What I‘ve heard so far, the models all have the qualities I prefer about the plugins. If those are the qualities you dislike, the Quad Cortex probably won’t do it for you.

[zerocrossing]

Agreed. What I‘ve heard so far, the models all have the qualities I prefer about the plugins. If those are the qualities you dislike, the Quad Cortex probably won’t do it for you.

I went back at it today, because I couldn’t believe that there was as big a disparity between what I was hearing and what people were describing. I had been going directly into my Kemper and bypassing everything at first, so I went directly into a Unison preamp on my UAD Apollo. The quality got a bit better, but it still had this weird mushy mid sound that I couldn’t get away from. Then I had a hunch that perhaps the models were set up to not see a healthy line level. I backed the gain all the way down at the interface and all of the sudden the Neural models sprung to life! User error... maybe? I definitely wasn’t clipping the input based on it’s level meter, but when I took it way down the nasally mid sound went away and my lows appeared. I think I will end up with a Quad Cortex.

[zvenx]

Lol. Welcome onboard the neural dsp camp.
Rsp

[medienhexer]

Interesting. I usually have the problem that a certain setting will sound good with a specific guitar at a specific gain setting. And as soon as I change anything, the illusion falls apart.

What I like about NeuralDSP plug-ins specifically, is that they behave like an amp, gain staging-wise. I can set up a sound with a humbucker guitar and when I switch to the strat without adjusting gain, it still sounds like that amp with the settings I made, just with a differently sounding guitar and a little less gain. It doesn't suddenly thin out or turn from nice distortion into scratchy breakup overdrive.

So going by your experience, there is a limit, though, when you drive it too hard.

Or did you have one of those preamp-emulations activated which change the Apollo's input impedance? Most guitar amps are supposedly in the 1 MOhm range, so in my experience, the emulations like signals recorded with 1 MOhm best. If your input impedance is too low, you'll end up with treble attenuation with passive pickups, which would then also result in muddy sounds from the emulation.

[Captain]

I backed the gain all the way down at the interface and all of the sudden the Neural models sprung to life! User error... maybe? I definitely wasn’t clipping the input based on it’s level meter, but when I took it way down the nasally mid sound went away and my lows appeared. I think I will end up with a Quad Cortex.

Great that you figured it out! About your earlier question, if you can't find a Neural DSP plugin amp in QC, nothing stops you from using Neural Capture to get that plugin sound in QC... yeah, feels a little crazy / backwards, but as I mentioned earlier, I tried it just for the heck of it (it wasn't a NDSP plugin, but same idea), and it worked better I could ever imagine. Also, I know that the plan is to grow the number of amps and effects in future software updates, and through cloud downloads.

In other news, seems like Guitar World recently ranked Quad Cortex at #2 in their multi-effect pedal / floor modeler roundup. Pretty good, considering it's not even publicly available yet! (I'm especially happy about their mention of "incredible reverbs", as I have been involved in the reverb design )
https://www.guitarworld.com/features/be ... guitarists

[zerocrossing]

Interesting. I usually have the problem that a certain setting will sound good with a specific guitar at a specific gain setting. And as soon as I change anything, the illusion falls apart.

What I like about NeuralDSP plug-ins specifically, is that they behave like an amp, gain staging-wise. I can set up a sound with a humbucker guitar and when I switch to the strat without adjusting gain, it still sounds like that amp with the settings I made, just with a differently sounding guitar and a little less gain. It doesn't suddenly thin out or turn from nice distortion into scratchy breakup overdrive.

So going by your experience, there is a limit, though, when you drive it too hard.

Or did you have one of those preamp-emulations activated which change the Apollo's input impedance? Most guitar amps are supposedly in the 1 MOhm range, so in my experience, the emulations like signals recorded with 1 MOhm best. If your input impedance is too low, you'll end up with treble attenuation with passive pickups, which would then also result in muddy sounds from the emulation.

I was testing with a Steinberger GM4T (EMG actives). They’re fairly hot as things go, but nothing I’ve ever had issue with. I was using the Unison pre pickup, but I did not have a preamp emulation running. I did boost the weaker guitar signal to what one would consider a healthy line level. Gently bumping into the yellow on harder chords, going deeper into the yellow with hard chords, but never clipping. The unaffected guitar signal sounded fine. Great actually. That kind of stringy Adrian Belew clean sound you hear sometimes... but I digress. That’s why I was blaming the software. I couldn’t imagine having a nice healthy signal be an issue except for a good one.

But something was nagging at me. Clean amps seem to be sounding good. I was getting good results with the Cory Wong amp, even with pedals. It was when I went to the Gojira 2 and 3 amps (5150 and Rammfire?) when I got bad results. It was like I lost all my lows and there was just this mushy midrange sound over everything. (This was all the same when I was going through my bypassed Kemper in by SPDIF) It was when I lowered the input gain on the Apollo to zero (no boost) that everything changed and I starting hearing the types of sounds I was expecting. Lesson learned... well, I guess it doesn’t really matter if I end up with the QC, but there you have it. I think they should maybe recalibrate their input monitor to show a more accurate idea of what it considers a too hot signal. Maybe add a color scheme with a larger yellow range that starts at lower signal strengths.

