To give you some background: I play guitar on a Queen tribute band (mainly) and a Pink Floyd tribute band (more scarcely).
I consider myself more of an “old school” player, meaning amp + pedals on stage.
I was looking for a more portable and lighter way of doing things and so, last year, I got an Helix LT and although it was quite user friendly, it just didn’t replace my amp + pedals setup. I ended up using the Helix with my other pedals + amp. So I just sold the Helix and get back to using my TC Electronic G-Major 2 for delays, reverbs, chorus and pitch shifting.
In order to make the “jump” to a Quad Cortex and replace the amp setup I would need:
A great VOX AC30 full blast sound to use in conjunction with an external Treble Booster (strap mounted so I can go wireless - by the way: if I use the Rangemaster model in the QC would I be able to play wirelessly - as real Treble Boosters don’t work with buffered signals on front)
Delays capable of 800 ms Right and 1600 ms Left
Dual Pitch Shifting
Intelligent Pitch Shifting would be nice to have as well
Auto Wha (preferably)
Vintage Chorus
I found online some QC effect lists but they seem different from site to site? If I capture my AC30 at full blast and use a real Treble Booster or even the QC Treble Booster model would it clean up nicely with guitar volume roll off?
Overall - would you think with QC I can make this transition?
Many thanks in advance and sorry for all the questions. Your help is much appreciated.
I would say you should be able to nail BM or DG tones with ease etc., I have seen a few presets supporting BM/Queen tones and I think the Vox models are phenomenal. Currently, there is no autowha FX available although you can recreate something similar using the filter with ring mod FX.
Agree that you would be able to get those tones. There are some things different that you might need to do to get the volume roll off behavior you want - my experience is that the amp models volume can drop too much when you roll off the guitar volume. (Rather than just clean up like a real amp). But some light compression after the amp model can help replicate the sag a little better.
My experience is that you can also still use pedals in front of the QC as well. So if you wanted to keep your treble boost and run it into the QC Vox model/capture that should do fine. Or you can capture the treble boost into the QC quite easily.
As you point out, under the ‘Filter’ block category there are three choices ‘Env. Filter’, ‘Foog’, and ‘Love Meat’. Although maybe technically inaccurate I always use the terms Envelope Filter (Follower) and autowah synonymously. So I think of the Quad Cortex as including an autowah and use the ‘Env. Filter’.
i think that you´ll get any tone you need for that style of rock pretty easily -
will you get the exact volume roll off and response from your specific setup? probably not
will anyone but you ever notice it? probably not
will you get a much more lightweight practical setup with the QC? yes
so it depends on how picky you are with those things
you could look into the headrush as well for a cheaper option or the new fender tone thing and see if they have those specific nuances you are looking for
I do think the AC30 models on the QC sound way better than on Helix. Coming from someone who used Helix for amp modeling and switched once I heard the QC.
One downside to the QC is that the pitch shifting on it is monophonic, and only the octaver on it is polyphonic atm. That’s really the only thing I would say might be weird for ya.
Can I use two pitch blocks (each with its voice/key to obtain a 2 part harmony - actually 3 part if we count with the root note from the guitar itself)?
Also - is there any official list for the current amps/effects on the QC (most recent firmware)?
the Mini-voicer is the closest thing we have so far to an intelligent PS block. It’s fairly versatile. It allows for 2 harmony notes + the root.
Here’s a video that explores it (skip past the midi info to 5:00 if you don’t need that functionality)
Seems like a great block but it sounds a bit too artificial to me… maybe the other blocks in the chain causing this? Sounded more like a synth than a guitar on my phones…
OK - almost pulling the trigger on one and see if I can ditch the heavy AC30 + rack + pedalboard for the QC…
Still debating:
I’ve been reading the forum and it seems that, on each update, comes some malfunction such as sound mutes after changing presets, crackling noises from nowhere… I guess each and every unit on the market suffered from growing pains but is the QC mature enough comparing to Fractal for instance (not the Helix as I didn’t like the sound from the amps emulation)?
The power adapter: I like the internal ones where we connect a IEC cable and that’s it. Some people complains are noise and unreliability. Still true as of today?
I know this is a QC forum but, from what I’ve read, you guys don’t seem nowhere as fanatic as other forums I read and some users here have a really honest opinion about it.
Hey there, here are my thoughts from owning the QC for a bit over a year now:
-Regarding updates, I have had some issues where certain routings don’t work as expected. I had the unit crash yesterday for the first time since I purchased it. I haven’t experienced sound mutes or crackling noises.
-Regarding the power adapter: It is pretty low quality and crappy compared to a standard IEC cable. I don’t know why they chose what they did, whether it was for form factor, or costs. It feels like it could easily break. I haven’t yet had noise or reliabiliy issues with it, but I don’t gig with my unit and could see it potentially being a problem for someone that does.
I have not had issues with updates on my QC. Just remember that the majority of users typically don’t have problems; the people who do have one-off problems speak up the most. NDSP have been really good about addressing firmware issues with each update, and issuing the occasional hotfix. It’s generally a good idea hold off on updating if you’ve got a gig or tour coming up in the same week.
Other third-party power supply options exist. Run a search in this forum to see what other people are using, but I need to also say that you do NOT have to shell out >$200 for a viable power supply.
this most recent update is the first to have had a pretty sizable bug in it that hasn’t been fixed yet. Usually any smaller issues are resolved in a quickly released hotfix.
There haven’t really been any major ‘showstoppers’ before, to my recollection.
Best practice, as DC says above- DON’T update immediately if you have critical gigs or sessions coming up. This time it was a little tough as the update was paired with the editor’s beta release so it was really hard not to just grab it and dive in.
NDSP went w/ the power supply they did to keep the overall unit’s footprint small.
Grounding is meant to be achieved thru connecting to external gear and in most cases this works fine. I’ve been using my factory PSU for over 2 years now and haven’t had any trouble.
Yes, every firmware introduced some bugs but also got rid of previous ones. And while I have experienced problems like freezes or sound mutes over the 2 years I have been using the QC, everything so far was solveable by restarting the unit. And I would argue that those kind of problems are not more frequent than what can happen with analog gear. At the end of the day, everything can break and a backup is always good to have.
I personally hate the power adapter as it just feels cheap and flimsy. However I have not actually had a problem with it yet (other then the known grounding issues) and have not seen people complain about broken power adapters. So I guess it is ok. Again, a second one as a backup is always a good to have.
thanks!
