Neural Quad Core thing demo

WiresDreamDisasters

Mine arrives tomorrow.

Fiftyshadesofjay

Tomorrow for me as well 

WiresDreamDisasters

Well it's here. Haven't plugged it in yet!

onyir

I've just done my first capture, a Hudson Broadcast (Peach Guitars edition) on the high gain side. It sounds spot on. Amazing!

Fiftyshadesofjay

First impressions are pretty good, capturing a few of my favourite Kemper tones. There's been a few things that have stumped me like loading IR's but think I'm there now.

To be fair I had my jab yesterday so it's hard to concentrate on a new device when you feel like your head's about to explode.

WiresDreamDisasters

So just got back to London

This weekend threw me a bit of a curve ball

I took my Marshall amp and my Helix, because my plan was to switch the JVM by midi from the Helix, and run it how I always do. But since the QC arrived on Friday and we were leaving Friday evening, I decided to take it with me.

So the JVM wouldn't respond to any midi commands, and I don't know why. I never tested it before hand.

So in the end, I did the entire weekend on the QC, into the FX loop return on the JVM.

All my effects and distortion came from the QC. No midi switching. Just using scenes mode on the thing. Two presets that I very very quickly rushed together.

I used a Neural Capture of the Fryette Sig X for most of it. But I also took a capture of my JVM's OD1 red channel.

Basically - cut a long story short... I loved it.

I'll post more, but I wanna collect my thoughts.

WiresDreamDisasters

Okay, so some thoughts... I'm lucky enough to own the Kemper, Helix, and now QC. I've owned the Axe FX II in the past as well. I have 5 multi-channel high-gainer valve heads, and a whole corner of pedals to boot. 

Ok.... 

QC palm-mutes just seem more "real" to me than the Kemper, unfortunately. This is the overriding observation of my weekend. I REALLY noticed this in a band context. My palm mutes sat in the mix just like my valve amps do.

I love my Kemper for a lot of things, but high-gain palm-mute riffing isn't really one of them. The Kemper has this low-mid flubb going on that can't really be dialed out, and there is a weird response where some profiles are under-hyped when doing palm mutes, and some are over-hyped. It can often sound akin to proximity effect when you put a microphone against a grille cloth. A lot of people question this observation, and of course they're free too, but time and time again it's the thing that stops me from playing my Kemper.

The QC doesn't have this problem. Even if it sounds slightly different to the amps captured, it *feels* the same. And that's what is important.

Despite my earlier comments about the neural captures being identical to the amp, they are not. But they're very close. The Kemper is very close too. There is a lot of subjectivity to this and a lot of perceptual differences, but to me the QC feels closer to my amp when I capture it than the Kemper.

I didn't miss refining. At all. That part of the Kemper profiling process needs to be put out to pasture. It introduces needless subjectivity and complexity.

I could definitely see Kemper users being annoyed by the QC. Not being able to change the definition of a capture, the pick attack, and not being able to turn down a high-gain capture to a super clean tone, and getting all of that lovely extra dynamic range... I can totally see Kemper owners really thinking that this is a backwards move for them. I don't much care for those things. They're very cool aspects of the Kemper, but they're not hugely important to my use case.

The QC only gives you 24dB reduction, so a high-gain profile will only clean up so much. But it's more amp-like and so it felt more intuitive to use. The EQ is WAAAAAAYYYY less brutal than the one in the Kemper, feels smoother and not as drastic. So you never feel like you've totally ruined the tone.

I thought that the reverbs and delays would be limiting on the QC. They're sooooooooo good on the Kemper. Really. Top class effects. They're pretty serviceable on the QC though, and they cut through the mix better than any of the reverbs or delays on the Helix. I like a delay to have a really long amount of echoes, with no difussion and no smearing. Helix can't do that. QC and Kemper can.

The adaptive gate is very cool. The gate on the Kemper is best in class IMHO. Very tough to beat it, but QC does a good job.

My QC preset was much simpler than my Helix presets on account of how little time I had to get them setup. I had to be up and running in 10 minutes, and so didn't have much time to get into the nitty gritty like I have done with my Helix. But it makes me think that doing a show with my Kemper actually wouldn't be the limiting thing I always thought it would be. I'm a bit of an effects junkie, and the limitations of the Kemper always put me off. But .... reckon it'd be fine.

Helix tuner is pants. Kemper tuner is good. QC tuner is exceptional. Likewise with tempo readouts. QC tap tempo is great and accurate.

Over the whole weekend, I didn't accidentally press a wrong footswitch at all. This surprises me, because I really thought it was going to be an issue, and would have returned the unit if it had turned out to be a major workflow killer.

