Hurray, the QC arrived, but

Yeah… between the sub-par feedback I’m reading, and the terrible roll out of the product, I’m sadly cancelling my Sweetwater order of the QC.

I was excited about it, but my hype has been snuffed.

Furthermore, they just posted that they’re no longer accepting USD? Odd.

I wonder how many other companies had perfect rollouts during the restrictions of a pandemic. And Line 6 Helix also was delayed. Even a last second delay to patch the firmware. The not taking US Dollars is not unusual. It’s probably the exchange rate. I was surprised they ever did. Just use PayPal. It converts and calculates he rates. How many other countries accept US dollars. As someone who traveled constantly when younger you always got suspicious when a business overseas accepted US dollars.

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The one other thing I should add here is just an observation. I don’t necessarily think the original poster was trolling and it’s good to get opinions out there. The only thing I found odd with the post was that it combined almost every complaint that people have made and combined it into one post. It just seems weird that one person had all the issues when most had a complaint about one or the other. Just a little odd. He may just be more experienced with h modeling devices.

Helix, Fractal, Kemper, etc are older but proven. Have fun.

the idea that 8 Scenes is an insufficient number of choices per song is unfathomable to me… here’s a classic rock example that required some nice presets on my ES-8 that I programmed: Long Time by Boston… an awesome lead tone with plenty of FX and some extra EQ… a great rock crunch rhythm tone… and sparkly clean no FX faux acoustic guitar tone… obviously there are better examples of needing various changes per song… but more than 7 or 8? really?

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You can always return it to SW if you see it’s not working for you but to take a few comments as gospel without even trying it?

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I have had nothing subpar in my experience to date. The amps are easy to dial in and the capture works excellent. I’ve compared it with my Axe 3 on various amps as well as amp models versus captures and on amp tones alone it is a winner. There are some things that can be bettered feature wise but I can get to what I need very quickly and it works well. The only unknown is update rollout and customer support. Once the rubber hits the road we will all see about it. As for quality of sound - that is no longer in question for me.

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Thanks for a helpful reply!

Haven’t cancelled the order yet, I’ve already waited this long haha might as well at least see if I like it. If not, the plugins suffice and I’ll go with a Kemper.

I’m loving it so far… there’s a few things that i think suck really bad, but i’m hopeful that they will be fixed in future firmware but all in all, it’s a superb piece of gear and i have no doubt that it will just get better and better…

Makes sense, give it a week or two and if you still don’t like it, you can send it back or resell for a profit. Took me about 4 hours with the unit to decide it was a keeper. There are just some amazing captures in the unit already with a fast growing cloud repository.

Indeed!

I had great fun yesterday Capturing a small selection of my drive pedals laying around. Maybe I should start a dedicated “positive thread” :wink:

If you are curious, I have uploaded some of them to the open cloud. Feel free to test and comment. Much more to come, but it may take a while, since worklife reality kicks in tomorrow.

Anyway, a keeper for me although essentially all my concerns unfortunately still persist.

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About the huge static noise when turning QC off, it turns out that
I have a grounding issue. I’ve connected the XLR outs to Zoom R24 XLR ins.
.The level of ground noise ( when QC is off ) is
the worst when QC is connected to Mac via USB while the mixer’s USB is not.

When both USB’s are connected there is no noise, when both are not connected, there is
some noise, but not that much .

Hi himself! Did you manage to profile Rockman? I haven’t got my QC yet, but I definitely want to have a nice Rockman lead there! :grinning:

A Rockman would be cool

I’ve never noticed any hum or other noise when turning the unit off, does this supposedly come out of the main XLR outs 1/2?

on your point: First of all, I noticed that it is generally voiced somewhat darker and with less presence than I’m used to. I double checked with other monitors and headphones and it remained my conclusion. I guess it is a small thing which can be eq’ed out, just thought I’d mention it, because the tone felt more 2D and distant than I was anticipating. I was expecting more “sparkle” and 3D feel right out of the box.

I must say i agree with this 100%, its the first thing i noticed coming from my AX8. So many of the heavy tones sound dark, dull and digital. I literally have spent hours trying to beat or closely match my favourite heavy tone and it’s been very hard to simply eq out. I’ve noticed all the stock amp presets are initially really thin and dark and the controls beyond the basic eq are not detailed enough to rectify within amp or capture blocks. My best success has come by using third-party captures, my own IRs and by placing a para eq at end of my chain to boost certain frequencies that i feel are lacking.

