I’m sure this has been asked before but it seems to be lost in the mists of NDSP-time; can anyone explain why you can’t go from Row 1 to Row 2 on the QC?
IIRC a few years ago there were calls for an update to allow us to do this, is this still a desired feature among the community or is this something we’ve basically forgotten about? For me personally I have to say I find it odd that you jump from Row 1 to Row 3, even in a simple preset with no splitter on Row 1, and I don’t understand why the QC is set up this way
Between 1 and 2, you use a jumper at the beginning all the way past the next to the last block. You lose one block for that super serial.
Use the signal pass from 2 to 3 and then do the same next to last block jumper between rows 3 and 4. It’s worth losing 2 blocks for a complete serial path option!
To my understanding, this is because
core 1&2 power row 1&2
and
core 3&4 power row 3&4.
So it makes sense to run the second lane to row 3.
However, I agree that it looks weird and I don’t see a reason why it can’t be swapped at least on the screen to look more intuitive visually.
It’s apparently a design choice by NDSP. I don’t understand it, but the fact that they haven’t changed it likely means they want it this way. Why? I don’t know.
I don’t know if I’ve seen a preset with every block space in use. Even if you could do it, I’m not sure how practical it would be or if latency might be an issue. There’s definitely a DSP-headroom limit, so maybe you can’t really use all 32 slots effectively anyway, in which case losing 2 slots isn’t that big of a deal
I can actually live without the two extra blocks, but it’s still nice if they could be regained.
I mainly use it so I can have my typical 4 amp preset like I do an 8 amp one with my FM9 Turbo and Axe FX III Mark II Turbo. Love love love my multi amp scenes! Kitchen Sink presets pretty much other than specialty presets.
Thank you. I wasn’t actually implying that Core 1 powers Row 1 only, but it still stands that if Core 1 and 2 work in tandem together then logically you should be able to go from Row 1 to Row 2.
Might not bother some people but it does seem odd/illogical/unintuitive to me
The manual says that Row1/2 and Row3/4 use different cores.
And you can also see if you put too much in Row1/2 that you cannot add blocks anymore even if the CPU meter still shows below 50% usage.
So I guess it is a design choice so that we are a bit “forced” to use Row3/4 for large presets and thus use all available computing power.
If they would allow going from Row1 to Row2 as a normal option, they would need to at least add a “warning” that this is more limiting than going to Row3/4.
Not saying that it shouldn’t be possible, just guessing the rationale here.
On fractals FM9 you can route the signal freely without being restricted to stuff like lanes and being forced to use this lane or that lane and not this one. Since the unit has the exact same chip build into, I would really love to see NDSP removing those unintuitive routing restrictions.
There’s a DSP percentage for the QC, so I don’t think they would necessarily need a warning. Also you can route like this on Helix, but once it hits the limit for that DSP chip, you have to route to the next row + certain blocks are greyed out.
I know what you mean. I have no idea why the UI’s for some of the major modelers don’t have a meta-layer by now that extracts the CPU management from the user. The user should not have to worry about distributing the blocks, at least for a long(super) serial path. This should be done under the covers.
You are right that the FM9 does away with the above issue of the user having to distribute the blocks across CPUs. The FM9 does force you to use the Send/Return blocks to go from one row to another? So there could still be a simpler way to link rows. And there are only two sets of Send/Return blocks. Enough for most presets but still a limiting factor in route design and use of external pedals in loops.
I don’t know what you mean by the FM9 forces you to use send/return to go from one row to another… In theory (because at some point the CPU limit will stop you) the grid has 6 rows and 14 columns and they work like shown on the screenshot.
Looks like you found the pertinent Send/Return reference in the manual. It’s not obvious in the FM9’s “cabling” diagram, but you can’t for example, run a shunt from the block at the end of a row to the first block in the next row. You have to use a Send and Return block to link the two rows.
There is a lot of flexibility for routing on the FM9. Would be more though if there were either more Send/Return pairs available, or if you could simply send one row directly to the next. It is the same challenge the Quad Cortex has when you have to use the split/merges to link two rows together. Just have to work around it. Frankly I don’t find it limiting for how I usually design my presets.
Would rather, on the QC, just be able to send row 1 to row 2, and row 3 to row 4 without the split/merge. And the way the 8th block on rows 1 & 3 gets stranded and can’t be placed before the split offends my sense of logic and order in the universe
