Guitar volume knobs on passive pickups react too much when using qc

CorOS Version: latest version

So I seem to have an issue I don’t see anyone else seeming to have. One thing I have noticed when using my qc is that if I ever touch the guitar volume knob the input drastically dives. For instance the difference between 10 and 9 is very drastic. Similar as to if I had the knob set to 5 on other modelers or amps.

I have tried adjusting my input levels thinking I may just be feeding too weak of a signal into the model but I seem to get no difference. If I boost the in level to where I just start to barely get into the red I have the same results as if I left the input gain at default.
When I raise the input gain to be able to touch the red on any passive pickup guitar I have I have to add almost 16 db. Is this normal?

I have noticed on active pickups I have a much more natural volume knob reaction versus the passive guitars.

Any help or tips would be appreciated!

Try altering the input impedance on the main audio routing menu.
I think decreasing the impedance should do what you are expecting, but I would experiment with different values. The flipside is that as you turn it down, your guitar will sound ‘darker’, so don’t go too far.

Your volume knob response will also be affected by the amount of gain/distortion or compression in your signal chain. A super-clean preset or an amp like an older solid state unit will be extra responsive to your volume knob while a high gain or compressed one will get cleaner but you won’t hear a lot of volume change until your volume knob is dialed way back. I apologize for the verbiage if you already knew this.

Update: so I ended up finding out what was causing the issues. After running a bunch of different guitars and patches and everything it ended up being all of my guitar cables. Once I replaced the guitar cables with really high quality ones everything changed. Now I can have the input boosted at 2 db instead of 16 and the volume knobs on all guitars work as expected. So apparently the QC seems to be sensitive to impedance in instrument cables because with the same cables my Headrush units work just fine.

Thanks all for the advice!

2 Likes

Wow, that’s crazy for there to be that much difference in those cables. It’s not surprising that your Headrush processors behave differently. I’ve found my Gigboard to be way less sensitive to touch and volume. Most people would consider the QC to be much more “amp-like” in that respect. Glad you found your answer.

Thanks for the update and glad a new cable resolved your issue.