Neural Quad Cortex

    Quote from timowens

    The price at Sweetwater just went up $250, it is now $1,849. Just FYI...

    I’m afraid inflation across the board is on the horizon for all products in general, musical or not is, is inevitable. Basic economics at play. Hence all sorts of things have been going up in price. How quickly depends on the specifics of cost increases in the supply chain. Where demand was high, the price naturally went up. It’s probably no coincidence the demand for the new toy on the lock was high with most Americans getting several checks in the price range of a stage or quad!!

    Quote from timowens

    The price at Sweetwater just went up $250, it is now $1,849. Just FYI...

    The first price from Neural had always been a preorder special offer. This was known. Right at the beginning, over a year ago, Neural had announced that there would be an immediate price adjustment of at least 100 Euros after the preorders, so there are no surprises here. What is kind of a surprise though, is that it took so long for the price to be "adjusted" and that 100 Euros became 250. That only can mean that there is a huge demand for this unit and cannot only be explained by inflation...:/.

    Better have it and not need it, than need it and not have it! - Michael Angelo Batio

    Quote from Alfahdj

    I am sorry to tell you that your point is wrongly argumented. You implied that the quad cortex is more "accurate" than the kemper, and somehow it improves the more you capture the amp.

    I literally never said this bit. I don't even know why you would say that. I'm afraid you might have an issue with your understanding of my viewpoint.


    My viewpoint is that the QC captures are closer to the real amplifier than the Kemper. It's to do with accuracy when compared to "the real thing" - That's all I have said.


    This has been true for me across all of my comparisons for months now. I've posted some clips here, but even those do not encapsulate the totality of my experience. I've spent months with both units side by side now.


    I have had plenty of time and plenty of variation in the profiling and capturing processes, enough to know that to my ears, the QC gets closer.


    I even said it doesn't get 100% of the way, but that the differences do not annoy me as much as the differences between the amp and the Kemper. So there is no blind fanboy-ism going on here.


    I'm currently running the QC in the FX loop of the Kemper, and I'm turning off the stack section on the Kemper and using the QC in the X slot - so basically, Kemper for effects and QC for the amp. It works very well. The QC can even control the Kemper via midi in this configuration too.


    -----------


    From a tech level..... and I don't expect to fully understand everything involved, but in the last decade we've seen improvements in machine learning techniques and music information retrevial techniques. Things like self supervised variational auto-encoders, anomaly detection, and deep learning techniques that were not production ready back in 2011.


    It really shouldn't be a surprise that the QC is able to get closer to the real amp, much in the same way that the Kemper and Helix and AxeFXIII and QC all sound better than a Line 6 PodXT. There wasn't the knowledge or the computational power back when the PodXT was launched to get as close to a real amplifier experience as there is today.

    Oh, and yes. The QC is missing a lot of stuff. In my write up before I said there were many reasons that Kemper owners wouldn't like it. I also said there were some holes in the feature set - I won't go fully over it all again, but I am having to make some workarounds.


    But I bought the unit solely on the promise of the capturing technology. Because everything else I can either workaround or I can wait for updates. I wanted the best amp profiling I could get, because I am proper ADHD about my amps!!!


    QC would've been sent back to the shop if it didn't live up to the hype.

    Quote from Alienator

    The first price from Neural had always been a preorder special offer. This was known. Right at the beginning, over a year ago, Neural had announced that there would be an immediate price adjustment of at least 100 Euros after the preorders, so there are no surprises here. What is kind of a surprise though, is that it took so long for the price to be "adjusted" and that 100 Euros became 250. That only can mean that there is a huge demand for this unit and cannot only be explained by inflation...:/.

    Nah, I think it's to do with component shortages. Fractal raised the price of their units too recently. Kemper hasn't yet.

    Quote from drew_fx

    Nah, I think it's to do with component shortages. Fractal raised the price of their units too recently. Kemper hasn't yet.

