Hi folks. I’ll keep it short. New user, new questions.
1 - Do previous pedal board people end up keeping their go to wah or replacing with expression pedal? For those that have done both, better/same/not as good?
2 - Do you use a real or virtual boost pedal? Asking cuz I use my MXR Boost + A LOT just for minor tweaking.
3- Do you feel like you need to retain a lot of your physical pedals? I LOVE my pedalboard. I don’t know how to mentally make this change
4 - I just bought a Nano like 5 months ago. For users that had/have both, if you had Nano first, did you end up finding you liked that better with your real pedal board vs. moving everything to the QC?
5 - Is it a waste of time for me to go through the process of doing amp captures given the availability of others. Basically asking if there is any way doing my own captures is going to be better than what is provided from more seasoned users. Thanks.
I’ll start! On point one: lose the pedals and dive in … get an expression (or two) … it’s a jump from pedalboards but so worth it. You have so much flexibility in routing, so many captures to play with and the expression pedals can control any element of any block, the implications of this don’t really sink in until you play with it for a while, check out some of the wilder concepts in other users presets. I’ll let someone else chime in about the rest, but as for me, I love the flexibility of digital workflow you can do things you never could with a pedal board.
2 -
I bought an Earthquaker Devices Special Cranker for the purpose of using it as a boost in front of the QC, but I found that I was happy using the overdrive blocks that are already there. Captures aren’t really my thing either; the stock models are great.
3 -
I still use a lot of pedals with my QC. Mostly modulations and a couple of Boss delays. My take on it is that, it’s worth it to keep external pedals if they have sounds or functions the QC doesn’t have. Also, all of them are readily available no matter what preset I’m building or working with–I don’t have to load a bunch of modulations in the grid.
Imo it is absolutely NOT a waste of time, if, it gets you where you want to be tone-wise. I categorically prefer captures to models, mostly because 95% of the time, captures are self-generated. IR’s make a huge difference too.
I would try the models first before captures. I’ve never really cared for the captures much, and the models are much more flexible to adjustments instead of a capture some random person made. I’ve made some captures of pedals, but every time I’ve shot out captures I’ve found or made to models, I prefer a model
Hey there. Thanks for the post. You’r board is definitely impressive. For me, I’m really hoping the QC gets rid of most of my stuff when not home if I’m going to use it. Otherwise, for me, I am not really interested. Thank you!
Sounds like there are varying preferences on Captures vs. Models. This is exactly what I thought there would be and what I didn’t want hahaha. Thanks for the info!
It’s really up to you to try them and see. Same thing for guitars, amps, pedals, etc. People can suggest tools for you, but you have to decide what sounds best to you and fits well for your workflow. I have friends who prefer the ease of captures compared to models. But the AC or any modeler is only as complicated or simple as you make it. These modelers are Swiss Army knives, and work in a variety of setups.
The QC has made my live setup much simpler and made it so I don’t need a huge pedalboard. Try the unit and decide what setup on it works for you
Yeah I’m starting this today (hopefully). Gonna be fun I think. I love stuff like this. Follow up to this same discussion…
Would you think captures would be better mic’ing an amp with like a 57 or better to go amp out to my Fryette PS2 then balance line out to capture? I’ve only captured with a nano at this point and only used the PS2 method (not mic’ing) and I was really surprised at how good it was but curious if Ill get more of the way I have the amp sounding if mic’d for capture instead. Curious. Thanks! Really enjoying the responses. Appreciated.
So as I’m digging into the manual and reading online more the last few hours, I’m starting to think I can’t capture the pedals I want. Ideally I’d want to capture all my pedals understanding there are reverb and time based limitations and I get why you can’t do those. However, otherwise it seems like the only thing I can capture are my drives. Is this the case? I’m hoping I’m wrong. Thanks.
try both. I’m firmly in the full-rig capture (amp + cab and even some pedals in front - all in one). To me, these feel most like the real rig, not reassembled components.
But DI’s (amp only) are more flexible for most users. You’ll need to experiment and see which you prefer.
Don’t be afraid to cascade or chain pedals together too. However, as noted, you won’t be capturing any pitch- or time-related fx. Recently the V2 process allows for some compression effect to be captured, but otherwise it’s really gain or eq related signals that can be duplicated. Basically, you’re capturing a snapshot of a tone isolated in time- you can’t get a snapshot of an effect that changes over time (rev, delay, modulation, etc)
Thanks for this. I’m doing this stuff right now actually . Current amp doesn’t have a DI out so going out from Amp to Fryette PS2 Balanced Out to QC. I’m having level issues it says excessive silence. I believe that’s because I have the front Volume knob on the PS2 almost all the way down but the line out level is solid.
I’m wondering what the balance should be for capturing between the front volume on the PS2 and the Line Out knob on the back. I wish they were independent of one another.
EDIT - I figured all of this out. Doing some captures. Yahoo! Trying to find the Line Out sweet spot.
It comes down to personal preference. I came to QC from a fully analog (excluding delay and verb) signal chain and used a combination of QC and external pedals to keep things feeling comfortable. I’ve ended up swapping all my drive pedals out for captures. I initially captured my own amp and ddrive pedals, but there are people out there who do a way better job of the capture process and I ended up moving to 3rd party captures.
The only analog gear in the chain is a Cali76 that I bought after I switched to the QC. I previously ran an Empress compressor at the front, but it is very transparent and the QC (even using captures) wasn’t adding the analog colour I was used to, so I sold the Empress and got the 76. I’m sure with tweaking I could have got there in the box, but I’m familiar with the 76 and also an old man that has spent most of his life playing on analog gear.
The only other gear I’ve kept are my Source Audio Ventris and Nemesis, my expression pedals, and my tuner. I couldn’t quite get the QC delays and verbs dialled in how I want them, so I put my pedals on a send and return loop. I could have probably tweaked for longer and got there, but I also do a lot of mixing in the box and can usually dial in digital emulations pretty quickly but I did struggle to dial in the QC.
I run the tuner on a parallel output so I can run it always on. I was finding it hard to launch the QC tuner, tweak my tuning, and be ready for my next part when I was playing live. I have one of my expression pedals mapped to volume, so I can kill the output quickly and tune then be back playing instantly, or I can tune as I play if I need to. My other expression pedal is mapped to the low pass on an EQ and functions as a global filter.
As I said before, it really depends on the player and I’m sure if I tweaked for long enough and with enough software updates I could get the QC exactly where I want it on its own, but these additions really help me feel comfortable to the point where I don’t really think about what my board is doing as it responds to my playing exactly as I would expect b
I wanted to post this reply so other don’t spend any time on my behalf for my questions. I put about 10-15 hours in last week on my QC. I’ve returned the QC and right back to the Nano and much happier. Here are my reasons:
1. I don’t like I can’t capture all my pedals. If it can’t replace all my pedals exactly or 95% of the way then it’s not for me.
2. I don’t like that I can’t download right to the unit from cortex cloud via searching for new things (wrong?)
3. Switches are too close together - this is something I can’t get past. If it’s going to replace my pedal board it has to be comfortable to use. I would be a lot happier with 2 or 4 switches and more space.
4. V2 capture process takes too long
5. Messing with levels and everything else to get good captures takes me away from actually playing my guitar.
EDIT - Forgot to mention I have a Tone King Royalist Preamp pedal incoming. I think this is far more what I’m looking for.