Anyone claiming the modeling is dark in the QC is deaf.

If anything it is significantly brighter than other modelers. I have Helix, Axe III, Axe II, Atomic, virtually all the plugins, a bunch of tube gear, literally just about any digital gear worth owning and some examples of amps that are modeled and the QC is easily one of the more overly bright sounding units out of the box I have heard. It was literally my first impression on playing it, that it was the first device I ever wanted to immediately go and search out how to high cut it.

I have tamed it some in my presets after messing with the mic positions and para EQ. I am a presence/treble fiend so I cannot imagine how bad anyone’s monitors would have to be to think this thing is dark sounding out of the box on first listen. LOL. The tendency toward brightness has been noted by others in the TGP owner thread, too.

For switching, any unit that supports a complicated signal chain cannot switch instantly. The Axe III lags on switches too and it is more powerful than the QC in terms of the hardware. Helix does as well. That is the entire point of Scenes/snapshots. So it is totally par for the course.

The Amplifire can switch between presets quickly because it has virtually no routing available in the signal chain. Only dirt simple processors that don’t support complex chains can do that… It’s one upside to not having all that routing and I/O complexity… The higher end units that support anything you can think of chains and gobs of mix and match inputs and outputs have a different use model. You may like or dislike it, but it is hardly a deficiency of the quad Cortex and anyone who has used a Helix or AxeFx class device will probably have already been used to this idea. This unit has enough horse power that it is not going to be a problem once you get used to it because it has a bunch of DSP. (I do wish it had channels like the Axe though).

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Hi BigRalphN and Tommi,

Yes, I did a few captures of the grey button Ultimatum I have and although I was reasonably happy with the result when I did it, I am however sure I can do much better ones now where I have a little more experience. The UDGs were my very first captures. In any event, I actually have a further (blue button) Ultimatum and other Rockman gear, so I intend to follow up when I get time.

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Hi Cataclysm,

Well, the (potential) ground loop problem will depend on the entire installation, so you might not encounter it. And now I know the reason, I am chosing not to make an issue out of it. It just surprised me, since I never experienced it with any of my other devices.

As for sound, it is of course subjective. The reason I raised the topic was to share my experience and see if I would be the only one experiencing this, which could be an indication that either something would be wrong with me (which has been implied, possibly rightfully :wink: or maybe something could be wrong with my unit or the way I use it.

Be it as it may, I have decided to give it a positive spin. I will make it work for me for sure.

And hi Elric,
Really interesting that your experience is so different to mine. I am not quite deaf yet, albeit after roughly 40y of rocking and too much stress in the daytime job my tinnitus is beginning to bug me (which normally makes me oversensitive to trebly sounds). Anyway, I certainly don’t rule out that my perception is biased somehow (see above), but I seem to have similar reference points/devices as you and obviously tried with various monitors and headphones.

Anyway, as mentioned above, I have decided to focus on the postive. Simply wanted to share. That also goes for the technical reality i.a. concerning the gap/spill topic, where I accept my expectations were too high. I was simply dazzled by the praise on the unit’s power and forgot to compare the actual specs and do a reality check. In reality, I will make it work with scenes where it matters and maybe we get channels too, who knows.

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I have had zero complaints with the tones. Even on simple chains (amp, cab, reverb, delay) it sounds beautiful and dynamic. When you start splitting your signal and running stereo rigs it really comes to life. The added ability to swap out for some third party IR’s adds to versatility too. I honestly think, if it sounds bad, it’s user error. The same as the plugins. You get out what you put in. So instead of focusing on the negatives or having your high expectations in the way. Just enjoy what’s in front of you. Spend time creating tones and trying different things.

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No worries @himself there’s a lot of subjective stuff and not trying to invalidate your perception it is totally valid and fair for everyone to share what they are experiencing; like you say it is pretty interesting how different perceptions can be, though! Hope you find the sounds you are seeking.

FWIW, I have been around the block a few times with the digital gear and I really feel this is a great unit for a 1.0 digital device… if Neural can get some updates out and continue to evolve it and fill in some of the gaps, it may end up being the ultimate piece of gear for some of us! :slight_smile:

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