I’ve had the QC about six months now. Oddly enough I have mainly used it for acoustic gigs with mandolin and acoustic guitar. I’ve been using the Helix for over nine years in church and the occasional cover band show. A friend asked me to sit in with his country rock group last night covering for his lead guitarist. On this show I played electric guitar and mandolin on a couple tunes. Until a few days ago I was planning to use the Helix, but I just couldn’t get the mandolin sounding like I wanted. Why not try the QC? I did and was totally pleased. For no more tweaking than I did I thought it sounded amazing. I ran it to FOH and used a Line 6 Catalyst for stage volume. Couldn’t have been more pleased. I have couple questions.
I ran XLR mono out to FOH and 1/4” out to my amp. Is there a way to have different I/O settings per preset? The sound guy helped me out with the difference in levels between electric and mandolin. I had them close but individual some I/O tweaks would be nice. Next time I’ll at least using the second input for mandolin.
I’ve read comments about button spacing on the QC, yeah it’s a thing. I had a couple panic moments accidentally changing modes while trying to tap tempo. Any tips to share? Anyone thoughts on using an external midi device for tap, scene preset changes?
I’ll spend more time on home vs live sound tweaks but man what a start, at least for this type setting. Helix has the church gig covered with all the effects available. I would love to see Neural expand in those categories. I’ve not delved into plugins, maybe I’ll get over the thought of having to spend hundreds more than the original purchase. Another vote for the Helix system.
I’m a recent QC player, am using it live. There are a number of different ways to do things, but a few thoughts:
branch the output (in your case, likely after the amp, before the cab). Put an eq (or a vol block) at the end of each chain, that allows you to set different volumes to XLR and 1/4 as well as apply some eq (and will be per-preset). You’d send the branch with the cab to FOH, the one that branches before to the Catalyst.
I find the tap to be fine as it is at the low corner. I do use a 3-button midi box to toggle Gig mode (absolute must for me), use it to get to the tuner (so I only use the tap tempo button on the QC for tap tempo), and turn on the looper screen (gig button goes back to gig view).
I find it a great live tool - easier/quicker to get a good sound than other modelers I’ve used, quick to make patches and make changes on the fly, and small size.
Thanks nostatic! I’ll give the branched output a try, sounds great. I have my QC on a 20” pedalboard that includes two Dunlop mini expression pedals, tuner and a slot for a StringVelocity Monocle I’ve ordered for toggling preset, scene and stomp view. It’s a little cramped but I think I can rearrange some to allow more space at the tap button,
I’m encouraged by this first electric outing. Thanks for your input!
Everyone has slightly different ways of setting things up. So far these are the things that work for me:
The gig button is key for me - I really don’t need to switch modes as I stay in hybrid almost all the time.
Presets with 4 scenes (usually clean, edge of breakup, crunch, boost), delay and reverb always on but mix and repeats on a single EP, then 3 fx (plus wah, switchable by moving the second EQ).
Hybrid mode with 4 scenes on the bottom, 4 fx on the top. The 4 fx switches are whatever fx are in that preset on/off, with there 4th usually being a post everything eq for a vol boost.
With that I find I can cover most all of my needs with a handful of presets. Then I duplicate those and branch them so I can run different levels (and with/without amp/cab) to 1/2 vs 3/4.
Then I have a couple of “fx only” presets for running into the front of an amp.
Then I have an acoustic preset, same layout as above, but I run guitar or dobro into input 1, vocal mic into input 2 and have two lanes. I can combine them into a common output, or route them separate if I”m going into different channels on an amp or PA.