I love my Quad Cortex so much that I wanted to write my experiences with it.
I’ve owned it for nearly one year and gig regularly with it – approximately 50 gigs to-date. My band is a rock covers band and gigs a diverse range of styles and venues. For most venues I run the QC straight into my desk but for a few venues, I feed my Fender Blues Jr which is set on a clean gain.
I am a gear and tone junkie. I never stop trying new gear and tweaking settings BUT after a couple months of owning and performing with the QC and tweaking settings, I’ve hardly changed anything. This is sooo rare for me and speaks of how good it is. I love it’s sound, controls and interface.
All my gain blocks are my own captures. I have mic’d my amps in many settings from super clean to crunch to overdrive to metal. My amps are all valve combo’s and therefore the captures are complete and I don’t need or use speaker impulse responses. And by capturing with the various gain stages, I don’t need to change any gain settings in the blocks that I use in my scenes. After capturing my amps, it is impossible to tell the difference between the real amps and QC produced sounds. THIS ALONE PROVES HOW GOOD THE QC IS AT CLONING AMPS. I have also captured my overdrive and fuzz pedals. These are also damn good but I can’t say they clone perfectly because it’s kind of impossible to A/B them directly after a capture because pedals respond drastically different to different amp inputs compared to a straight capture (which is just from QC to pedal to QC). But the QC does capture them extremely well and with tweaks to the captured EQ, gain and volume in blocks, I can get them to sound pretty much perfect.
There are many ways to use the QC. I use a combo of presets and scenes to cover the diverse range of songs our band performs. At a typical gig we perform songs from clean to metal and fuzz. The clean to metal tones are all my amps captures with no gain pedals in the chain whereas my fuzz tones are my fuzz pedal captures in front of my crunch Marshall capture. And I use QC supplied modulating effects pedals (pitch, compression, phaser, flanger, delay and reverb) along with an expression pedal to alter setting within them. The expression pedal affects only one setting at a time depending on the active preset and scene.
I can honestly say that I often get venue patrons in our breaks asking me “how the heck are you producing those incredible tones without an amp”.
After the OS 2.0 upgrade, I had a couple issues (notably control of the expression pedal) but all were resolved by re-programming the same configuration. It’s like it wasn’t able to perfectly upgrade the previous setting to match the new firmware. Not a big deal and common with firmware upgrades.
The large display and control of everything is soooo easy. I used to own a Line 6 Helix and it was terrible to program onboard. It was ok via a PC interface but this isn’t helpful when wanting to make changes when not in my studio. And I have seen people requesting a QC PC interface but I don’t yearn for it because it’s own interface is so large and easy. And backing up to the cloud via WiFi is also too easy.
I’ve also read so many people whinging about QC communications with this forum but I twice emailed QC support when my unit was new and they responded within a couple hours. I also thought my unit was missing the rubber pads for underneath and QC offered to mail me out new ones. Turns out they were in my box, I just missed them. My bad… LOL.
But that will do… I could go on and on but I’ll leave it here. Thanks for reading.
Thanks for the feedback! That’s awesome that it’s working out so well for you. I’ve had similar experiences and hope that future updates make it even better! 
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
I am also extremely happy with my QC. It just sounds fantastic, I am also mostly using captures but some amp models as well.
I had a Helix for some time and tried an Axe FX and I felt I constantly tweaked something to get a better tone.
With the QC, most of my presets were created in 5 minutes and just sounded good.
Looking forward to new features and improvements, but they are more the cherry on top, nothing I really miss.
I originally thought I would need a desktop editor, but actually since the touchscreen UI is really good and I don’t have to tweak much, I am not even sure I would use it so often.
Hi there
Nice review
Had a hiatus from music for many years and when the joy came back I wanted to get into modelers. The other unit I have, bought used too, is 20 years old this year and it was a good beginner point.
Getting the QC by mail, letting it sit to acclimatize to room temp., plugging it in and all of a sudden I’m sounding like the best in the world. Blew the mind. It has made me so confident in my playing again (though I never rely on sound alone, cause my old band’s drummer whipped us strings through discipline and tightness, taught us the importance🤣).
Being the kinda musician that can hear a certain sound and associate it to the music it stems from, and then mimic that vibe in a groove, this has not changed much, but man does the QC sound “real”.
You are there, in a dusty jazz club in Harlem New York, Pink Floyd on stage and before you know it the next moment you’re with Nolly in Periphery in the studio. Completely absorbed. Not saying you can’t get that vibe with less, but this a different, more real world.
The Cleans are so bright it’s a dream. So clear, so much space you can hear the stars. That was the most important thing for me. Basics first, then toys. Riff sounds good clean, it’s good enough for my Prog Metal (unless of cause you find some craz ping pong stereo, wet dry wet, offset delay that you’d need five hands to replicate in real life).
