Im new to this forum and the world or Quad Cortex. I have recently transitioned from the Kemper to the QC and im really enjoying the change. One thing ive been struggelling with is the tonal difference between the headphone output and the XLR output. To give you some back ground, im a church player and we use in ear monitoring. I have a pair of Seinhausser HD650 headphones that i use for practise at home / setting up my sounds. When i get to church i find when i plug into the PA via the XLRs the sound becomes very thin and bright through my in ears. This is the way i used to setup my sounds with the kemper and had no such issue. Im wondering if there is a global eq or something thats causing the XLRs to sound different to my headphones? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
I feel you dude. This was me during the first couple months of having bought the QC. I was also initially setting up my sounds using the headphone out on the QC and later even went ahead to buy a pair of small studio monitors to plug the QCâs XLR outs into. Copying and pasting something I had written, on another thread, that I hope will help!
The point of difference for me, after taking the QC out to a few live situations (and coming home feeling like, wow that felt like playing a shoe string through a megaphone) was turning up an hour earlier than everyone else in the band to adjust every point of EQ (compression, OD, amp, cab, eq), delay feedback, reverb decay and routing to suit the venue/equipment and what I was hearing in my IEMs.
That was the first instance of me feeling good about the QC while playing live and also having the sound dude and people on the ground say nice things about what they were hearing.
The thing about the QC is, I donât know if itâs made sound better as a person attempting to play the guitar, but Iâve certainly learned a lot more about sound engineering and the reality of âsound is different in every spaceâ.
I canât say I completely understand how it works, but I have learnt to realise and accept that what I hear through my dinky studio monitors at home cannot and will not be what I hear when I when I plug the QC into a live venue.
Thanks for taking the time to share your experience! Certainly glad to hear im not the only one experiencing this, i thought i was going crazy lol
I guess theres 2 things that i struggle to understand.
Firstly i had no such issue with my kemper unit. When i practised at home vs playing through my IEM at church, there was no (notable) tonal difference. Where now there is a noticable difference in tone.
Secondly, using the QC cortex Headphone output sounds different to hearing the guitar through the IEM. Ive tried this with both my HD650 headphones and IEM with the same result.
I had a chat to our sound engineer and he assured me nothing had changed since swithing from the kemper to the QC. I have found this an issue from the first time i used my QC live up until now. I keep coming back to there being an EQ difference (somehow) between the headphone output and the XLR. Ive also thought about trying to use the regular outputs and running them into a DI to see how that works, not sure if anyone has tried this?
I guess i could spend some time at church and get the tones dialled in based on the IEM, but im worried my practise tones will be dull and uninspiring. I cant see why they cant be concitent like the kemper.
Again, I feel you man. I feel like none of these things were an issue plugging into my Iridium at home vs plugging it into FOH.
The Iridium and Kemper are different tools, but go with me for a second:
I imagine (and assuming this was also the case with your Kemper) itâs cos I was using stompboxes to âdesignâ my sound and then the Iridium as the amp (output). Thats a serial signal chain and itâs kinda the same through-put as running your ODs, mods, delays and verbs into an amp at home and then at the venue. Our understanding from this universe â of how saturation, wet-level and gain work and behave â are very different.
The QC however is emulating a pedalboard⌠a mixing board (with the way those lanes work) and then an amp and cab simulation as output. All in one unit. In this case â saturation, wet-level and gain â all work like it would on a mixing board. So it is going to behave and sound different.
Regardless, and again, I feel your pain. Stick with it, take it to church and sit through the process of setting up a rig while youâre there. I learnt much about âsound designâ and âcable routingâ through the process. Not to mention that carrying around the QC has just been better for my lower back, hah!
If it wasnt for this issue i wouldnt be able to fault the QC (with my experience to date), everything else has blown me away and i have no intention of getting rid of it.
Ill definitely spend sometime dialling in some sounds at church to get me by, but keen to look into a long term solution. Im wondering if the Focusrite Scarlett may be an option? Plug the XLR outputs into the back and use the headphone jack to dial in my sounds? Not sure if this would work, but i think would get me closer than plugging my headphones into the back of the QC.
Its important for me to be able to generate sounds at home that i know are going to work at church. I dont want to have to go there everytime i want to dial in a new amp or cab.
Appreciate you taking the time to share your experience.
