QC mini arrived and I was super stoked to get going with it!
But I’m really, really, really struggling with noise issues. Are a lot of people complaining about this? Found any remedies? Better power supplies? Possible I have a faulty unit?
This is what my clean and overdriven sounds sound like. The tones are just stupendous, but with the noise, nothing is very usable…
Neural support hasn’t been very accommodating, basically saying my only option is that I have to connect it to something via the XLR out or it wont get rid of noise (which defeats the whole “desktop unit” marketing pitch imho), and I dont own an interface or amp with FRFR to connect it to via XLR. I fell for the “it can do everything” pitch and this was going to be my all-in-one solution for my little corner desk – just guitar, QC mini, headphones and USB out right into my laptop – while we clear out my studio to make room for a baby on the way.
Anyway, praying that there’s some solution here that doesn’t involve a lot more money… i feel like this is way too popular of a unit used by so many pros to have a noise issue affecting 100 percent of users that renders the unit as noisy as a digitech from the 1990s unless everyone plugs into an XLR exclusively. just seems hard to believe… but if that’s it, i’ll hunt for a cheap as hell option somewhere!
A different power supply isn’t going to remedy this because it’s just a barrel plug.
There must be a grounding issue in your setup or possibly even your guitar. If your laptop doesn’t have a ground on its power supply that may be the source of the noise as well. It’s a very common thing with interfaces like this (yes the QC is an interface).
The XLR would be to ground the QC mini. Also have you tried to use the ground lift on the QC itself?
thanks all! So input 1 on the QC mini doesn’t have a ground lift option. When I try it through input 2, the ground lift doesn’t do anything.
I’ve tried all the different rooms in my house and three different guitars (a traditional tele, a thinline tele with widerange HBs and a frank bros with low wind HBs), with the laptop and without the laptop, and the noise is always present at both clean and gainy tones (obviously worse on the gainer side).
So switching to a 3rd party powersupply with a grounded plug wouldn’t help bc of the barrel plug?
Is this just the noise floor from a guitar that may be noisy? I would suggest trying a gate with side chain to your guitar input. Hard to tell if you mean it’s noise from just adding gain to the amp or actually a grounding noise
AHHhhhhhh… I am considering a QC Mini; but I was DESPERATELY hoping they FIXED these issues…
Funny how the Line 6 Helix NEVER had these issues.
Funny how the Eventide H9 NEVER had these issues.
The real problem is Quad Cortex’s approach to powering their device. Their own power supply IS NOT grounded at all. It’s NOT a 3 prong power device, only 2 prong.
WHY??? WHY??? WHY??? would you design a multi-fx processor and amp modeler with ONLY a 2 prong power supply?
WHY design and sell an audio device (of any kind or type) that is NOT -itself- properly grounded to start with. THEN - you go off and blame the device you’re sending audio to and make it their fault.
The Quad Cortex power supply is intentionally ungrounded (2-prong) to prevent disruptive ground loopswhen connected to other powered stage or studio gear. Instead, it relies on your external equipment (like an audio interface, FRFR speaker, or mixing board) to establish a safe, shared audio ground connection.
Why do the Kemper profiler and the Line 6 Helix do things differently?
Why are there literally THOUSANDS of online posts (in all forums including reddit and others); with users complaining about ground loop hums (in different use cases)?
Ohhh why do even newbies to the game, Fender Tone Master - provide a grounded power supply?
ANSWER - It’s totally obvious this electrical engineering approach was DIFFERENT than the standard for a floor based multi-fx processor and amp modeler; and a very poor decision, and QC needs to own up to it, an redesign their product (the power supply aspect) to m̲e̲e̲t̲ ̲t̲h̲e̲ ̲s̲t̲a̲n̲d̲a̲r̲d̲
It has COST their own customers THOUSANDS of hours trying to fix and solve for a problem they KNOWINGLY created themselves. I am not claiming that a grounded power approach means there will never be, or it makes impossible to have any grounding issues or noise related hums; I am stating the obvious - it’s EXPONENTIALLY less trouble or issues in this area. Otherwise… why would the major players in the space all do the same thing; provide grounded power for their devices.
Guess that’s your opinion and you are welcome to discuss it but it won’t change NDSPs decision and or direction on their design for the QC/QCm power requirements. You would have to ask NDSP why..why..why but that is their official stance on their design.