He is just right, I come from Kemper and was surprised to find such a heavy hiss on cleaner tones…
and NO, the QC Gate isn’t good at all and the results on clean/crunch tones are just bad (assuming that I’m not on a Zoom G3 but on a 1.700€ piece of gear).
QC is great for many things but your talk seems more of fan than of a pro user.
I just got an award because so many people have clicked the link 
, but it’s dead now.
It’s too old to edit, but here’s a link to the wayback machine copy of the page
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Your “wayback…” link in the above post is a really critical set of information, direct from Neural regarding grounding for QC users and getting rid of noise in different scenarios. That article should be a sticky.
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i literally admitted that the gate wasnt good, but whatever im just a fan boy
I wonder why Neural removed that support page?
Same experience, the parasites noises of the kemper are much quieter than the QC (or the QC much louder) and yes the gate isn’t very good on the QC way less good than the kemper one.
Eventually it will be solved at some point, at least increase the quality of the noisegate, i think if the noise problem was solvable it would have been since a long time but idk.
No idea. I wouldn’t necessarily read too much into it. Could be a perfectly innocent clerical thing; websites get updated, and pages moved or removed. Seems like a useful one to have left intact and easy to find though.
Sorry if I was rude 
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Hi Bigrockandy… I’m fairly new to the QC… I’m not sure what you mean by setting the input gain to +9.3… Using Input 1, when I drag down from top of touch screen to access all the global input/output settings , I can’t see how you could fix that input at +9.3 …it’s really a guitar/pup level -dependent reading there right? Perhaps I’m not aware of where you can see the input/output gain levels of each block… is that possible? Thanks for your post …It’s interesting to me… I’d like to understand where you make that initial input gain setting of +9.3 Thanks very much
no worries. its all good. I didnt realize the gate was that bad until i falsely thought i had a short in my electronics. turns out its just the crappy gate.
aside from the gate being crap and evertything having more amp hiss than a regular amp would, the only real issue i have with noise is the thing where if you boot it up with xlr outs plugged into somethjing it will have a monster huim
for anyone wondering, yes i finally tried it with just 1/4" outs and it doesnt do the hum thing if its plugged in while booting up, its only the XLR outs.
I posted this a while back, so excuse me if repeat. I play mostly med/lo gain pups. Strats and PAF equipped hum buckers. Very classic rock influenced. I actually use +9.0 now. That’s where the QC’s input gain makes an adjustment and lowers significantly the noise floor. Then I always have my first input block, a gain block set at -9.0db, essentially making it unity gain. Then all amps (which I own quite a few in the real world) behave properly. These settings basically cancel each other out with a much lower noise floor.
Now to answer your specific question. Manual pg 16. Swipe down, which you did. Touch the “input 1” on the touch screen to reveal “input 1” settings. Manual pg. 17, should be big volume knob at left side. That’s it. You can also touch the number itself and (maybe double tap, can’t remember) and manually enter +9.0db. If you use hot pickups it may not work, as in in it may clip.
Just for reference, I own a recording studio and am very sensitive to “hiss”. I love real amps, with their noises i.e. buzzes and their own hiss, but hate electronically generated noise from improper gain staging. Cork sniffing stuff really. I’m not proud of that. Hope that helps.
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What PickinPete just described is called “Gain Staging”, and is a basic principle of setting up your signal path in any sort of multi-device audio signal chain. You’ll hear a lot of mixing engineers talk about this, and that’s because it applies very directly to audio mixers. The QC’s grid is essentially just a digital mixing interface, so the principles of gain staging also apply here as well.
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I eliminated the hiss I was getting by disabling ground lift on the input. Maybe worth toggling this setting before trying anything more drastic.
I also switched to a filtered power block, which helped with noisiness. I got this one:
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Be sure to use isolated power supply or any digital effect is likely to generate noise
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Hi bigrockandy
Thanks so much for your reply. I learned something……
I have been switching my input gain on a “per guitar” basis…. So when I plug in a hot Les Paul… or a low output Tele… I have been adjusting the input gain each time… I understand now that that is a mistake….
The input gain is a global setting that isn’t saved with the preset or scene… so a value of +9dB followed by a -9dB block in the preset… works well for the guitars you’re likely to use… me also I reckon
Before I got the QC I had been trying out some Neural DSP plug ins…. I’m more interested in clean sounds… and I was finding that I was getting this distortion in the sound… I chased it down… (I’m also an audio engineer with my own studio… and a good part of my job…my life… is chasing down hums, hisses, distortions, clipping etc etc…gain staging … I know you understand)
So I was using the Neural DSP plug ins on a clean DI track … ad no matter what i did I was getting this digital distortion hash… was driving me mad!! Pulling down the input to the plug in didn’t work… WTF? I finally worked out that the Neural DSP plug ins needed a reduced input level. This was not achievable by reducing the plug-in’s input gain… it HAD to be done at the original waveform level! I told a fellow audio pal who was also struggling with this distortion.
Since that time I see there has been quite a conversation online about the correct input level to NDSP plug-ins…. Most of the conversation has been about the right level for live input level for particular Audio I/Os …… I was using pre-recorded DI tracks… but the principle is the same
Also the conversation was always centred on distorted sounds and how to best match the live input level to the amp emulation. … Hard to determine using a distorted amps sound no? Far easier IMO is to use a clean sound to set the input level….to both NDSP plugs and also to the Quad Cortex …. Using a clean sound as test you can hear immediately the distortion produced from too high an input level….
So …the perfect NDSP DI input (to plug-in or QC) is somewhat lower than one would normally think was correct…
Thanks again for your thoughts and help … helped me greatly
Maxxxy
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I Google’d unpainted XLR cable and Google only returns listings for tire rims – what is an unpainted XLR cable?
Generally speaking: A silver one instead of a black one.
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In my experience i was always using the stock adapter since day 1 but then my rig got bigger that i needed to use canvas power hp.
I noticed after i upgraded then hiss and hum started occuring. When i sustain a 808 drive i hear a hiss at the end. And even when i put back original adapter atill has same hiss and hum. Did changing power supply somehow caused the hiss and noise?