Iâve seen this discussion come up before with other modelers as well as the QC. Some users just happen to have the perfect headphones for using with their modeler or tend to create just the right presets such that they translate perfectly to stage. Most players though I think find themselves having to make adjustments to dial in their presets when moving them from, for example, headphones to an FRFR.
You are monitoring your presets with completely different hardware than you will be using on stage. Having to tweak your presets is to some extent to be expected. I think you just got lucky with the Kemper and your phones, and I can understand where that set up a certain expectation for other modelers. I donât think that is the norm though. As mentioned, I have seen other users report that they are able to take their presets directly from headphones to stage. Must be nice but I have not found that to be consistently the case.
Thats intersting, sounds like i lucked out with the Kemper / headphone combination. The kemper was my first modeller so i (wrongly) assumed that they were all in the same in that regard.
What are your thoughts on running the XLR outputs into an interface with a headphone output? Like a Focusrite Scarlett? Do you think that would get me a closer result as ill be using the XLR outputs?
It might or might not. On the one hand it ensures that your signal path, until it hits the Focusrite, is exactly the same as it will be onstage, so maybe that gets you a bit closer. Maybe it makes things worse though by adding another piece of equipment you will not be using on stage. Ultimately though it still comes down to the fact that you are monitoring with very different pieces of equipment.
Good luck with this! It seems that different users have had differing results with using headphones for preset creation so Iâm not sure there is a one-size-fits-all answer. So much is contingent on different playersâ tonal preferences, how they create presets, including how complex they are, and the equipment they are using.
I also think some players just learn to anticipate, âmy presets will have to be EQâd a bit differently on my headphones to get them to sound the way I like on stageâ, or the reverse.
Have to also consider the oft-quoted Fletcher-Munson curve where presets created at lower volumes on headphones (same with other monitoring strategies) can sound way different once you crank things up at the show. Course, despite Fletcher, headphones seems to have worked for you on the Kemper so I suppose something was different in the overall hardware interaction.
In my experience its not limited to the type of headphones im using. Yesterday when i was playing at church i was switching my IEM between the wireless pack and the back of the QC and there was a noticeable difference. Thats what made me think the XLR output EQ was different to the headphone output.
I have a friend with an interface he is going to loan me to play around with. Interested to see if there is any difference in tone between the headphone output on the interface vs the headphone output on the QC.
Will report back once ive had a chance to play around. Sounds like there are a few people working through the same situation
My presets sounds also pretty different if comparing the same IEMs I use on stage directly plugged into the headphones out vs XLR Out â X32 â Wireless transmitter â wireless Receiver â IEMs. But I canât estimate how much of a role the wireless system plays in this perceived tonal change. Yet have to try the IEMs plugged into the x32 directly in comparison.
Hi,
this seems to be a typical Fletcher-Munson curve issue.
If not familiar with the term, its when you create presets at a low volume the âbad frequenciesâ will not be heard, but when you take that same preset and crank the volume to 100% all those frequencies your ear didnt pick up at a low volume will shine trough and result in that harsh and thin sound you describe.
There are several ways around this, one is EQ. Use a global EQ to filter them out.
Or you can create the presets at stage volume, and just turn the sound down when practicing at home. I recommend teaming up with someone who either plays your guitar, or can help you create your live tone.
OR, what i prefer⌠Make two presets - name them Preset xxx - live and preset xxx - studio/home etc. This way, you can have the perfect sound both home and live
And a quick tip, if you have several guitars through the same preset and get different sounds/output⌠consider copying the preset and shape it for each guitar also⌠This way YOU controll all parameters of your sound
I donât know how others do it, but I use my IEMs at almost the same volume at home or during rehearsal or on stage. Therefore Fletcher does not apply here. And I guess this is also the case for OP. What indeed can make a difference in how you perceive the tonal quality is if you are playing live and the FOH sound does bleed into your IEM sound (because IEMs arenât blocking external sound waves completely). In my experience especially the lower frequencies of big FOH subwoofers can make you perceive your IEM sound as thin, because those subs are way more powerful and eventually will âdrown outâ the lows coming from your IEMs. It confused me too while starting to use IEMs on stage but you can get used to it. But this can also not be the case for OP because he stated that it wasnât the case with his Kemper.
Have you tried changing what the headphone out is âlisteningâ to? The headphone out can be switched between different outputs. 1& 2 are the xlr outs. Iâm not sure what the default is.