Had some issues too, a run-in by mutual misunderstandings with support, but Neural thoroughly repaired it, so that’s all in the past. Loving this QC too @almiletic 
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Bless
Thanks for sharing. I am so happy for you that it is working well for you. I play at church most Sundays and my needs are pretty simple. I call the QC my MacBook Pro for guitar! God bless.
Thank you for such a positive review. It’s like you spoke for me. I’ve been using Dr Z amps for years, and I still absolutely love my Z’s, but the qc has been my go to for practice with the band and smaller venues. It’s an incredible device and the effects onboard are perfect for my needs. The user interface is unbeatable. It’s soooo easy to dial in effects, presets etc… I had a fractal fm3 prior to the qc and I HATED having to plug it into my computer every time I wanted to make a preset or change more than one thing. It was so difficulty to make changes on the actual device. I sold it for the qc about 6 months ago and so glad I did. I’m not saying fractal isn’t a great sounding device, but the qc ease of use just wins for me hands down. Plus, the qc is only going to get better and continue to evolve.
Anybody else? What do you love about it?
Why did you get a QC?
What made you choose this particular devise?
Bless 
Love my QC for almost 2 years now! I tried numerous modelers and related gear etc., and settled on QC for the small footprint, touchscreen, phenomenal capturing ability and routing all in one small package. I tried the FM3 then FM9 but the UI was way too cumbersome for me specifically and loved being able to have a signal chain built within seconds so QC for the win and dumped the others. I also liked not having to be tied to a PC to really enjoy my QC. I am looking forward to the editor to be released soon but most likely not as much as others. Cheers!
As a bedroom player I wanted all the gear. Living arrangements have always been the killer of the dream and the price of pedals these days they all add up to what a Quad Cortex costs anyways. I’ve always played into an interface and headphones/monitors, still saving up for a QC.
Hi again
A little correction rephrasing here: It’s not the QC I love, it’s what it can do. Appreciate it however in its creation, its form factor. Not an attachment to/identication with a thing, that will pass eventually, but the appreciation of its wonders right here.
Kinda like seeing a Super eCar (cars not interesting me much BTW); will probably never own or even drive one, but I can appreciate its abilities and beauty. Feel that I’m in the driver’s seat of the QC enjoying the ride as fast as it goes.
Bless
Nearly 2 years and approximately 150 gigs later, my QC hasn’t missed a beat and sounds friggin amazing. It’s so frustrating that inexperienced people (user errors) and people expecting every add-on that they want to be implemented has caused an unjustified negative vibe around the QC. 99% of the negative comments I read on this forum are wrong!
Glad you still like it as a Power User!
I’m with you on that, i don’t play nearly as much shows as you are. But in 2 years the QC didn’t dissappoint me a single time!
I brought the unit because it could do what was implemented 2023 already. Everything else is a bonus for me.
Also i’m the one in my band who’s setup as soon as i get in the room / stage, while the others have to check and adjust stuff for 1 hour minimum 
Additionally i get compliments all the time about my Signal / Sound from FOH and other folks.
Great piece of gear and definitely one of the best things i’ve ever got.
Thanks @aoloso
Also made think to note for you and other readers that I use theQC both ampless and with amps. About 2/3 of my venues are ampless and the rest with amps. I set my amp clean as and then use the QC for all the gain stages and effects. And it is sooo good with an amp. When I first bought the QC I used stomp pedal board with amp gigs but now I don’t bother. Don’t get me wrong, I love a stomp pedal board in front of an amp but the QC does just as good a job, has much smaller foot print (bit of a pun there LOL) and is much easier to control (I still use scenes - not stomp mode).
Which Amp are you using?
I’m at the moment switching between solo QC use and QC+Seymour Duncan PS170 (for some venues).
But I’m thinking of getting a Kraken version 1 and using it the same as you are. Clean+QC for all the gain work
… about half the time and half the gigs but spot on. The QC is a workhorse. I loved it so much, I got the nano for smaller gigs where I don’t really need my full board. I suppose to each, their own… but so far the quad and nano have been exactly what I need.
I’ve had several amps over the years but my 2 main amps now are Marshall JVM 215C (50 watt combo) and Fender Blues Junior (15 watt value combo). The Marshall has the multi gain stages and so was my main gigging amp for over a decade. The cleans are awesome too. I think even better than the Fender. But with Fender being smaller and lighter than the Marshall and not needing the overdrive channels (cos I’m using the QC for overdrive etc) I mostly use the Fender now. It’s loud enough at most venues but I mic it and run through the PA anyway.
I fired up my QC for the first time today.
My first time ever with Neural DSP
WOW!
Congratulations, K.! Glad your first impression is positive. Get ready for hours of fun n great tone.
I have all the boxes. This is the one I use. The rest are collecting dust.
I used to have a ridiculous amount of actual amplifiers. They’re all gone now. I lugged a full stack and a rack around for decades.
I once had a room full of amps and a shelf full of line 6 gear. Now it’s just QC + KRK in my studio and QC + Headrush frfr12s in stereo in the real world. No regrets.