I’m getting and waiting for the Neural DSP Quad Cortex. I plan to use it together with a wah pedal and an expression pedal, and I might also add a Tonex pedal for some specific stomp overdrive and distortion needs.
I currently have the Strymon Timeline, BigSky, and Mobius, but I’m planning to sell all three since I can’t afford to keep everything. My main question is: will I be satisfied with the reverbs, delays, and modulation effects on the Quad Cortex?
I need ambient sounds, with rich, large reverbs and beautiful delays. However, I’m not super picky about highly specific features—just a good, all-around ambient tone.
What’s your experience? Any advice or suggestions would be appreciated!
The QC effects are fine, but I do still use a timeline with it. I think the modulation in the QC is great (I’m very picky about chorus, etc). The delays and reverbs don’t quite respond the same as I’m used to with actual pedals.
A big thing that throws me off aside from the sound difference is the mix knob for reverb and delay on the QC. Doesn’t respond the same as most other pedals. 50% doesn’t feel like 50%. I feel like I need to get it to 75% to equal what may usually be halfway on other pedals. I don’t know why they have it programmed that way, but I’ve compared them a bunch.
There are certainly workable options, but reverb and delay in the QC isn’t fully there for me. Also there isn’t any swell function in the QC which I use a ton on my Strymon. For other sounds it’s convenient to use some of the QC effects to adjust with scenes and presets, rather than sifting through them on actual pedals. So that’s the one tradeoff for me tbh.
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Like @SelfTitledLP suggested, you’re not going to find “Stryfecta” -grade wet/time based effects on the QC with out some major time and dialing - in involved. And still you may not get there either (I’m locked into the GFI ecosystem vs strymon personally so I don’t know the nuances involved with the strymon gear - but I couldn’t recreate my GFI stuff on the QC) despite spending what I thought was a significant amount of time trying to.
I found that any real ambient reverbs (even something simple like a plate or hall verb) completely ate up the repeats and tone of a delay that was in front of it. The more decay/mod you added to the verb, the more this negative effect (for me) was demonstrated. So I kept all of my GFI pedals and I run them through the FX1/FX2 in stereo. I also like to be able to reach down and twist a knob to adjust a repeat or decay or modulation or any other parameter based on the size and fullness and shape of the room in a live setting - without having to tap a screen to get out of “stompbox mode”, tap again the effect (making sure I didn’t activate/deactivate it) and then start twisting. But that’s just me.
The QC has captures of my OD pedals (5), a couple of amps depending on my mood, comp/ eq, and a pitch shift. The 2 remaining buttons on the QC trigger via midi delay presets on one Specular tempus pedal (from which I can quickly access 2 more from the banks of the pedal itself)
A Morningstar mc6 helps navigate my “reverb” specular tempus pedal and synesthesia.
Volume & a polytune take up the rest of the real estate on the board and that pretty much gets me through anything.
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Hi Marko,
I’ve got two setups. A small board with just the QC and midi switcher. And a bigger board with some extra toys. I’ve spent a while trying to recreate my favorite settings of the Strymon/meris/Eventide sounds I use and I feel like I’ve gotten 90 percent there. To the point if I don’t feel like lugging around the big board, I can take the small one and be almost as happy.
I’ve found I’ll never get the reverbs or delays to match perfectly. But I’ve figured out what works and in a mix it probably be hard to tell a difference. Unless you using a sound the QC can’t do easily… if you can experiment with both. If you can keep both great but I’d try to get used to QC first and see for yourself.
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As write SelfTitledLP, I’ve also noticed that 50% on the TimeLine is significantly more than 50% on the QC… And if I read andycoalter, I come to the conclusion that it would be better to sell my ToneX Pedal and Mobius out of my four expensive pedals and keep the TimeLine and BigSky instead… Although, on the other hand, if I recall correctly, when I had the QC on trial for a few days, I noticed that I could get about 95% of the way to the Strymon sound on the QC… Kfletcher, good setup, that’s exactly what I’m considering now: Guitar > tuner > 404 wah pedal > QC > BigSky > TimeLine > Expression pedal…
My question, however, is whether I can somehow integrate the TimeLine and BigSky into the rig in the same way as I would work with blocks in the QC? Can I place these two anywhere in the rig? Of course, I’d put them on send and return. And through MIDI, can I set it up so that when I change the scene on the QC preset, the preset also changes simultaneously on the Strymons?
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I admit, there’s one thing that’s really important to me: the user interface. I simply suffer when I have to lift the pedalboard to my level just to adjust Strymon’s reverbs and delays, and even then, I’m stuck dealing with knobs and a storage system that feels so outdated compared to the Quad Cortex. Sure, all the cables, the pedalboard—everything looks great—but is it really worth the 5% difference compared to just using the QC alone?
The QC inspires me with how intuitive it is to work with blocks and how clear the parameter adjustments are… and then there’s the desktop version, which is fantastic.
By the way, Strymon pedals also have a desktop version, but so far I haven’t managed to connect my Strymons to Nixie. On top of that, Nixie feels so underwhelming compared to Cortex Control.
I have the Stryfecta and ended up only using the BigSky alongside the QC. It depends on what music you play. I wasn’t fussed with the mix differences, it’s just a quirk you get used to, and other than the weirder modulations the QC is more than enough.
I keep swapping the BigSky and Timeline but have found that I actually prefer the Analog Delay to Timeline and the Tape is quite comparable. That and I always run two delays in series so even if I had the Timeline it would be affected by the QC delay anyway.
I couldn’t, however, give up the BigSky. I just can’t replicate Magneto, Cloud, or even Bloom. (The Mind Hall on the QC is quite great though)
It really depends on how much and how deep your delays will be. For basic to mid-complex usage, the QC will work perfectly fine (really depends of what type of music you’re into). I used to own the Mobius, and sold it, but I kept my Timeline. For complex textures and the fancy stuff, keep your Timeline. As for the BigSky, I have no experience with it. I do own the Nightsky, but this thing is a different beast. The reverb on the QC are enough for me.
