1/4 inch jack to XLR Input

Quad Cortex
1

Hi there,

I’m after getting a custom pedal board made up for the Quad Cortex. I’d like to have the quad cortex wired up permanently to the board so I can just run any inputs in to one side of the pedal board (2 x combo 1/4 inch / XLR and power) and inputs coming out the other side of the pedal board (2 x TRS 1/4 inch L & R and 2 x XLR L & R).

My question is if there’s a combo 1/4 inch / XLR input on the pedal board itself, plugged in to the QC with an XLR cable, would it be an issue if I plugged a guitar in to the pedal board combo input with a regular 1/4 inch guitar cable? Essentially it would be 1/4 inch guitar cable one end with XLR into the Quad Cortex the other end. My gut feeling is mixing the 2 connections isn’t ideal.

2

It’ll pass signal, but I suspect that you won’t like the result. XLR inputs are usually a much lower impedance than instrument inputs. That’ll definitely mess with the tone and volume of a guitar having passive inputs. Even if you have active PUs or a preamp in your guitar, the lower impedance of an XLR connection could (depending upon details of the guitar wiring) mess with the taper of your guitar’s volume control.

Have you thought about bringing one of each (1/4” and XLR) to the board edge? That way you’d have a choice of (for example) 1/4” to input 1 and XLR to input 2.