[zerocrossing]

I backed the gain all the way down at the interface and all of the sudden the Neural models sprung to life! User error... maybe? I definitely wasn’t clipping the input based on it’s level meter, but when I took it way down the nasally mid sound went away and my lows appeared. I think I will end up with a Quad Cortex.

Great that you figured it out! About your earlier question, if you can't find a Neural DSP plugin amp in QC, nothing stops you from using Neural Capture to get that plugin sound in QC... yeah, feels a little crazy / backwards, but as I mentioned earlier, I tried it just for the heck of it (it wasn't a NDSP plugin, but same idea), and it worked better I could ever imagine. Also, I know that the plan is to grow the number of amps and effects in future software updates, and through cloud downloads.

In other news, seems like Guitar World recently ranked Quad Cortex at #2 in their multi-effect pedal / floor modeler roundup. Pretty good, considering it's not even publicly available yet! (I'm especially happy about their mention of "incredible reverbs", as I have been involved in the reverb design )
https://www.guitarworld.com/features/be ... guitarists

I don’t really specifically care about those amps, though the more the merrier, as they say. The list of models on the site seem plenty. While I love the “what amp would I like to play though today” buffet of the Kemper, it’s not really necessary.

One thing that is holding me back a little is that I realized this morning that there’s no SPDIF i/o, which I’m relying on using the Kemper. Losing this means I lose a stereo pair, unless the USB audio out works like Elektron’s does. Modern Elektron synths have a plugin that specifically looks for them as USB devices so that they can be used on Windows machines in conjunction with other audio interfaces at the same time. Does the Quad Cortex have anything like that?

[.jon]

I wish there was a Duo Cortex with half the size, half the DSP power and half the price. Why would I need to run 4 amps

[zerocrossing]

I wish there was a Duo Cortex with half the size, half the DSP power and half the price. Why would I need to run 4 amps

Here’s my guess/hope. They don’t expect many people to use more than one or two amps at a time, but high end effects like analog modeled chorus, tape delays and reverbs tend to be very CPU intense. From all my research, every review says the same thing: “amps sound great, effects are mediocre.” I’m hoping that this comes to pass and they include some effect types that are of the quality of Fractal, Eventide or Strymon.

I do want to run two amps, complete with effects. For me, that’s the point of this, or else I’d just stick to my Kemper, which I think still sounds great. Every time I hear a comparison where the Quad Cortex sounds better, I know that they’re not using high quality profiles. I don’t know what goes into making those, but they’re clearly better than what most people end up making. I’m selling my Kemper for $1300, which is cheaper than the Quad Cortex but definitely not half the price. You have to realize at some point that the bulk of your money isn’t going for processing power as much as it is going to pay for the development of the software. Line6 will provide you with solutions for half that price, but IMO, they will I sound half as good. I do believe that if you really want a top tier virtual amp situation, you are going to have to spend about $1500 for something new. When you think about it in terms of what it would cost you to buy a top tube amp, it’s actually not really out of line.

[Captain]

One thing that is holding me back a little is that I realized this morning that there’s no SPDIF i/o, which I’m relying on using the Kemper. Losing this means I lose a stereo pair, unless the USB audio out works like Elektron’s does. Modern Elektron synths have a plugin that specifically looks for them as USB devices so that they can be used on Windows machines in conjunction with other audio interfaces at the same time. Does the Quad Cortex have anything like that?

Sorry, just realized I never answered this... Not 100% sure if I get the question, but Quad Cortex works as a regular USB audio interface on both Mac & Windows. You can see all the inputs & outputs in your operating system & DAW, so it's really quite flexible. For example, I have been using it to just to record dry guitars to my DAW, and I can also play audio from my DAW through QC's effects and back to DAW, everything through USB.

From all my research, every review says the same thing: “amps sound great, effects are mediocre.” I’m hoping that this comes to pass and they include some effect types that are of the quality of Fractal, Eventide or Strymon.

"They" are definitely on this. I'd dare to say that there's nothing mediocre about the effects themselves or their quality (in fact Guitar World called the reverbs "incredible"), it's just that QC doesn't currently have a billion different types of effects, and I understand this might be a downer for some. But you can already do a _lot_ with the included effects (the factory presets showcase this nicely), and there will definitely be more in future software updates. Did I mention that updating the software is super easy through wi-fi?

[renka]

There's a lot of videos on Youtube.
IMO, it's not ready yet. The Neural plugins sound unbelievably good, but the floor unit still needs a couple years to get everything together.

[Josuave]

I have had my QC for a few weeks;

I think it's pretty solid, reasonably easy to dial a good tone fast, captures sound good. With that said, at the moment it feels like they've released a partial product. Once you can import your neural plugs, it's game over