At first, I suspected the issue might be with my guitar, but the same noise occurs across different 7-string guitars — both active and passive pickups. I’ve also tried swapping cables, connecting directly via USB to my DAW, and testing various presets, IRs, and amp combinations. Regardless of the setup, the noise consistently appears when palm-muting the 7th string through the Quad Cortex.
This issue has been quite frustrating, especially since I have a live performance in two weeks.I would really appreciate your help in diagnosing or resolving this problem.
P.S. My Quad Cortex is updated to the latest firmware version.
The great news is it isn’t your QC causing this. There’s a few options on what it could be.
-the strings behind the nut are running. You’ll need to dampen them. Super common
-depending on what type of bridge you have, it could be the strings behind the bridge on a tune o matic, or the springs if it has a term. These should be dampened with a price of foam.
-you have too much gain
-use the adaptive gate with side chain
-your action is too low or strings are too thin
-you aren’t properly muting the strings in the end, and may have bad technique. It’s tricky to mute all the strings properly on a 7 string
-you might be pressing on the strings where they’re hitting the pickup
I listened to the sound clip and it sounds exactly like string noise behind the nut. Try wrapping a piece of foam or cloth around them and see if the noise goes away. You can get a fancy FretWrap and place it behind the nut.
As a Floyd Rose user, I can confirm that spring noise is also a thing. If you’ve got trem systems on your guitars, it’s a good idea to put some foam in the rear cavity to cut down on spring vibrations. Floyd Rose also makes a type of coated spring which helps out some.
A quick fix is that you can find the frequency of the noise and attenuate it with an EQ block in the QC, but there’s no guarantee that it will be the same across multiple guitars, and it will affect your overall tone no matter what. I would suggest turning your gain down a bit (in addition to fixing string/spring noises in the guitars).
Can confirm a similar experience to @DiffractionCircuit re: spring noise. Upgraded my old Ibanez S6570Q with FU-tone springs, and it mitigated the issue … but there’s high-density foam like EVA that solves anything in a pinch, tucking a small layer behind the strings to dampen them.
But from that video alone, it really does sound like harmonic content generated by strings hitting metal, let alone the sympathetic reverberations (much like @SelfTitledLP mentioned). My two cents are: if the gig is two weeks away, that’s plenty of time to get a proper set up and to dial back the gain… it sounds like something in your chain is unreasonably hot. Thanks for sharing the private video too, that certainly helps in giving us proper context. Once you find the culprit, let us know
Thank you all for the replies! I’ll try every tip you guys suggested, including working on my palm-mute technique — which is probably the main source of the noise.
The QC support team also replied promptly and mentioned that this is common, since the low 7th string amplifies everything. They suggested increasing the noise gate threshold and adding an EQ to the signal chain — cutting some low-mids around 200–400 Hz can help clean things up, and adding a high-pass filter before the amp block (around 80–100 Hz) will tighten everything up. If it’s still too harsh, they recommended a slight cut around 2–4 kHz. And of course, backing off the gain a bit.
My tuning is Drop A. The sound clip was recorded with an ESP E-II TB7 (27” baritone neck, fixed bridge) using 10–56 strings (factory setup). My other 7-string, an Ibanez RG8527 (25.5” neck, Floyd Rose) with 09–54 strings, produces the same noise.
Once I sort out the noise issue, I’ll share the method that worked for me.
Thank you all again!
