I’m playing in a cover band that goes through a pretty wide range of tones and I’m trying to figure out the most practical way to set up my Quad Cortex for live shows.
For context, we cover artists like:
Guns n Roses, Bon Jovi, Ed Sheeran, U2, The Killers, Pearl Jam, Prince, Toto, Whitesnake, RHCP, Radiohead, Skid Row, Linkin Park, REM, John Mayer, SRV, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Rammstein and a bunch more.
For those of you playing similar sets, what’s been the best approach on the QC?
Do you run a single preset with scenes for clean, crunch, high gain, solo, etc?
Or do you build different presets per song or per style?
What amps/cabs seem to work best across a big mix of genres?
Any tricks?
If you’re up for it, feel free to share your presets from the Cortex cloud or wherever.
Looking forward to seeing how others approach this in a live cover band setting.
And since you asked for a very versatile amp, I can cover a wide range of sounds with Plini X, one of the most versatile. From the stock models, I like the SLO100 a lot. And the new Dumble.
Can you share what you are using for your wireless MIDI setup? I assume there is a specific app on the iPad and a device connected to the MIDI input of the QC?
I don’t use an iPad, but if you’re interested, I use the Liminite graviton midi with wireless controllers. Super cool, small and modular. I love the mini remotes. I stick mine on cheap money clips and then clip to my guitar strap so I can move them.
I have the M1, XY controller (10 buttons) and EC controller (2 buttons and 2 expression knobs).
I’m not in a top 40 cover band, but in a whitesnake tribute band.
We’re playing around 2.5 hrs / set and include songs from every era so there some differences i need to achieve.
To reduce the risk of accidentaly choosing a wrong preset after a song, i created “one who rules them all”
Basically it consists only the EVH5150 model because i find it quite versatile (quite good low gain performance and also great Sykes like leads) i might migrate to multiple presets in the future to get more out of the QC but for now it’s a quite good approach having 1 Preset and 8 scenes.
@Andyjcp i need to get more into Midi changes. Where do you put the ipad? Somewhere in the back or right in front of you?
I also sing for some songs, so I have it on my mic stand. I try to not look at it during the song (hate it when I watch a band looking into their Ipads all the time), but I need the setlist somewhere anyhow and an occasional reminder of the lyrics:-D
I use a different preset for every song, making use of Scenes where necessary within each preset.
To avoid and tap-dancing issues, I use Stage Traxx 3 on my iPad for backing tracks, which also transmits MIDI to the QC (I have a WIDI Master dongle in the back of the QC) so absolutely everything on the QC is automated, I literally don’t have to touch a single footswitch on the QC at all.
I have played a bit with my QC and what stands out is that the only way to have fast sound changes is using scenes → this dictated my model:
I created about 6 presets that cover my needs in My presets bank 1
From bank 5 : I have 1 preset per song and I use up to the 10 scenes (For each new song, I usually start by copying the closest preset and then I tweak/modify the 10 scenes to suit).
My expression 1 is almost always the wah, expression 2 is mapped to my input volume for now (Once they implement CC7 for global volume control, I’ll use it for other stuff)
There are plenty of Banks and today I have about 60 songs and plenty of space to go.
I use our backing track player to change presets for each song and scenes within the songs (One band, backing tracks are driven by an instance of Logic, the other, we use an Idoru P-1).
Amps and cabs : I have modelled the stuff Ilve been using since the early 90’s Output amp stereo Mesa/Boogie Simuls Class 295 with 4*12 Mesa Rectifier cabs. I also modelled my Overdrive (Rodenberg SL-OD each channel) and use either a Bogner or a JCM800 (which I still have the originals). I am generally having a second line with a few blocks for clean sound in parallel to the amp to get that clean attack and nice drive with harmonically complex chords (I used to do that more or less natively with my TC Nova Drive distorsion pedals in my TC G-System setups before the QC).
I’m in cover band too, and if you don’t want to piss sound guy off, just create one preset, you have 8 scenes there, so plenty of room there to set it up
Same amp and same cabinet, this is critical for the sound guy, If there is so many changes in eq.. lathe mix will not be consistent and therefore you volume will go up and down.
What I do is to have different gain for different parts and songs. To program with that master patch different patches with effects and delay tempos, that’s it.
Nobody will thank you for getting the same sound that the original record had. The crowd simply do not care. So.. easy your life and simplify.
For me, the biggest problem with having many presets with different amplifiers, cabs, etc., is that it’s very difficult to manage the volume differences. How can everything be normalized so that the person at the mixing board doesn’t go crazy or completely ignore me?
I always try to get similar output levels on all presets and scenes. Except for the lead scenes that need to be louder, of course.
So when I am finished making a new preset, I long-click on the output block, strum my guitar with one hand and adjust the gain with another. I use -12dB as target but that’s up to you of course.
Normalization is a tricky topic. Sounds can technically be the same volume across between presets or even between scenes within the same preset. But that doesn’t always translate the same way at gig volume. EQ differences can make one preset feel louder or quieter than another.
Try to test your presets at gig volumes to get a feel for how the perceived volume level changes across presets, and when switching guitars.
That said, I am more of a one preset for the whole gig kind of guy, but I do try to aim for a target of -12 dB (just like @Andyjcp) across presets I make up at home.
I have a base preset, and just do adjustments for the specific song (mostly effects, to save CPU and avoid too much tap dancing between scenes), exactly to avoid having issues with volume levels and EQ.
The FOH will hate you if you have radically different presets for each song…
I use one preset most of the time and only use song based presets for something very unusual. The reason is I’m trying to cover the songs, not be a human playback machine. So I might play the songs a little different every time, different leads, different tones, etc.
I Like the look of these pedals. The quad pedals are soooo cramped and the midi is difficult to use the opposite way round in my rig (with my bigger pedals controlling the Quad via Mainstage).
They have nothing in stock however!!!
I’ll keep my eye on them. Thanks for sharing!
I only use one or two captures depending on the song. In hybrid mode I have the top row is songs and the bottom is pedals I can bring in or out depending what I need. There’s a lot of off the cuff playing in the covers band, so i need to be as flexable as possible.
In my original band I use scenes which are set up for each part of a song and midi’d up to my computer to change my guitar synth sounds. Way more complex and a pain because I have big feet and have to do all the switching on the Quad!
