I’m looking to replace Kemper Stage as my live rig. I know the QC sounds good enough. My main concern is how programmable the buttons are.
I use 4 rigs/amps and 4 stomp pedals. The stomps are locked, so they appear in every rig.
Each amp can toggle between two states, with a corresponding indicator light. The Kemper allows these two setups to be totally different, but I just use it to toggle a volume boost for each amp.
Can the Quad Cortext be setup like this? I definitely has enough buttons. Can you have rig and stomp selection at the same time? Can you toggle more than one state of a rig with a button? Can the LED change color to indicate state?
Preset mode: Unloads whole signal chain and loads another one → Gaps while switching
Scene mode: Switches to a specific configuration of one preset (e.g. block bypass, effect/amp parameters) → Gapless switching between scenes
Stomp mode: One footswitch toggles bypass of one block (amp/effect) like on an analog pedal board. → Gapless switching
That’s the current state, for more insights also look at the manual which explains this very well.
However, there already are many requests for a “hybrid mode” between scene and stomp mode and for toggling bypass of multiple blocks at once in stomp mode. I think the first one would satisfy your workflow of the Kemper. Search this forum for “hybrid mode”, the first few topics hold a lot of information about this. As I have read in another topic hybrid mode was already teased by NeuralDSP before golive so they seem to already have it on their radar.
How big a gap are we talking? On the Kemper a rig switch is ~100ms. Is the QA worse than that?
I guess I’ll look at the manual to figure out if it supports toggling rig/scene states with the same button. Pretty killer feature, and it’s 100% software.
I’m honestly surprised. My $499 AmpliFIRE lets you pick what every button does, independently, through a tiny two-line LCD screen. Given the way Neural DSP is positioning the QC (“the most powerful floor modeler on the planet”) and work they’ve put into editing rigs via that big beautiful touch screen, it’s surprising they have such a prescriptive and constrained system for mapping those button. Why not let me literally program it however I went? If I want one knob to be a global mute and every other knob to turn on the tuner, why not just let me do that? *shrug*
This suggests that the MIDI interface is limited, too, right? I mean, if I can make a MIDI controller do what I want, I should be able to make the buttons on the thing do what I want.
Didn’t measure but from my feeling i think it’s similar to the kempers 100ms. Maybe some other users have more insights.
Yes, quite some users complain about this. Currently, other devices like Kemper, Helix, AxeFX (…) provide more functionality in these areas. The qc is my first modeler so I don’t miss anything from other units but I understand that coming from another device this could be a bummer.
As you pointed out, all these switching capabilities are software-only, so most likely they will be implemented in the future. As ndsp currently is behind their once promised schedule for some features like a desktop editor or using their plugins in the qc my guess is they will work on these first and implement additional user requests like extended switching after that.
That makes sense, though it sounds like their priorities are off. Kemper didn’t have an editor for almost a decade (8 years, I think). It’s a nice-to-have, but doesn’t interfere with usage of the device. However, if you can’t trigger it the way you need to, it’s not usable live. One feature is redundant, the other is an actual functional gap.
The irony is that you only really need a desktop editor if you want the device on the floor, and you don’t need it on the floor if you’re in the studio. *shrug*
I think that depends on the point of view. Many people mainly use it as an audio interface & processing tool in the studio. Sure, you can use the screen and knobs but that can really disrupt your workflow when you’re doing everything else in the computer.
You can also use scenes and stomp without a hybrid mode, you just need to switch modes. It’s not as efficient and easy as having a hybrid mode but thats the exact same situation as without a desktop editor.
Also, I don’t want to say I know the priorities on NDSP side, was just a guess
That’s my point. You can can use screens and knobs. A computer interface will provide a convenience, a luxury, rather that allow you do do things you couldn’t before. Being able to bind the buttons you the way you need to is not a luxury for live use, it’s core functionality.
Yeah, that’s not happening live.
Glad to hear they’ve hinted at a hybrid mode. It’ll work perfectly for my purposes, assuming they allow you to lock stomp slots, like the Kemper (that’s a very important feature in general). That said, it’s another prescriptive mode. Ideally they’d put some serious thought into an arbitrarily flexible way of programming the buttons yourself, something that could be use to build the existing modes and anything else a power user might need. It’s not a trivial-problem, but they’ve proven they have the design prowess to do it. They just have to take it seriously as a need.
For many people it’s not just a luxury but essential to their workflow and a reason to use other devices or plugins instead.
That’s right. Of course you could use scene mode to bypass your blocks but that’s somehow limited (can not toggle on one switch).
If you want to have a hybrid mode, upvote the existing feature requests or if you want some other functionality (e.g. freely programmable) create a new one.
Also have a look at New mode : Page Mode : Control everything for a suggestion how a freely programmable hybrid mode might be implemented.
Yeah, you’re not understanding my point at all, mate. It’s a luxury because you can already edit patches. Full stop. Whether you do it with your mouse or your finger, you can edit patches. Having a PC editor is just a more convenient way of doing a thing you could already do.
Being able to trigger your patches the way you need to live, in real time, without tap dancing, is not a convenience, is core functionality for live use.
I get your point, I just think that for many users (me included) the current switching situation is fine as is.
But I totally agree that a hybrid mode (however it will be implemented) would make it much more flexible and easier to use and should be implemented soon.
