Using a Tone King Imperial Preamp with the QC

Quad Cortex
1

Ok so like most of you I see a new (ish) shiny piece of gear that clearly sounds amazing (at least when others use it) and I want it, regardless of whether it’s a smart idea or not. In this case, my “rig” is pretty much just a Quad Cortex into studio monitors (though I’m definitely looking at potentially grabbing a Pedalhead and a cab (or two) down the line if that does what we all hope it will).

As I run my monitors directly into the QC, I’d either have to unplug them from there and put them in the TKIP instead everytime I want to use it, or run the TKIP into the QC first. I’m just not sure if running it through the QC will introduce conversions etc and I’ll be reducing the quality if that makes sense? I’m not really sure if there’s a pure bypass mode or something like that when running things into and out of the QC? Or if there’s some sort of 4 cable method that’ll preserve the “pure” output of the TKIP?

Just curious if anyone else is doing this, and if so how?

2

All audio input into the QC goes through an analog-to-digital conversion (ADC) stage, and all digital signals in the QC go through a digital-to-analog conversion (DAC) stage on the output. The QC itself doesn’t have a true bypass option.

That said, I would encourage you to experiment with both units together–Tone King Imperial Preamp into the QC, or maybe the preamp in one of the QC’s FX loops. You may have to adjust levels on both to get them to play well with each other. But once everything is dialed in, I think you will find that you will not need to separate them when plugging into your monitors.

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3

Thanks, so there’s no avoiding some conversion then (and twice I guess). I don’t actually have the Tone King yet, I’m just wondering if it’s worth it or if I should just use a capture or the NDSP plugin. Easier to use a capture for sure but you know, not as shiny.