Neural Quad Core thing demo

John_A

For the QC users.  Which amp models do you prefer the modelled ones or the captured ones?  Does it come pre-loaded with captures?

kjdowd

It comes preloaded with quite a few captures. Not really explored them much yet but the ones I have tried have been excellent. I've mainly focused on the models but haven't had all that much time with it yet. Also has some captured pedals preloaded 

John_A

kjdowd said:

It comes preloaded with quite a few captures. Not really explored them much yet but the ones I have tried have been excellent. I've mainly focused on the models but haven't had all that much time with it yet. Also has some captured pedals preloaded 

Thanks for that.  Definitely still tempted by the QC.  Having never owned a Kemper I find the mix of modelling and profiling all a bit confusing

FarleyUK

I see Andertons now say it’ll be three months before they get stock...

Handsome_Chris

Having looked at John Cordy's video, from doing the math from the time stamps, the boot time is about 41 seconds, which beats the Kemper.  This is all academic of course as when was the last time anyone here experienced a power blip or a power cable getting knocked out.

Jetfire

Helix Lt boot time is around 15 seconds

FarleyUK

AFX3 with the new Cygnus FW it’s about 10 seconds. 

John_A

Handsome_Chris said:

Having looked at John Cordy's video, from doing the math from the time stamps, the boot time is about 41 seconds, which beats the Kemper.  This is all academic of course as when was the last time anyone here experienced a power blip or a power cable getting knocked out.

Happened a couple of times when using my Helix, mostly drunken girls dancing.  The QC looks far from ideal on a pub floor

Cirrus

I had momentary power cuts - well under a second- at one gig that caused hell because the TC nova repeater takes several seconds to start passing audio after power on. 47 seconds would be an eternity

Danny1969

Very common to get loss of power at gigs ... especially at festivals. We run the desk off a UPS because even a half second loss of power will cause the desk to reboot and any IEM / FOH settings not saved in the last seconds will be out. 

If you are gigiing at a venue with a limiter that kills the power if you trip it then it can be a real problem 

DavusPG

John_A said:

Happened a couple of times when using my Helix, mostly drunken girls dancing.  The QC looks far from ideal on a pub floor

What is ideal on a pub floor? It's the risk we take playing such gigs isn't it?

I use an AxeFx3 which is safely tucked away at the back, and control it all from a board with either an FC6 or FC12 and an expression pedal. I guess in a pinch if a pint went on my board I could play with fewer tones selected from the front panel of the Axe, whereas with floorbased units you lose the lot, but even if it were an amp, footswitch and pedals it's still a risk.

If the push from companies is all in one floor units then making them water resistant like smart phones, headphones etc has to be a priority 

WiresDreamDisasters

Right. Mate came round yesterday with his QC. I'll post more thoughts on it later today, but we captured my Satriani JVM with both the QC and the Kemper.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/41u37laovs8fkpe/AACyN5L2gFGX-IRoA8huIN1ba?dl=0

6 clips there. 3 are the real amp. 1 is the Quad Cortex. The other two are the Kemper - refined, and not refined.

Please have a guess at what you think they are!

kjdowd

Absolutely no idea really but I'll go for 1 & 2 Kemper unrefined and refined, 3, 4, 5 real amp and 6 quad cortex. That's just on one listen through. 

JohnCordy

Since I haven't seen anyone doing stuff with the same take, here I just wanted to try and see how close or not both the kemper or QC were to the source tone...

WiresDreamDisasters

kjdowd said:

Absolutely no idea really but I'll go for 1 & 2 Kemper unrefined and refined, 3, 4, 5 real amp and 6 quad cortex. That's just on one listen through. 

Well I'm impatient so I guess I'll just post the answers...

1 - Quad Cortex
2 - Real amp routed through Quad Cortex
3 - Kemper not refined
4 - Real amp routed through Kemper
5 - Kemper refined
6 - Real amp routed through Kemper

We used a looper pedal for the DI, so it's the same performance in each take. Basically - Kemper sticks out like a sore thumb I think. I can't hear a difference between the QC and the real amp.


BTW - these were DI'd profiles of the amp. No mics or cabs. I slapped an IR on afterwards as a test. Same IR in all cases.

WiresDreamDisasters

So here's my opinion on the unit...


1. Very easy to use. I feel a little dirty admitting it, but the touchscreen is amazing. MUCH MUCH MUCH quicker to get around a patch than the Helix and Kemper. Didn't need to look at the manual once.

2. The footswitches feel great. The way the caps turn feels solid, and I don't think they'd fall apart at all. The caps wobble a little bit, but they're definitely not flimsy. And they're very intuitive to use in terms of changing parameters in a selected block.