The touchscreen is brilliant I have to say. I was very skeptical about it. It works. It uses so many concepts that you are used to with your phone, that everything feels like second nature. You don't even have to read the manual. That is not true with the Kemper. 10 years after using Kempers, I still find the thing mega confusing, with crazy menus and 80's arcade controls that suck up more time than the operations deserve. I'm naming a preset... it should take less than 10 seconds!!

So what didn't I enjoy??

Setting up different parameters in scenes mode.... unless I'm dumb, you basically have to set the parameter in each scene. Let's say I have a default gain of 5.0, but I want one scene that is 3.0.... and then I decide, actually my default gain should be 4.0 .... I have to go through all the other scenes to set them to 4.0. Not sure there is any way around that. Helix has a cool thing where you press in the knob and turn it in order to assign a parameter to the scene selection, otherwise it's just global.

I REALLY found myself wanting dB meters in order to balance the levels across my scenes. I was bringing in different amps and captures and found I had to do a lot of tweaking to get the levels. I'm used to being able to grab a knob on an amp, so this was more involved than it could be I reckon.

Currently you're only able to send ​ONE​ midi program change per scene. This sucks. Needs improving ASAP imho. Anyone with a QC and the Stryfecta is going to be disappointed with the current midi implementation.

The cloud stuff is confusing. Not intuitive at all when it comes to sharing presets and captures. Getting the damn things on the device took us ages and made us all feel like old men. We all work in the tech industry too, so we know what we're doing!! Not being able to share IR's.... okay, I understand why, but it sucks.

Can't think of much else to put right now. I am certainly a fan. I've not made my mind up about selling my Kemper or my Helix yet. Time will tell. All three are great devices.

Fiftyshadesofjay

Had mine for a few days (arrived the same time as Drew). Here's my thoughts on it.

I'm a professional musician (weddings etc) and guitar teacher and I like to dabble with original music like punk/hardcore/shoegaze but I'm mainly using an amp for that. Currently I use a Kemper for all musical related work. Main attraction of the QC for me was how compact it is as I'm currently carrying around a 6U rack and a flightcase with the controller in. So with that out of the way here's my feelings relating to my own particular use case.

The Good -

The hardware is on the whole top notch. Great form factor, plenty of switches, rotaries work well and the screen looks great. 

Mostly intuitive to use and set up patches etc. There's defintely a few quirks but on the whole it's dead easy to use. 

Some great sounds from the models and cabs. I generally prefer profiles/captures but the models do sound good and the cab block with the adjustable microphones is a lesson on how it should be done.

The Bad - 

Effects are seriously limited. I must be in the minority that thinks the reverbs sound pretty awful. The Kemper has top draw reverbs, Strymon quality IMO and this is nowhere near. Also as you know they hog the resources currently. The tape delay is really good, as is the pitch block. Modulation sounds mostly broken.

No SPDIF. May not be a big deal to some but I miss it a lot. I wouldn't be using the QC as an interface as I have a decent one here. 

Captures. I've tried a bit of capturing and I don't think it's any better than the Kemper. Kemper does have that TS cocked wha going on but equally captures that I've attempted have ended up under gained and darker sounding. Also why is everyone making direct captures? If I'm recording or going straight to FOH I don't want to have to put a crappy IR behind it, I just want the sound of a properly mic'd up amp. 

That PSU. I mean, £1500 modeller with a 20p PSU. 

The Ugly -

Cortex Cloud. It's broken and it sucks. I actually thought it was a sound idea in theory but implementation is terrible. Good luck finding what you want on there with no tags. 
Also to download a capture or preset you have to find it, star it, connect the unit to wifi and download it. And once you've downloaded it the unit doesn't remember so it's impossible to keep track. 
Surely it would make more sense to choose the capture or preset and beam it to the unit directly? The old school way of downloading it to your computer then on to your advice is ten times quicker than that.

Conclusion -

I've probably been a bit harsh as there is a bit to like but honestly for me it needs another 6 months to a year to be ready. Now in some peoples cases that's fine and it will mature I'm sure. I personally need something I can rely on for gigs and the Kemper is way more mature currently. 

Handsome_Chris

The cure of the early adopter.  I kinda went through this with the Axe-FX II and it the GT-1000.

I think that sometimes there is such a rush to get product to the marketplace that product quality can suffer.  Fortunately, with great hardware, this stuff it can fixed in the digital realm so it's not a problem.

WiresDreamDisasters

We're definitely early adopters. Helix had been out for sometime before I got one, so Line 6 had already ironed out most of the bugs.

I know it sounds like honeymoon period bullshit, but I've been jamming on the QC all day for the past 4 days since I got it, and I'm constantly asking myself whether I need my Helix or Kemper anymore.... Not gonna make any rash decisions.... but I smell a Fryette Powerstation in my future......

