Over the past few years I’ve compiled a few tips for dialing in a more realistic response/feel/tone on my QC. There have been lots of videos and posts- these are the tips that have been most useful to me. If you have others, post them here please.
hi/low pass 50-80hz, 8k -10kHz
compressor last in chain - tames the top-end, glues fx & prolongs trails, adds ‘sag/squeeze;’ keeps higher gain tones from having an inordinate volume boost (-20dB, 4to1, level=unity)
subtractive EQ after cab; notch out ‘artificial-sounding peaks’
soft clipping = slight OD. emulates speaker breakup/power amp saturation. On QC = power amp capture after amp/cab achieves this effect.
fx placement ; before amp/cab blocks simulates pedalboard setup. After amp/cab emulates studio-style post fx
Those are all pretty much electric guitar-centric, and ‘starting-points’ only- YMMV and of course everything needs to be tweaked for your own personal setup.
For bass and acoustic guitar I usually find amps and cabs are not always necessary- sometimes it’s better for clarity not to use them in the chain. Acoustics with piezo pickups benefit from acoustic IRs (many of which are available as captures on the Cloud) which warm the tone and give the impression of body and resonance.
Thanks Xush. It’s a nice collection of tips, especially helpful for those who are new to the QC and/or modeling in general. If I might add…don’t be afraid to run your high-cut lower or your low-cut higher, especially if you’re struggling with too much “fizz” on your overdriven tones or too much mud in the bottom end (respectively) . Ignore the numbers and let your ears decide.
For overdrive pedals, I like having an additional compressor block (usually the Jewel) with a light threshold right before the overdrive block to add a little extra squish and sag. In stomp or scene mode, I have it so the compressor and overdrive are both triggered by the same footswitch. This especially works well with Neural Captures of overdrive pedals in my experience.
For acoustic guitar presets, I don’t like using amps or cabs either, but I have gotten some good use out of Neural Captures of mic preamps. Someone uploaded a capture of an Avalon U5 studio preamp to Cortex Cloud that I think works great with acoustic guitar! After hitting the preamp capture block, I also like adding an impulse response of an acoustic guitar in row 2 and splitting my dry signal so it’s partially processed by the IR block. You can blend the IR block in with the dry signal using the split mix controls.
settings on amp block… reduce input/preamp volume -4.8 db and increase master/output volume +3-4 db. This could be a gain staging thing, but it seems to bring out more tubey sound.
(only in stereo, not a fan of mono reverb) on bass, if i want to loosen the sound i use an empty ir block (st), and on page 2 add room mix 5-15%. This reverb sounds drastically better than the reverb block room, could be me though.
How do you find using a Power Amp capture compares to just cranking the ‘master’ setting on the actual amp block? I thought that’s what that control was for?
Higher Master = more midrangey, compressed sound as you would get with power tube drive.
it’s a much more pronounced saturation with the additional PA, no doubt from the cascading effect. Also, it’s adding character and depth and a thickness that just increasing the amp model master vol doesn’t quite offer. And it’s usable on captures where you can’t adjust that setting at all.
Come to think of it, I might go back and edit ‘cascading gain’ into the initial post; that’s something I haven’t seen discussed much in modeler forums.
I built as much into this one as possible. The post EQ is not engaged or adjusted, that will need to be done on an individual basis.
XP1 cross-fades between Lane 1(clean) and 2(cascaded gains).
Dual ‘87’ comps emulate the OE Slide Rig dual-compressor for ultimate squish. Disable 1 for an 1176/Cali76 tx (dialed in against my Cali76tx unit) feel.
Toggle the post Comp for the ‘sag/trails glue’ effect.
The Myth Drive at 0% gain adds to the soft-clipping/transparent boost effect along with the Power Amp capture (in this case placed before the amp and cab)
(the crazy wet cascading delays are just my usual ambient explorations, feel free to disable those or dial down to taste)
It’s pretty ‘full’ but still only at 59% CPU