Still fairly new to QC and enjoying it so far, though I feel like I have a lot left to learn (about QC specifically and modelers in general). I could use some advice on how to get the most mileage out of clean amps/cabs on the QC for my specific use cases.
In my current amp/pedalboard setup I’ve used to this point, I’m using a Custom '68 Deluxe Reverb with the master volume around 4.5 (I use this rig at my church and I can’t turn up above that without making things harder for the sound man). For gain, my main pedal is a J Rockett Dude with medium gain and a relatively low output level, and I ride the volume knob on my guitar (Ibanez AZ 22) a lot to change the gain saturation. It would probably be useful here also to mention that I play with my fingers a lot, which has an effect on the tone, amount of gain, etc. I also use a wampler ego, tumnus, and dual fusion (yes, I like wampler a lot). At some point I do intend to capture my actual live setup, but before relying on the things I know well, I want to spend some time trying to recreate my rig fairly closely just with the devices available in QC- really just to help me get to know my QC better.
So here are a few questions: any general advice on recreating this setup? I’ve been playing with the deluxe reverb and princeton models on the QC, but I’m finding that even at a low level, they break up sooner than my amp in real life (which I know is a different amp, so that surely contributes). If you have a lot of QC experience and experience with real fender amps, do you find the models to activate gain sooner than live amps? Or is that just a lack of experience with a modeler on my part? I’ll also mention that while I know amps fairly well, I don’t have a diverse knowledge of different cabs. Any suggestions for clean cabs? I’ve been finding some success with the 412 Zila, but would love to have othe recommendations for comparison.
Going a different kind of direction, I’ve really been enjoying the CA John Channel 1 and the Captain 50 as higher headroom clean amps. If you use these amps for cleans, what do you typically do for rhythm and lead sounds- are there particular drive/distortion pedals you find work well with these on the QC? Do you use a completely different amp? On the fender models I’m getting great results pushing with the TS 808, but on these amps with higher headroom I figure I’m looking for a distortion pedal with a different quality… I don’t particularly go for fuzzy or fizzy sounds. I like things to have a lot of note clarity (Santana, Petrucci, Timmons, Vai, etc). Any recommendations for drive devices within the QC that will work well with these higher headroom amps?
for whatever reason, the QC amps do seem to heat up quicker than their real-life counterparts. This used to be a common complaint when it was first released.
Best solution is to lower your input gain, and now we seem to have an easier way to do that per preset with the new input gain level right next to the noise reduction in the Input Block itself. Try lowering that and see if it doesn’t cool down those cleans to a more realistic response.
The Morgan is such a great pedal platform, that’s what it was built for. The Komet Captures are in a similar vein. I find the QC Myth (klon) drive is a great transparent drive that adds a nice color when run at a VERY low level. The Red Drive and Nobel are the other 2 I gravitate to to avoid fizzy OD. Looking for a capture of an OD device you know you like is another good option, there’s SO much stuff out there to weed thru but a lot of it is really good.
I’m only starting to experiment with the Blend device, but I think it’s really going to be a useful tool in the clean tone arsenal too.
Wow thank you! That’s all really really helpful. First, good to know I’m not crazy with the breakup levels thing. And you’ve definitely given me a lot of ideas to go play around with/directions to go. I’ll give that all a try. Thanks again!
In my experience the amp models in the QC tend to push a lot of low end. This is really nice for getting OOMPH when you’re first checking out the amp models, but sometimes you can wind up with unwanted distortion from the amp in the lows and low mids.
Maybe try putting an EQ with a high-pass filter in front of the amp model. Start with something like 75-100 Hz and adjust from there. The amp model itself may make up the difference in the amount of bass it pushes out. It works wonders for me with certain high gain amp models; it could be a great tool for cleans as well.
Compression:
It sounds like you’re “touch sensitive” with your approach to playing, and volume can change a lot depending on what pedals you’re using. Adding a compressor to the very end of your chain–before the signal is sent to FOH–can help “glue” everything together and keep levels in check.
The SSL comp is perfect for this. Try a compression ratio of 2 or 4, and adjust the make-up gain so that it’s roughly in the same ballpark volume-wise as when the compressor block is completely bypassed. (The goal is not to BOOST the signal here.)
Keep in mind that the QC is powerful enough to have multiple amps/cabs in preset; so don’t think because you like the JP2C clean channel, that’s what you have to use as a pedal platform for higher gain stuff by trying to find an OD pedal that goes well in front of it. Go ahead and throw in another higher/medium gain amp and switch with scenes! Maybe go with something like a Matchless or AC20 for the next level of gain
Thank you, that’s a great call on both fronts. I’ll have to mess with the EQ and the end of chain compression a bit. I do love the idea that in a device like the QC I can do some of that mixing/polishing work on the device itself before the signal gets handed over to the board
Thank you, that’s a good point and admittedly, I haven’t tried doing that very much. I guess I had a bit of a worry that the “tone identity” would change too much (if that makes sense) going from one amp on cleans to a totally different one for leads, but to be fair, I haven’t really tried it and I probably should!
definitely explore that! This thing can run 4 separate lanes/signal chains, may as well take advantage of it. Even a quad amped preset is fairly simple to set up and start peeling paint. Only thing to watch for on multi-amp rigs is possible phasing issues.
I’ve seen people use dual amp setups for stereo using a split so that it’s only one instance of pre-amp effects like compressors, drives, etc. For 4 amps, I would assume you’d basically not use any splitters and just put an amp on each separate lane, with each input looking at your guitar and then use a separate instance of each compressor, drive, etc. Is that right? Is there anything to be thoughtful of in terms of not running out of cpu resource doing all that? Or are there any most efficient ways to optimize that?
I’m
Typically not a clean user but I do play clean for a bit and typically move to distortion or overdrive. For fuzz I’m getting what I want out of my amps. I haven’t had my amps that long and former pedal addict so I’m going to use them the most. I do know two really good cleans the fender twin and the jazz chorus on the quad. There’s a lot to answer here. I’ll just list my favorite higher gains. Friedmans for clean, rhythm and lead, Soldano rhythm and lead and blue channelof the evh. Pedals aren’t really needed but I switch them around a lot.
Really weird, but going straight into the input my volume knob was really finnicky and touchy. I placed a fuzz right before and going from guitar > fuzz > QC my volume knob now really cleans up well (with fuzz off)
I have a similar setup IRL (68 custom Princeton with od pedals etc) and have run into similar issues with the QC in terms of early amp breakup. To be fair, i find that real pincetons have a pretty small sweet spot in terms of “clean” headroom, but the qc models do seem to break up easily. I have found, in using the QC, that almost zero of the details middle\settings have what I’m after but with a little bit of tweaking they are amazing. As others have suggested, i would play around with your input gain settings and the amp eq until you get what you’re after. In my experience one of the frustrating things about QC is that it seems you can’t treat the models like real amps --you can’t just use the same settings you would on an actual amp, especially when you start stacking gain stages via OD pedals etc–however, the sounds you’re after ARE in there and are really fun. I found that i just had to detach myself from my expectations of how a model should behave and use my ears instead. You can get incredibly realistic tones, but instead of thinking “i need to set this amp to 4.5” you need to think “i want this amp to be just on the edge of breakup when i dig in” and play around a bit with input, eq, and gain settings. I hope that’s some kind of help.
