Considering a Nano for gigs

Nano Cortex
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I’m considering buying a Nano for gigs. For cost and convenience, I hope to avoid purchasing a MIDI controller.

  1. How would I switch presets in a live setting? My understanding is that I presave 4 sounds. The rotary footswitches would let me toggle between two of the presets. If I press the “Bank” button, then the rotary footswitches would toggle between the other two other presets. Is that correct?
  2. For you, does the Nano have enough hardware functionality (buttons) for gigging?
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That’s why I bought a airstep cortex . It also has an external Bluetooth aerial on it presetup up

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I understand. To be candid, I’m trying to decide between a competitor device that has more buttons and the Nano with a Midi controller, which is more expensive. I have no plans of using Capture.

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I don’t recommend it Live, you need to adjust specific parameters, you can lose your Bluetooth connection, and it can freeze with a MIDI device. You should know that it sounds great at home or in the studio, but for live performance, you need more than that.

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Helpful. Thanks

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I played many gigs with the Nano and a midi board last year. I had zero problems with it, so it’s definitely a valid option for playing gigs

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Well, it looks like your question got lost in translation :slight_smile:

As of now, Nano offers four positions for footswitches.

Left Footswitch: IA ↔ IB
Right Footswitch: IIA ↔ IIB

So, if you leave your left footswitch setting on IB and you move to right switch and click IIA, when you press left footswitch again you go to IB where you left it. So it takes getting used to.

I personally use MWave Chocolate Plus MIDI controller. Straight into Nano’s EXP/MIDI input.
There is also an option to use it thru USB-C input of Nano which leaves Expression input free. But then again you have to power MWave Chocolate separately then. If you use the EXP/MIDI input option, you can use MWave Chocolate Plus’s battery for power which is more than enough for gigs.

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Thank you for the answer. That actually sounds like a very good solution.

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Welcome to the community! I’ve posted on my use of the NC for live previously. In response to your questions:

  1. Check out the user manual, specifically the subheading ‘Switching and Saving Presets’. I use all 4 settings live, and do not feel hindered. As others have mentioned, an exterior MIDI switch such as the M-Wave Chocolate is certainly a route to go down if you really want more than 4. For me, I look at it in the perspective of what I’m doing for the gig, and I can happily get by with a clean tone, an edge-of-breakup tone, a rhythm tone, and a solo tone. Now that a tap tempo is endemic to the unit, I have RARELY needed anything extra… which if you do need that little extra something, then just chucking the pedal you need for the sound you want into your gigbag works like a charm. For example: I needed a poly-octave sound that only the MicroPog could accomplish since that was used on the recorded part… so into the bag it went, and I was off to the races. Guitar > Nano > Pog > everyone’s ears. That was the exception, though. 4 core sounds is plenty, but this is of course subjective to the user.
  2. Expect to spend a good weekend diving into the sounds available — the unit comes stock with great amps, speakers, and FX for a wide breadth of choices, but if you have a specific amp or cab in mind, then Cortex Cloud is your friend if you don’t want to leverage the capturing functionality. It took me no less (and also no more!) than two gigs to dial in the NC to my tastes. Bear in mind that I do spend quality time with the unit prepping the presets; I have a silly internal philosophy that the only tweaks to be done live are levels/EQ — and not core sounds. Which why I value preparation as much as I do. That leads me to a decent point for my application: I get my level/EQ for each preset as close to ideal as possible, then rely on the onboard EQ bass/mid/treb knobs to do any tiny tweaks for the room. Playing in a band is a team sport, so I have more than enough at my disposal to support everyone (and have a few flashy moment, too!)

There’s also nothing wrong with mentioning you’re looking at another competitor’s product: a lot of us here have experience (and even own) all kinds of units, so if you’re thinking of getting an FM3, or a TONEX, or whatever it may be — we’re all gear lovers here :slight_smile: Whatever you like, you like, and you’re right! Hope this helps @musefan26rock

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I think if you are using the NC live, you probably aren’t tweaking a bunch if any. If you need to adjust capture levels or various related parameters, the on-board dials will work without issues. I’ve never had the NC freeze using the M-VAVE midi controller as well as an older Yamaha controller. Luckily I haven’t had any BT disconnects to date which seems to be a rare bug.

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Mostly covered here. Tl;Dr if you expect this to be a smaller quad cortex, that’s what the QC mini is for.

If you expect this to be an amp in the box with a few add on touches to keep it sounding right, you’ll be very happy.

at home uses are quite more expansive but because of the workflow and limited interface - for gigging, treat it like an amp in the box pedal and it will do more than fine. Want to create shoegaze sound baths with the nano cortex as the all-in-one - other devices can do it better

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I exclusively use the Nano live. Nothing else. Typically 45 to 1 hour sets. I see no reason behind how you couldn’t get the job done between 4 presets, So to answer question 2 - yes it has enough. For my scenario at least.