3. I was very worried about the delays and reverbs, since they're a core part of my sound. Okay, so the choice is very limited... but they actually sound very good, and are easier to dial in and get the sound I want than the Kemper. Also, the way the mix and feedback parameters work is much nicer to my ear than the Helix. The Helix gets too washy and lacks definition and cut at high mix and feedback levels. The QC does not. I was very pleasantly surprised, because I expected to be bummed out by the QC's options here.

4. Neural Capture - in a word, very impressive. It takes a lot longer to run all it's test signals, but once it's done.. no fucking around with refining, no second guessing yourself .... all of the did I do it right? Why doesn't this sound closer? How can I make it better? type stuff that I always think when I'm profiling with the Kemper.... just not a thing with the QC.

5. Footswitch proximity.... yeah... this one is a real concern for me. I think it would get better over time, once I became more familiar with it... now it isn't really the horizontal spacing between the switches, it's the vertical. A few times I meant to hit a switch on the top row, and ended up hitting a switch on the bottom row as I took my foot away. Something to think about.

6. The power supply... yes.... annoying that it's not an IEC. But I think I can live with it. Once the QC is on a board, make sure that the PSU cable is properly secured, and it shouldn't ever come out accidentally.

7. Naming presets - again... touchscreen makes this a piece of piss. Both the Helix and the Kemper are way more annoying to use. Kemper is more annoying than the Helix in this respect. In fact, the Kemper user experience is from stone age compared to both units.

8. The pitch effects on the QC ... they're serviceable. The whammy has the warbly whammy thing to it.... it's okay... good enough for my needs, but if you're super super super picky about this, you might wanna keep your whammy hanging around! For me, the QC is better simply because the whammy block offers a wet/dry mix control, which is essential for a few atmospheric pitchy things I do.

9. EQ's are great. Not a lot to report here - they do what you'd expect, and don't destroy the sound of your guitar. Nuff said.

10. Drives - I didn't go through these exhaustively. But the tubescreamer sounded like a tubescreamer to me!

11. Stock 'neural captures' - they have tons of stock neural captures.... I paid attention mostly to the Fryette Sig:X ones because I know that amp like the back of my hand. They sound just like the real amp - and this is an amp that the Kemper has a lot of problems capturing for some reason.

12. Built in amp models - the Friedman BE100 was LUSHHHH.... I really loved it. The Hiwatt was better than the Helix one, sounded more 3D and real and in your face; all the usual tripe we all say about amps.

13. The QC in general sounded more "believeable" than the Helix to me; which I grit my teeth to admit, because I really am a huge Helix fangurl.

14. The tuner on QC is better than the tuner on Helix. Without a shadow of a doubt. I actually can't believe the Helix tuner sometimes. I just stopped using it - coz it fucks with my brain. I hate it.

15. Final point - pedalboard friendliness...... yessss m8...... floor real estate and weight are real concerns for me. I know I can do the same thing with the Helix and Kemper.... add in a few pedals.... but for a live show.... it's just a huge pain in the ass. So I always take the hit on the sound quality in favour of simplicity. I wont have to do that with the QC on a board.




Things it wont do (yet):

- Proper chaotic delay oscillations. Nope. Not even the tape delay.
- Huge shimmery ambient pad reverbs. The cave gets close. But it's no Big Sky Cloud or MXR Reverb Pad mode.
- Reverse delay. C'mon Neural. Fix up.
- Pattern tremolo. I really need this; which is why I still have the Mobius.

Things I didn't try:

- midi switching other pedals
- expression pedal assignment
- 4 cable method
- noise gates





Not sure what else to say.... I'm sold.

TeleMaster

Time for you to get one then! I read that after this batch they won't have any for distributors till November. But I'd call around the various shops and see if they have allocations and pre order ASAP. 

Was it noisy with the supplied PSU? 

WiresDreamDisasters

TeleMaster said:

Time for you to get one then! I read that after this batch they won't have any for distributors till November. But I'd call around the various shops and see if they have allocations and pre order ASAP. 

Was it noisy with the supplied PSU? 

Pre-ordered one with Guitar Guitar this morning. They reckon 7 days. We shall see.......



I didn't notice any noise issues with the supplied PSU. I am wondering if there is a way to power it from a Zuma or another pedalboard power supply.

JohnCordy

@WiresDreamDisasters Zuma outputs are 500ma so doubling those didn't work for me, won't boot.

The cioks something or other was what one of the Neural guys was using with a current doubler

TeleMaster

I have a True Tone One Spot CS6 which allowed me to power a HXFX and other pedals. The output points may say 500ma 200ma etc but they will deliver whatever the pedal demands up to the maximum output of the power supply. 

So I could power the HXFX and a load of other pedals. 

I've had a look and it's 3A and I don't think that True Tone make something with that much power supply, and other power supplies will be what they say on the output, so I don't think there's much that can power it but potentially something like the Zuma can, but you'll need quite a few of them surely? It's a bit like a laptop. 

This thread has some ideas. 

https://unity.neuraldsp.com/t/quad-cortex-psu-amp-requirements/3450