    Naaah. I was hanging on Neural's lips right from the start. In an early Interview this was mentioned, as I said above. Also here:


    https://www.gearnews.de/neural…d-cortex-floor-board-2-0/

    (Better learn German)


    Does it really matter? Naaah.

    Better have it and not need it, than need it and not have it! - Michael Angelo Batio

    Edited 2 times, last by Alienator ().

    That's weird. I've literally never read that on any other site. Can anyone confirm? Certainly never saw it in any of the emails from NeuralDSP over the months.


    I ordered my unit in March. I paid £1449, and received it in May. Although my friend who pre-ordered it and was part of Tier 1, he had his in February I believe. So that's how I got "early access", heh heh heh.


    He paid the same as me, which I always thought was a bit of a crappy deal for a pre-order person. I mean, from what I can tell .... all they got above and beyond what I got is an attractive looking 'making of' document, and that seems to be about it. Not too impressed with that myself.

    Quote from drew_fx

    That's weird. I've literally never read that on any other site. Can anyone confirm? Certainly never saw it in any of the emails from NeuralDSP over the months.


    I ordered my unit in March. I paid £1449, and received it in May. Although my friend who pre-ordered it and was part of Tier 1, he had his in February I believe. So that's how I got "early access", heh heh heh.


    He paid the same as me, which I always thought was a bit of a crappy deal for a pre-order person. I mean, from what I can tell .... all they got above and beyond what I got is an attractive looking 'making of' document, and that seems to be about it. Not too impressed with that myself.

    Why do you need others to confirm, you can read yourself and I MYSELF am confirming that I heard Steven from Neural say this live on YouTube, in a subordinate clause, after I asked. I cannot remember the exact words, maybe he said "might" but all the time I expected a price rise of 100 Euros. Maybe Neural DSP were/are just embarrassed about the extreme delay and did not mention it again. Now that it is that much more expensive, the reason is irrelevant to me. I think this unit is really overpriced, now (IMHO). If shortages and inflation are the "real" reason, and not clear marketing strategy, we should see such significant price risings in almost every guitar and gear related company, including Kemper, in the very near future...

    Better have it and not need it, than need it and not have it! - Michael Angelo Batio

    Edited 4 times, last by Alienator ().

    Well at GuitarGuitar here in the UK, units are priced as follows:


    QC - £1599

    Helix Floor - £1230

    Kemper Toaster + Remote - £1849

    Kemper Stage - £1389


    Certainly if you care about more than just the neural capture, I can see it being considered overpriced. I don't really have a dog in the price race. I've already got my three units!

    My QC arrived 2 days ago. I’ve had a number of guys using my Kemper profiles as their go to and suggesting I offer them for sale. It was then suggested, if I’m gearing up to do that, I might as well do captures for the QC at the same time. I looked to see who was offering captures for Quad Cortex and couldn’t find any, but found people wanting better than currently available. Ok, I’ll buy one.


    Feeling a bit guilty seeing all the people that have been waiting for months for their QCs.... I bought it on Sunday afternoon and it arrived Tuesday morning......


    I must confess to knowing very little about it, other than people saying it will be a Kemper killer, game changer, much more accurate captures/profiles etc.


    I’ve only skimmed this thread, so excuse me if I’m repeating anything.


    There are clearly a lot of interesting things you can do with the QC routing, but as far as being a game changer and having more accurate captures, it isn’t and they aren’t. Not yet anyway. It’s only been a couple of days, but this just feels and sounds like a glorified modeller. Obviously it’s early days for the QC and it will presumably improve, with time, as the Kemper has.


    The QC is fairly intuitive, but that’s because it’s mainly surface. It doesn’t have the depth of the KPA. First thing I did was capture an amp I was already setup to profile with the Kemper. I didn’t read the manual, as I wanted to see if it was as intuitive as claimed. Just swapped the leads across and after finding where the menu was, captured the amp. Easy to do and sounds good. It doesn’t sound the same as the signal from the mic’d amp though. The QC capture is cleaner than the Kemper (which was truly indistinguishable from the original mic’d amp) and hasn’t captured the same depth and dimension. It sounds and feels more like a really good amp modeller.


