I’ve had a few days with my QC and there’s lots to like about it but unfortunately there’s a few things that just simply are not good, or as my title implies, ugly… and it’s these things that so far i’m not seeing much mentioned about, so maybe it’s just my experience but i’d be interested to hear of other’s experience.
Let’s start with THE GOOD:
1/ The UI is fantastic… between the touch screen and the rotary switches, it’s incredibly easy to use. It can be frustrating selecting some items at times in that the screen is not always responsive but in general, it’s great!
2/ The Whammy Module is as good as any and better than most… no discernible latency and barely any aliasing or artefacts… tracks beautifully… well done on that one.
THE BAD:
1/ The Flanger block is possibly the worst i’ve ever encountered… I’ve tried all configurations of placement within the FX Chain, even tried parallel but even with the mix at 100% wet, the effect is not very pronounced… you have to crank the Feedback and Width to even begin to hear it well and it’s really limited… Best placement is in between the Amp and Cab but still pretty crap… I’d be interested in knowing if anyone else finds this to be the same…
2/ Amp Gain. The Gain control on most amps simply sucks! I’ve owned many real amps, SLO100, EVH, Plexi and many others and the Gain control on the Amp block does not roll off like a real amp does… in fact, to give an example, on the SLO, there is barely any discernible difference between 2 and 5… on a real SLO, rolling the Gain down can clean it up but the SLO Model just goes from full gain to limp wristed… there’s no natural roll-off… sorry Neural, but that needs some work, the interaction between the Master and the Gain is not right. I know you have the capability because the Nolly Plugin has more realistic gain and tone stack control.
THE UGLY:
1/ If the QC is powered off before the monitor, there is a massive ground loop! This concerns me if i ever need to reboot when live… it’s super loud, anyone else experiencing this? It doesn’t happen with any of my other pedals. also tonight my QC got caught in a “boot loop”… whilst powering down it would boot straight up again… if i pressed cancel from the shutdown screen it would bounce straight back to the shutdown screen. I had to pull the plug and do a hard reboot… this worries me a few days in…
2/ Loading IR’s, Presets and Captures is an incredibly convoluted process… i hope this gets streamlined… it’s definitely “Ugly” as it is…
That’s it for now, i’d be interested in any feedback or thoughts based on my experiences…
Cheers