Hey hey!
Sorry, for not updating this thread I just had my mind on other things around me and didnt get actual chance to post updates.
Basically - starting from the beginning I was able to solve the problem partially. The amps I have used before was old school Crate fw120h head and first gen katana 50W.
After a lot of digging, wiring and soldering I was able to figure out why those 2 amps sounded so bad and found some ways to remedy this.
With boss katana, I didnt have the version with direct plug to the power amp.
I found out that you can use :
Aux in and it sort of works.
Clean channel with some lower gain settings (not recommended)
or acousting guitar mode - which is preferably best one
Katana is a modeling amp and has weird sounding speaker by itself. Aux in option works okay, with amp sim and EQ block with low/hi pass filter (settings provided lower in section about fizz)
Clean amp option is the worst - as you get quad cortex modeling into another modeling -bad idea.
And the Acoustic channel - which seems to turn the katana combo into something more like frfr speaker(not full frfr, more like guitar speaker with some expanded frequencies) and cab sims seems to affect the tone quite nicely - but I sold this combo before I could dig deeper into this. I had this combo for few years and really really hated that speaker and the way it sounded. My old crate fw15 transistor combo sounded better.
This crate head o mine was like first type of modeling amp (not exactly how katana determined this types of amps but similar) that had digital section of effects in the chain before the signal went to the power amp section of the chain. This little digital thing just throws out all the signal from quad cortex and made it sound bad. The solution was to make a custom wire for this amp, use it’s combined fx loop and feed the power amp section of the amp from quad cortex. This worked as it should - I was able to lost that digitalness of the sound(well its hard to describe sounds in general, but it stopped sounding like nokia phone from 2005).
So, when I was able to feed the power amp and then straight to my homemade 2x12 V30 cab (if necessary cab is 4ohm/120W),
Fizz/metallic noises/high end mess
Okay so now I faced the issue about quad cortex sounding like metalzone cranked all the way up to 11. Basically this was the point that took me a bit of time to figure it out. How I understand the quadcortex works with its amp simulations - its more like just like a preamp (despite having master control in the amp settings). So when you have a clean patch with nothing in it (I assume you have not made any global eq setttings and your outputs are set to factory settings) and you add a high gain amp - and then feed that to the power amp and a cab you get basically overpriced metalzone.
To fix that fizziness, cheap sounding, lot of high end squels/fizz/metallic noises/shhhsshh etc you would need to clear the signal. Basically at the beginning of my journey with QC I was assuming that guitar speaker will “filter” frequencies that it can play and this was mistake. If you know how guitar speaker works (they actually can produce sounds over certain frequencies if you look on the frequencies chart) then the speaker will try to play that harsh sounding fizziness.
So back to signal → now to clear it out you would need to add EQ block after amp that is called low/hi pass (sorry I do not have QC with me now so no screenshots). I just use standard settings and change only low pass filter from 22k( or something like that) to 6600 or around. You can go higher or lower from that 6600 - this will affect how high end will react in the amp sim block - aka your treble and presence settings might be less or more affected - another tool in toolbox
This was a game changer - from metal zone it went to full boutique amp. Now its just play with the amp settings, volumes, master controls, EQs if you are into that etc.
I belive that the manual is a bit wrong about ditching the cab block after amp block - since there needs to be some signal cleanup . (you need to cut that signal into something more usable for guitar speaker. The low pass just limits what happens with certain frequencies about specific point and how they fade away. Its like trying to play 20-22khz signal into speaker that works in 75-6000khz range, something will go sideways. Just limit the upper part and done).
Currently I am using my quad cortex with a Harley Benton GPA-100 and my v30 cab or just one singe speaker like celection heritige or greenback( both 16ohm to put some load on the power amp) and this works amazing. 2x12 can knock walls and windows and single speaker setup is great for practice.
Set of tricks I learned about QC and this set up - and fiddling with my old amps.
- Double check your inputs - make sure that if you use actual amp - you go straight to poweramp
- If you use guitar speakers - do not use cab sim - but dont forget about low/hi pass filter instead
- You need to make sure that your levels in QC are not clipping
- I keep my master volume on QC in about 85% - not sure but I feel it works okay - and if needed you have a quick boost in volume available to you
@runlego I read you other post - dialing a good tone is pretty easy on QC if you get your head around it. I literally use super simple chain - noise gate - boost ( like marshall governor sim) - peavey 100 lead - low/hi pass filter i mentioned earlier - delay(if solo) - reverb( just to make room sound better)
If you use 2 cabs and each is 4x12 your power amp might not have enough power to pump those speakers. I use gpa-100 which is 100w at 8ohms (190 at 4ohms, about 50 at 16ohms) and it got plenty power to keep 120W cab rocking hard enough to damage speakers. You can get a feel of guitar amp rocking whole place around with “upf” at low end chugs (my kidney stones felt that :D) .
Even with a single speaker set up like greenback (with is 25W) you get it so laud that practicing on it is a bit to harsh for ears.