I wanted to say Bye Bye and Thank You for the good conversations, advice and discussion I encountered on this forum. I sold my QC yesterday - not at all an easy decision since coming from the AX8, Iridium and Helix stomp I found the QC to be the best modeller all around, with unrivalled usability and form factor. The more so when you play both, electric and acoustic guitar. I was on the QC waiting list for more than a year, was so happy with it when it arrived.
Now, after almost two years, I realise I don’t belong to the target group of the QC. I don’t need all the included options , don’t need a hundred of amp versions, and soundwise I am also not a metal guy. I tend to come back to the same ole two Fenders - BF and Tweed - and the bread and butter efx, playing cleanish and low to mid overdrive. Clean stuff with my preferred amps was not always easy with the QC and shure enough I tried the gain staging options.
That said, I was not completely happy with the modelled amp/pedal versions of the QC, that I needed. Also did not want to go down the Kemper rabbit hole in search of the very best capture on the cloud. I also found the reverb (spring!) and delay versions that I would need not 100 % to my liking. Handling the EQs, same thing, I rather prefer a dedicated pedal. All of this happening in the last 10 percent range, audience wouldn‘t care, but I do.
After a daylong shootout with a friends Carr Superbee and many pedals and also with dedicated one amp model pedals I changed my gear radically. I sold my QC and some of my best pedals and bought the dedicated one-amp-models plus reverb and delay from the same company. Plus a preamp and a sound enhancer for acoustic guitar. Crazy, right? Compared to the one solution QC I now ended up with two pedalboards for electric and acoustic, that’s four times of the weight and size of the QC, more than 150 % of the costs, no midi, hardly any presets (this comparison shows already the excellence of the QC), but old school knob turning and excellent sounds. You need to be an old fart and sound gourmet like me who started playing guitar in the 70s to understand that. But I feel more at home now. and there is no excuse for fumbling with gear instead of playing your guitar. Is this final? No, because guitarists are strange animals, hunting for THAT sound forever (which, in my opinion; is a tube amp, but compromising on options, weight and adding a budget for tubes).
End of story. A happy new year to all of you.