Hovering.. QC edge-of-breakup improvement on Atomic Amplifire?

Quad Cortex
1

Hi, most of the QC threads seem to be about 24-string bearded-Scandinavian Uber-hi-gain merchants (ooooooh! Ha ha) I’m mainly interested in what QC can do in the ‘edge of breakup’ region. I have an Atomic Amplifire 12 which is great at crunch and crazy but not great at clean and clipped

When I revert back to my Mesa clean channel I realise what I’m missing; it’s that sound that fills the room and that feeling under the fingers when you dig into the note and get a bit of turbo - so … two questions:-

  1. Is there anyone out there who can vouch for the QC’s ‘edge of breakup’ capability?

  2. Also it would be a bonus if there’s anyone out there who has actually upgraded from Atomic to QC… was it worth paying double, and why?

Thanks all :slight_smile:

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I don’t have my QC yet, but this is definitely one of the features that a lot of the YouTube reviewers were commenting on, how the edge of breakup tones seemed to be a lot more organic than the Axe-FX or Kemper

I think it’s this video, where Andertons talks about that;

I could be mistaken, haven’t combed through the whole video again

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I have a Firebox, AA3, and AA12. Biggest difference I noticed in the amp modeling is more “chime” on clean and edge-of-breakup sounds. I wouldn’t say that it’s night and day, though. To me, the greater value difference is in the amp/capture selection, routing, UI, and overall power,.

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Thanks, Yep, I suspected as much, I couldn’t get much improvement over Studio Devil tones in the Kemper for what I needed, ditto dspn plug-ins … that elusive edge of break up must be the hardest to model, too subtle perhaps

No doubt about the improvement in terms of flexibility IO UI et al and that certainly has an added value.

5

I have had an AA6 as my main live tool since it came out. Tier 2 QC. Had it fir a few weeks.

My first day experience with QC was disappointed that it didn’t crush the AA on amp models. It was better, but not night and day. Hats off to Atomic.

Then, I started to make Captures of my own tube amps. The edge of breakup on my own Caps are frankly amazing. I just need to remind myself that the sound isn’t amp in the room, but what is translated by mic and PA. It is a great sound.

The delays and reverbs on the QC are on par with Eventide for quality of frequency response and clarity. My hope is that NDSP will fill out their delay and verb flavors and allow side chain processing on their delays.
I have had some success with Capturing my Eventide H9’s basic sonic flavor on delays (100% mix, 0ms, 0 feedback) and then use that Cap AFTER a digital delay. Gets you 70% there but misses the continued change in tone that happens when the feedback loop is processed.

So, for me the price difference is worth it.

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I’ve had the QC since it arrived in the US and immediately Captured some amps via an UAD OX box (speaker/cab/mic sims) and the Captures are amazing, nothing comes close in the modeler world for edge of breakup. Direct Captures with QC’s cabs are also outstanding.

The Captures are so good I haven’t spent time with QC’s amps, but some day I’ll check out QC’s amps and will post my impressions.

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The QC does edge of breakup beautifully. The great thing about it is the dynamic range. Roll off the volume and the QC reacts just as an amp would. It’s really great

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