    I re-tried capturing the amp 3 more times with the QC, changing guitar and mic input levels, as all reports are that it is better than the KPA. Each capture was very slightly different, but still not the same as the reference signal.


    At this point I thought I’d better check the manual, as I was obviously missing some hidden settings that would allow me to refine the capture. No, that was it. Nothing more. As I say, it’s easier to use, because there are no hidden parameters to tweak.


    Now the QC capture doesn’t sound bad by any stretch, but it isn’t the “unprecedented accuracy” they advertise. For people used to using modellers; using the captures will be a huge step up and probably feel like a game changer. Compared to their modelled amps, the capture is significantly better. I was profiling/capturing a custom made Deluxe Reverb and their model isn’t anywhere near as good.


    For those of us used to using great amps and expecting the QC to deliver those sounds in the same way the Kemper does, it will probably be disappointing. Obviously the standard of Kemper profiles varies widely, due to its accuracy. It will reproduce whatever you feed it (after refining). It sounds and feels like the QC has been designed so you don’t need the skills of a great engineer in the same way you do with the KPA. It’s like they’ve used the amp as a starting point, but still process it in their own way. It’s probably harder to get a bad capture with it, but then also harder to get something truly great. They seem to have homogenised the capture process.

    I think the Kemper is a long way from being out of date. If the sound of the raw amp is important to you, it still can’t be beaten.

    Very interesting post.


    Here is the "learning curve" of the profiling on the Kemper that I mentioned. I am not an expert making profiles, and I am also not a musical engineer. I´m a dentist.


    So if I want to get my Diezel captured/profiled to be able to take my sounds on an easier package... which one of both devices you think gets ME the best results?


    I was using Diezel profiles before I bought my own Diezel. But my Diezel sounds better than the best Diezel profiles I was using. That is why I found the need to get my own profiles. But the QC, in my hands, got it closer.


    There is no doubt that the Kemper has some amazing tweaking parameters but there is also a skill involved.


    Asking this because I really think that most Kemper/QC users are not musical engineers or even have very accurate studio monitors and rooms to be able to make great profiles.

    I think you have a valid point.

    Kemper had a different target audience when they launched the Profiler: (Semi-)Professionals who want an exact copy of their equipment and then tweak the s**t out of it.

    In my eyes that's also the point why there is no touchscreen and other "modern" stuff. It's not reliable for the road. And when the Profiler development started (before 2010 for sure ;) ) the iphone wasn't even released and touchscreen were really shitty to be honest. And you usually don't change the whole design a few years into development...


    Neural (in my eyes) is coming from software plugins and modelling. That's why they were focussing to develop a modern UI and use touch screen (which are way cheaper today). And i'm pretty sure, that their development started much later then the Profiler :)


    ckemper wrote a few pages back here something interesting about this:

    Neural Quad Cortex

    Quote

    When Profiling was developed, we have decided to give it an interactive aspect. That is, the user is asked to refine the Profile if needed by playing his guitar dynamics and the machine listens to it.


    While we saw the interactive profiling and the amp parameters as a chance for achieving the best profiling results, it now seems to be a burden for those that have a different dedication.

    Maybe it's time to rethink our approach.

    Even when you feed the Kemper a DI'd or loadbox'd signal, therefore ruling out the need for decent mics, rooms, preamps, engineering expertise, etc etc..... the profile still more often than not comes back with some differences.


    Are they significant? Sometimes yes, sometimes no.


    Are they annoying? Sometimes yes, sometimes no.


    It's up to each individual to decide if those differences are a bother for them or not. I've never said the Kemper sounded shit. It doesn't. I've only said that for my tastes - high-gain'd palm-mutey metal and rock - that I prefer the QC, because it seems more accurate to the real amp.


    That doesn't mean the Kemper sounds bad, and you could get good tones with either unit.


