Ever since the latest major updates, panning isn’t acting the way it should when monitoring through the headphone output.
Example: I downloaded Rabea Afro’s “EPIC SC ROCK RIG” pretty early on and was SUPER impressed by how wide & BIG the preset sounded. However, after the update, the patch basically sounds like it’s running both amp setups right down the middle in spite of the fact that the two amp setups he made are routed to two different outputs (I had a screenshot below, but evidently it’s not showing up here).
Both rows use Input 1; Row 1 routes directly to Output 1, and Row 3 routes directly to Output 2, but as I mentioned above they’re both right in the center instead of one being on the left and the other being on the right. When I turn the output volume down on either of the output blocks, the overall volume decreases instead of just one side of the headphones turning down independently of the other.
Interestingly enough, each row still allows for stereo effects to behave in stereo as expected, i.e. ping pong delays and reverbs. Additionally, I can compensate for the unexpected imaging by either panning the cabinets in each setup (Row 1 to the left, Row 2 to the right) or by similarly adjusting the panning in the splitter mixer in each setup to appropriately place the audio signals where they should be. However, this is an extra step that wasn’t necessary to get that super wide tone before the recent updates. The issue is also showing up in presets I built myself where I went with a similar one-amp-on-each-side setup either directly to the outputs or using a splitter-mixer setup with panning to taste, and I’ve had to further modify my presets to get them to sound right.
I haven’t yet tried auditioning the setup through outputs other than the headphone output due to the number of shows I’m having to learn & prep for right now, but I do plan on checking that so I know what to expect when I get to my upcoming venues.
Just tested the preset myself. I can’t speak to your previous experience, but it’s behaving as expected. So the OS has nothing to do with your experience.
It’s essentially two identical paths: a single amp going through two cabs (both center-panned in each speaker in the cab and center-panned in the splitter mixer) and then going through stereo delay and stereo reverb. One path goes to Out 1, the other goes to Out 2. So this would only sound “huge” if you were playing stereo output 1 to some system and stereo output 2 to some other system.
I don’t know what to tell you, my dude. It’s behaving and sounding exactly as I’d expect.
Cool preset, though - reminds me of my Mesa Mark IV (actual tube amp) Rhy II channel.
You could always put a block that allows you to pan hard left and right at the end of each path and set both outputs to multi.
But yeah, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the preset or anything wonky going on with the OS.
Thanks, Bunny. My biggest question mark is coming from the fact that before the latest update it had that “wide” sound by default, but then after the update it doesn’t. While your point about the outputs being routed and panned accordingly makes total sense, it’s still very odd to me that the preset “changed”. I’ll probably just keep taking the steps to do my panning accordingly.
Strange. Did you try to switch on / off the ‘Latency Compensation’ setting in the QC menu ?
Perhaps they tweaked the latency comp algo and it changed the way this specific preset sounds ? (ie: before one output was slighly out of phase compared to the other , creating a ‘faux doubler’ ? Now they might be perfectly aligned, so the preset is ‘centered’ in the sound stage …)
Can’t say I did. When I first got the QC, I went thoroughly through the manual and all the settings, and I haven’t gone back to the Latency Compensation menu item since then.
Nope, didn’t do that. I did check that setting, and it was already properly set. I did send a support request to Neural about it but haven’t heard back yet.