WiresDreamDisasters

https://www.dropbox.com/s/9b25kzjayaagrtw/Untitled1.mp3?dl=0

Super crufty quick overview. My playing sucks. I like the tones.

kjdowd

WiresDreamDisasters said:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/9b25kzjayaagrtw/Untitled1.mp3?dl=0

Super crufty quick overview. My playing sucks. I like the tones.

Love that. 3 weeks in and I'm finding it equally inspirational. Really impressed. Yes there's lots to improve but the fundamental sound is just so good. 

All the guitars and bass on this were QC only (don't worry I'm going to get an actual singer on it at some point and redo the lead etc etc) 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ume76q8w73pyzv8/lazy%20gun%20all%2030.3.m4a?dl=0

Jonathanthomas83

WiresDreamDisasters said:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/9b25kzjayaagrtw/Untitled1.mp3?dl=0

Super crufty quick overview. My playing sucks. I like the tones.

I like!

xchrisv

I've been playing with the Quad Cortex for a several weeks now and love it, having used it for a number of gear demos and recording sessions. I go way back with Kemper having reviewed one of the first units in the UK back in day and remain a huge fan of the profiling tech but the Neural's user experience is light years ahead. I also made some amp and pedal profiles and captures on the weekend using a Kemper and the QC, and the Neural tones are noticeably better, less grainy and more 'HD', which I suppose you'd expect compared to technology that's a decade older. Anyway – mega-impressed so far and the shortcomings with the breadth of effects etc on offer will surely be addressed in the coming months. I would definitely gig this thing. Here's something I made with it:



 

xchrisv

And something else (less ambience, more rawk): 

John_A

@chrisv.  Sounds great, I'm 'almost' convinced

monquixote

The QC sounds amazing on the demos I've heard.

I don't really get what the guys at Kemper are doing. The product has been out for ages, but they seem to have just rested on their laurels. At the lower end you can now get Helix quality modelling in the Pod Go and at the higher end you have the QC, but they don't seem to have really improved the product, dropped the price, or done anything very interesting with it.

Adamski

monquixote said:

The QC sounds amazing on the demos I've heard.

I don't really get what the guys at Kemper are doing. The product has been out for ages, but they seem to have just rested on their laurels. At the lower end you can now get Helix quality modelling in the Pod Go and at the higher end you have the QC, but they don't seem to have really improved the product, dropped the price, or done anything very interesting with it.

I disagree - I think the Kemper is more of a complete solution than any of those - a Kemper head with the remote and the powered Kab (or just the Kone) gives you the flexibility of tones you get with everything else plus still being able to twiddle knobs on top of a cabinet + you have all the cabinet imprint technology of the Kone. 

Honestly I don’t believe the hype of the QC - the effects seem sub par compared to Kemper/Helix and in a lot of the clips I’ve seen on YouTube, the switching between amps creates quite a delay, which makes that a bit unusable (might have fixed this now though?). 

Being an owner of a Kemper and a Helix, I’ll pick one up to have a try though, of course. 

The thing I love about the Kemper is it sounds great through headphones, through monitors or with a cab. How is the QC through phones, does anyone know? That’s a big thing for me for late night playing. 

monquixote

Adamski said:

monquixote said:

The QC sounds amazing on the demos I've heard.

I don't really get what the guys at Kemper are doing. The product has been out for ages, but they seem to have just rested on their laurels. At the lower end you can now get Helix quality modelling in the Pod Go and at the higher end you have the QC, but they don't seem to have really improved the product, dropped the price, or done anything very interesting with it.

I disagree - I think the Kemper is more of a complete solution than any of those - a Kemper head with the remote and the powered Kab (or just the Kone) gives you the flexibility of tones you get with everything else plus still being able to twiddle knobs on top of a cabinet + you have all the cabinet imprint technology of the Kone. 

Honestly I don’t believe the hype of the QC - the effects seem sub par compared to Kemper/Helix and in a lot of the clips I’ve seen on YouTube, the switching between amps creates quite a delay, which makes that a bit unusable (might have fixed this now though?). 

Being an owner of a Kemper and a Helix, I’ll pick one up to have a try though, of course. 

The thing I love about the Kemper is it sounds great through headphones, through monitors or with a cab. How is the QC through phones, does anyone know? That’s a big thing for me for late night playing. 

However good it is they've done practically nothing for the past ten years which is an age in tech.

TTBZ

@WiresDreamDisasters sounds great! Is that your JVM capture on the Oblivion riffs and the Tool before that? Really nice.

I'll be waiting for a cheaper QC Stomp equivalent now