I feel guilty asking for new feature requests when I don’t even have a Quad Cortex yet! But I put in my pre-order, read the user’s guide, and watched a lot of videos (thank you John Cordy!). Although the Quad Cortex appears very capable, gig ready, and a useful studio tool, I think there are a few missing features that some may feel are minimally required for production use.
Useful, or perhaps required for production live use:
- Assign multiple blocks and parameter min/max values to a single footswitch
There’a a lot of blocks in Quad Cortex, but not may footswitches. So we need to make the most use of them as we can. There are many instances in live use where you want to turn one block on and another off at the same time. A perfect example is switching between a slapback and long delay - you don’t usually want them on at the same time. You can use two footswitches for this, but that wastes a footswitch. You could also use scenes - but stomp mode is actually more flexible in some ways than scenes because you can easily combine effects live with footswitches while scenes are fixed block and parameter configurations for a particular purpose. Live use needs the flexibility.
Footswitches need to be able to set max and min parameter values to provide flexible parameter changes. A great example is setting the drive and tone controls to min and max values to simulate an amp channel switch. I want to do this in stomp mode so I can also control other combinations of effects as needed - like using a real pedal board.
- Support multi-input/multi output for patch input/output points
I almost always use two or three guitars. I like to keep them all plugged in, and input into the same signal path to reduce the time to switch guitars during a gig.
I also want my overall stereo output to go to two places - Powercab 212 for stage amp and the PA. So it would be convenient to be able to set and output path to multi to support this.
- Allow updating factory presets
They’re almost never right for anyone. But they can be a good starting point. Allowing save keeps the patches from getting duplicated and cluttered.
- swipe up or down, or (preferred) double-tap for block bypass
Because of the large number of blocks, and limited number of footswitches, there needs to be an easy/fast way to bypass a block. Three clicks isn’t it.
Quad Cortex needs more fuzz, especially to support modern slide tones. The Jesse Davey King Tone fuzz would be an excellent choice. See Jeff McErlain and Areal Posen.
- Looper
Needed for practice, capturing song ideas, and live use. Allow saving and loading of loops to a computer over Wifi. These ideas can sometimes be very valuable.
Useful for studio use:
7. Computer editor app
Mostly needed to support efficient workflow. Quad Cortex UI is wonderful, but its often on the floor in the studio.
- Ability to use computer plugins through USB send/return block, or directly in Quad Cortex plugin blocks
This would extend Quad Cortex to support computer plugins for open, flexible live and studio use. Although USB isn’t really a gig hardened connection.
- Option to run virtual Quad Cortex plugin in the computer
Like Helix Native. Allows simple revamping in the computer using Quad Cortex patches, easy patch creation, etc. Might be a nice revenue opportunity too.
- Create original amp models, not just replicas or profiles of existing amp models
This is probably the most important. Mike Scuffham’s S-Gear shows what’s possible by designing guitar amps leveraging the unique capabilities of the digital domain. I would love to see S-Gear on Quad Cortex. Call Mike, make it happen!
But the real point is the digital domain has drawbacks, but also many advantages over practical analog amps. Leveraging these capabilities could open up a whole new world of guitar tones and generate whole new musical styles and markets. Its great to have models of amps we know and love. And its also great to be able to capture profiles of many other amps. But I’d also like to see whole new amp designs that wouldn’t be possible or practical in the analog world so we can explore new potential.
Looking forward to getting my Quad Cortex. I’ll be integrating it with Helix and Powercab. Should be great combination.
