This is incorrect. If it were designed to run the plugins, the plugins would run on it right now, but that’s not how it was initially designed, nor advertised. PCOM was a request of a TGP member when Doug was posting there daily, during the pre-order phase. Someone asked if it could run the plugins and Doug hand waved it off as not being a big deal to do.
I’d imagine the devs had a heart attack when they got the memo to include the plugins, but this is precisely why they had to figure it out AFTER the QC was designed and why the plugins do not actually run on the unit, causing them to recreate every plugin in individual blocks.
Hate to tell ya that there are interview clips from NAMM when it was announced and Doug Castro tells people that the QC will run plugins. It wasn’t just a random response on a boomer guitar forum.
A big marketing thing for the QC was PCOM and being able to use your sounds from their plugins on the device. I don’t know what’s up with this sort of revisionist thing where people are ignoring that.
Personally I don’t care a ton about PCOM, but it absolutely was a marketing thing from Neural, just like their massive effects list that was supposed to come with an update right after the QC launched. Most of those effects or amps were abandoned.
Love my QC, but it definitely taught me that I can’t trust any of these modeler companies right now because they will market tons of features and trickle some of them out for years. I’m honestly surprised people have been pre ordering Helix Stadium because they haven’t even released sound clips of the models. The only thing we’ve heard from it is a short butt rock guitar clip on their website that just kinda sounds like a normal Helix amp
People keep saying plugin stuff wasn’t part of Neural’s marketing of the QC, and always have some vague reason why.
Here’s a screenshot of the official Sweetwater listing in 2020 for the QC (only retailer in the US that you could get it from) where it says it has plugin compatibility. Yes, as a feature and not as some possible thing 5 years later.
That guy did a bunch of interviews that day. Def remember one from NAMM 2020 where he talked about plugins. It seems to have been wiped from YouTube now though.
Also regardless the official listing for when the QC went live on the only retailer in the US has info about plugins being compatible. No mention of it being a possible future thing, etc. it being listed in their official release of the product is more meaningful than even a quick mention at NAMM.
The screenshot shown is from the Sweetwater page in 2020. That isn’t the current listing for the item.
I’ll retract my statement that the QC was ‘designed’ to run plugins.
But the fact remains, it was promised to be able to run plugins WELL BEFORE it was released.
To the point that NDSP had to release an official statement that the QC would not be able to run plugins at release, but the feature would be added eventually. This was well before the first unit ever sold. Sweetwater never corrected their copy that said plugins would be compatible since they put up the product page on day 1. Many who bought initially were confused when they discovered their plugins weren’t portable yet (although NDSP had made it clear already)
I saw it too. I even postponed buying in the first pre-sale round because they essentially reneged on the plugin compatibility.
all I’m really saying is they officially acknowledged and planned PCOM well before the first QC ever sold to the public. At the very least, they seem to have painted themselves into a legal corner by having stated it and then having to postpone integration
This. Regardless of what people want to debate for the original design ideas for the QC, PCOM was a thing advertised a lot before people received units. Lots of people bought the unit because that compatibility was a really unique thing that Neural was pushing themselves (not a vague mention in a boomer guitar forum).
You can also just go to TGP and open the main QC thread, the only mention of plugins for the several dozen or so pages is people saying it’d be cool if it could run the plugins. I believe the origin of PCOM came from a thread that was deleted, as much of the early QC content on TGP/YouTube has been made private or has been deleted. In fact, if you search Doug’s posts there, they only start in February according to the search results, but if you visit the actual threads he was posting in threads before NAMM 2020.
That’s correct that it was brought up before it started shipping, but there was also over a year between the announcement and the first unit being shipped. It was sometime after the initial announcement that it was mentioned, you can see from another post I made here it was not discussed in the first video ad, nor the first print ads, nor was it brought up by Doug or Francesco at NAMM 2020.
If you look at the NDSP website via the Wayback Machine of the Internet Archive, you will find no statement regarding plug-in compatibility on the snapshots from 2020, 2021, and 2023. Only in the FAQ is there a note that plugin owners will receive updates to the plugins if they have been adapted for the QC. As far as statements from retailers such as Sweetwater are concerned, NDSP cannot really be held liable. But in the end, that doesn’t matter. We now have the problem that we can’t move forward. And saying “They did say it at some point” doesn’t solve any problems. Apart from the Rabea synth module and one or two other modules, there hasn’t really been a good reason for the plug-ins in the discussion so far. I could imagine that we would have had such modules for everyone for free in normal updates on the QC long ago if so much energy hadn’t been wasted on integrating the complete plug-ins.
Promise of plugin compatibility is the only reason I purchased the QC. I use my computer plugins to record my tracks for the band and it would be ideal to reproduce that sound 1:1 playing live through a stomp box. Very disappointed this is not going as planned. Yes, I do own a bunch of plugins and paid top dollar for them.
Not sure if my reason justifies all the effort of PCOM, but for me it’s very helpful that I can have the same sound on my computer (for practicing, tuning sounds and recording) that I can then transfer to the QC. Without needing two units or always moving and plugging in / out my QC.
As I said, minor point probably.
Seems like a pretty wild request. No one said PCOM was holding back updates to the QC. We have seen additional content brought to the QC outside of PCOM. While I can understand frustrations concerning the marketing and development, this reads more like rage bait than anything else. A few things. NDSP hasn’t released a new plugin since 2023. The plugin development happens in parallel. Different teams working on different things. One does not take away from the other. We have no idea what kind of snags the QC development team runs into. Some bugs can be incredibly detrimental to the entire user base. Some hardware revisions require critical changes to software and need to be addressed quickly. This can cause changes to priorities and can absolutely cause delays. While total transparency can be nice it can also be a bad thing when teams are rushed. It can also cause more frustration when deadlines are not met. Again, I understand the frustrations. I wish we had all the features, all the plugins, all the things on the QC. The NDSP team does too. Probably more so than we all do. We can all be civil and constructive here. There’s no need to make a mess in this forum.
The marketing for the QC around it coming out was definitely mentioning being able to load presets/sounds from their plugins. Idk why people keep forgetting it was a major part of them making the QC and why people wanted it. There were delays in it actually shipping because of parts shortages, etc. But it wasn’t something people just imagined lol