For example on the foot switches, you’d just tap twice on the left foot switch to toggle between 2 presets. Then the same for the right foot switch

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This was extremely helpful. Thank you. Suppose I don’t get a FRFR, and instead use the Nano as effects only for live performance (I’d also use the Nano to record). Would the Nano be a quality device as effects/only? Or would I be better off getting an effects-only device?

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Thank you. I’m trying to understand why you mean by, “for gigging, treat it like an amp in the box pedal”. Do you mean that you would only use the Nano vs. other options if you’re plugging directly into the mixer?

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You also don’t need an FRFR speaker if you don’t want. I have two methods: I primarily use a Taurus FR210.V2 for this purpose (https://www.taurusamps.pl/fr-210), but in the event you want a traditional passive cab you will need a power amp to drive it: I use a Seymour Duncan PowerStage 170 with my Sommatone Roaring 40, a 1x12 open-back cabinet, and then disable to cab on the Nano, since I’m using an actual cab IRL. Otherwise, there’s no problem sending the Nano’s signal to front-of-house :slight_smile:

I think the great advantage of the Nano is that, as mentioned, it’s an “amp-in-the-box” solution, meaning that you can have an entire rig localized in one place: imagine the amplifier, and speaker cab, and your effects pedalboard all living within this little box, so to speak. Using it as effects only is certainly one approach, but it wouldn’t be utilizing the full scope of what the NC is intended for. So it might not be the best move, since it shines in offering great amp tones along with common effects such as compression, delay, reverb, chorus, etcetera. This is subjective, though! The Nano has a fixed audio chain (the ‘Effects’ tab in the manual breaks this down for you). So say for example that you wanted an effect like a wah, which is intended to work in the pre-effects slot, but you like it later in the chain as a post-effect block… you’re handcuffed to its assignment in the fixed audio chain. And while the device list for amps, IRs, and effects is extensive, I would do significant research into the device list to see if all that’s offered covers your bases. Here’s the list if you don’t know where to search (things are pretty easy to find on this site through the search option: Nano Cortex device list - Neural DSP

Last but not least, if you want to use the Nano for recording: it’s wonderful for that as a USB-C interface. It lives on my desktop for such a reason. Plug in the USB and you’ve got a killer interface ready to go — plug-and-play on an Apple ecosystem, and if you’re a Windows user you just need to download Neural’s ASIO driver from their website. Hope this is helpful in making your decision.

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Extremely helpful. Thank you, Keith. To be honest, I’m leaning towards a different setup because I’m playing small places where there won’t be an opportunity to plug a Nano into a mixer. I understand from your response that the limitation regarding fixed audio chain, which makes me think something else would be ideal for effects-only. I’ll probably invest instead in Neural DSP DAW plgins. Thank you again, Keith, for your remarkably helpful responses. I also appreciate the device list. I’m not familiar with most of the devices on it, but I’ll work on solving that.

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I would only use the nano as a v2 capture player live.

Any blocks it has for other effects I’ve found limiting in how you can control them or understand their state while playing without a phone open (that disconnects after some time and requires a NC reboot) as your heads up display.

Toggling blocks with midi works but if you also change presets the state of the toggle loses sync.

it’s hard to put into words the idiosyncrasies of the device but there are many. As a result for live use, I use it as a v2 player part of a bigger board. If at home these idiosyncrasies matter much less.

i hope this helps. V2 captures are awesome so as a v2 capture player only, it’s still a fun piece of kit.

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I use it live for complete chain. True, the strongest point of the Nano are amp captures, but the effects it has, even not being a huge amount of them, are actually very good sounding. I´d even say they are great. I like them much more than Helix ones.

So yes, you can use the Nano just for effects, and it´ll sound great. But you must consider the limitations it has (signal chain semi-fixed, not an inmense quantity of them, etc), and decide if they are deal breakers for your case.

As I need to access a lot of presets, I use a 10-switch midi controller. But if I needed just 4 presets (clean, chorus, OD and lead, for instance), I could perfectly use it alone.

Such a great little unit. They still need to polish some issues, and then it´d be perfect for certain use cases.

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I use it live as well. Analog Delay and reverbs are good.
I also use tremolo. Chocolate Plus controller is small and very capable.
It is very small and quite capable.

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I’m not sure I understand. I think you’re saying the Nano is useful for when you’ve captured other pedals and you want to play them live without bringing those pedals. I assume the Nano presets would be great too. You’re just saying that the Nano’s not suited for tweaking sounds live, correct?