Assistance Ironing Out Tone Disparities in Live Settings

Quad Cortex
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Have had my Quad Cortex for about a month, and have used it on about nine gigs or so. It’s been an interesting journey and I’m trying to iron out some issues I’ve been having dialing it in, in the various use cases, so I can get a consistent experience.

I got the QC mainly because I’m a busy wedding musician where stage volume is always a hassle, and both my Peavey Classic 30s were in various disrepair states and was tired of hauling them around besides, and I’d been thinking that the QC as “amp replacement” might be a good investment, plus ideally suited for gigs where a large range of different tones was required.

My initial gig was really rough: tones which sounded pretty excellent through my computer speakers and studio headphones sounded tinny and totally brittle through IEMs. After some research I concluded maybe my cheap 100 dollar Shure 215s were busted after six years of heavy use and upgrading would be great. I bought some Shure 535s and it’s been a lot better on the IEMs - I’ve been building the tones using the same headphones plugged straight into the QC, and it’s been a much more positive and consistent experience.

My issues have mostly cropped up with using wedges/monitors as the sole source of stage volume. I favor a nice midrange (my Classic 30 settings are generally Bass 6, Treble 2, Mids 9-10), and struggle with dialing that in on my patches to begin with without introducing unpleasant artifacting or losing a lot of body in the tone (tips for that appreciated too!), but through wedges I’m noticing fairly intense woofiness below 800Hz and biting 2500-3000Hz stuff and the midrange almost totally scooped out, even if it feels very mid-heavy on my headphones. I played a gig through wedges last night (admittedly, they were crappy wedges - 8-inch Behringer one-spots), for instance, and when we hit “Semi Charmed Life,” my high gain tone all but disappeared in the band mix while my clean tone cut way better. This was NOT my experience with my in-ears in the slightest even though it was the same patch.

And so I’m starting to get into this kind of self-gaslighting phase where I am worried about having to constantly tweak and twaddle the Global EQ or the presets themselves to iron out these issues. With the volume of patches I’m creating for these gigs, it’s proving a bit overwhelming. And I want some assurance that what’s coming out of FOH actually IS cutting through, and that soundguys aren’t just gushing about it because they have no stage volume now.

Tips I’m looking for:

1.) A reality check on how necessary it is to aggressively use EQ blocks to deal with the tone-shaping issues I’m experiencing. I guess I expected it to be easier to dial in a lifelike tone using just the amp model, rather than a low-hi pass filter block AND a parametric block to eliminate/accentuate what I’m looking for. I’m finding it’s really not that easy to do, but I am also afraid that as an EQ neophyte who dialed in my amp based on room response and instinct previous to this, I am over-EQing a bit. How aggressive can I feel safe being? If I play a D on the 7th fret of the G string and I get a massive “WOOOM” overtone at 300Hz on a high gain sound (something I’m noticing while monitoring the frequencies on Logic Pro’s Graphic EQ - and quite easy to hear through monitor speakers, not so much with my headphones), should I be doing a high-Q scoop of that frequency all the way down to -12db on a parametric EQ to get rid of it, or should I go back to the drawing board on the preset?

2.) Do I need a higher level of acceptance that if I use the QC through a crappy wedge, it’s gonna sound crappy? Is Global EQ a cure-all? Should I be running a line out to the monitor and a line to the mixer, rather than a mono out to the mixer with a send from the mixer to the monitor, to facilitate me tweaking a monitor tone that doesn’t affect FOH? Can I accomplish this by doing “Output 1/2” or does that only link them? Does each of my presets then need a splitter to run to two separate outputs?

3.) For people who use the QC as an “amp replacement,” with no cab or FRFR speaker of their own that they bring, how do you negotiate this issue? My gut says I should have a more consistent experience than I’m having (some of the stories of muddy tones and EQ as a coping mechanism being rooted in a fault in the QC itself makes me feel anxious that I’m just working around a problem with the device that could be remedied by a new, properly functioning one), but my brain says that I am really not understanding things like EQ or gain staging well enough to reproduce the tones I’m getting instinctively with real amps pushing air in real spaces. I am most interested in the stories of how easy or hard other gigging QC users that are not using a “rig” that’s dialed in from beginning to end for the QC specifically find it to get their presets to translate in average club or rehearsal space conditions.

Thanks in advance! Sorry for all the info, but I wanted to really clarify what my use case and ultimate desire is and get targeted feedback. Don’t be afraid to point out things that seem obvious - I didn’t realize for a few gigs that the Global EQ can be turned on and manipulated but won’t actually affect anything till it’s assigned to an output!

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It’s been discussed a LOT on here, there are many threads it would be worth searching thru.
What you’ll find is that it can be challenging if you’re not building your tones on a comparable system to what you’ll be performing on, and at the VOLUME you’ll be performing with. The Fletcher-Munson curve effect is a real headache in this case.

It’s basically going to come down to getting used to adjusting fx levels and EQ bands per room- learning what to expect and getting familiar with how to achieve what you need quickly. After doing it for a while you’ll get the knack and it should get easier to build tones from scratch. The bottom-line though, is it’s always going to be somewhat of a compromise if you’re comparing on headphones vs IEMs vs stage-wedges vs PA speakers vs guitar cabs.

I’ll see if I can scare up a few of the threads that help with this-
but in the meantime, if you search ‘fletcher-munson’ and ‘dialing in tones’ you’ll find a LOT of info already covering this issue

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Thank you! Fletcher-Munson was a term I hadn’t even heard before I started researching why my experiences were like this.

I’d deeply appreciate links to comprehensive threads dealing with this, especially for similar performance use cases, but will also try to search them up. Apologies for posting about a topic that comes up a lot.

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no apologies necessary. Everybody here is happy to help, but I think in this case there’s a lot of info to take in and much of it is pretty easily accessible. I’ll see what other tutorials I can find

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here’s a good one on gain-staging, although I think in your case EQing will be more impactful.
https://quadcortex.wiki/Gain_Staging

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I forget who posted this, but many users found it helpful:

EQ TIPS:
low cut around 100Hz - 125Hz. Sometimes I will lower that to 80Hz. My High Cut is typically around 5.5Khz - 6 Khz. Most guitar speakers have a high end max around that 5.5-6Khz area - so that seems logical to me. Also, if I have the High Cut above that area the tone sounds “hissy/fizzy” to me.

With respect to graphic/parametric EQ - I typically cut, but may boost if needed.

Additional “hot” frequencies:

340Hz - I cut here if things still sound boomy in the low end - or boost if the tone sounds thin. I leave the Q at .7. A little goes a long way.

500Hz - 650Hz - “tube screamer hump” area. If things sound to mid heavy, this is a good place to cut - if things sound scooped, this is a good place to bump up. Q @ .7 - and again, a little goes a long way

2.3Khz - every modeler I’ve used has a “whistle” around this frequency. I set the Q to 10 and pull until it goes away. Sometimes that a couple DB, sometimes it can be -7db or more

5Khz - this is where a lot of the “hissy” part of the tone lives. The more gain you use the more you want to cut here. Again, Q @ 10 and cut until the hiss goes away. You’ll hear the benefit of this more in a mix than in isolation

One other trick I’ve used - shelf EQ. Set both the Hi and Lo shelf frequency to 650Hz (or somewhere +/- around that). Everything below 650Hz will help to “remove some muddiness” and everything above 650Hz will “add brightness/presence”. Again, a little goes a long way, on both sides of 650Hz.

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