    There are some weird things with the Kemper though - I own a Diezel D-Moll. When I profile it with the Kemper, the Kemper says a noise-gate was detected.... erm... no.... it's just not a very noisy amp! lol. Strangely enough I don't get that issue with my Marshall JVMJS, which DOES have a noise-gate built into it. I obviously deactivate that whenever I profile it.


    I also own a Diezel VH4, Fryette Sig X, and Orange Rockerverb. I've made over 200 custom profiles of all of these amps, and there are some really good sounds there. I'm building up my QC collection of captures now.

    Kemper tells me some of my small amps, with valve/tube rectifiers have noise gates too. I assume it’s the voltage sag it detects when hitting it hard.

    Quote from Greggles

    Kemper tells me some of my small amps, with valve/tube rectifiers have noise gates too. I assume it’s the voltage sag it detects when hitting it hard.

    This is with a 100-watt valve amp though. Plenty of headroom, not massively cranked loud or anything. I figured it might be some sort of compander circuit at the input of the amps causing it.

    Makes sense to me. My day job is a studio engineer and I’ve been recording bands for 30 years. No drum machines and very few synths etc. Real instruments in good sounding soundproof rooms.


    So I have the facilities and experience to mic an amp accurately (well no mic is as good as our ears) and the isolation from the amp to refine it well and do accurate a/b comparisons. I don’t like to say it, but I agree that a lot of the profiles I hear don’t really represent the amps accurately. As with anything, it takes a long time to do something well and I think the better you get, the more you expect - therefore often taking even longer.


    I also build valve/tube amps as a hobby.


    I’m not surprised you’ve found it easier to capture your amp with the QC. I think they’ve been deliberate in making it easier to get a good capture, without needing the same level of engineering skill. That’s not a put down or having a go at anybody. Just an observation. Before refining the KPA profile, the QC sounded better. I find that some profiles need more work than others. Learning about the sag, tube shape, clarity etc. helped me close the gap and get some pretty much indistinguishable profiles. It can take a lot of a/b ing to get it right, where the QC doesn’t give you that option, but also needs it less.

    It mean that we will continue to get very different reports about the quality of the QC captures v KPA profiles. Both opinions will be right! :/

    I don't doubt the veracity of your firsthand experiences recounted here. I only wish that the difference—those disparities in one direction or the other—were the key to making better music. Historically I don't enjoy being part of the profiling process. Something about that granular scrutiny—and it happens in the studio a lot too, a/b'ing compressors and eq's for instance—that goes against my musical orientation. I find it creatively draining. That's why I do appreciate how you others so deeply invest in the process. I also wish that good tone, in general but especially in the upper echelons, was more common. I live in the epicenter of small, guitar-centric venues in NYC, and I've also spent a lot of time in the studio (because of another career) with big names. Point being it's not surprising to hear venerable, internationally-established musicians delivering mediocre sounds. No matter the gear. Sometimes it's the room, but not always. Those tones can hinder the performance, but with the greats, not as much as you would think. In the studio, yeah I love my vintage amps. But I also love the Kemper. I don't know. Tone is a thing. And I know how to get it. But it's both easier and less important than what you'd think if all you read about are the experiences recounted in these forums. That's why consistency, reliability, basic mechanical functionality, etc is still a big part of the value of the Kemper. It doesn't mean there aren't other ways to sound great, or easier ways to implement the magic processes that CK invented. And yeah if CK decides, and if the QC is a big part of the impetus, to "revisit" profiling, who knows, it may not be a bad thing. But in 2021, for me the Kemper platform is still the easiest way to sound good and get it done. (Yes I want a Stomp—a cheap tiny alternative, but would that really make me happy? I'm not dying to make the effort.)

    Quote from creative360

    I don't doubt the veracity of your firsthand experiences recounted here. I only wish that the difference—those disparities in one direction or the other—were the key to making better music. Historically I don't enjoy being part of the profiling process. Something about that granular scrutiny—and it happens in the studio a lot too, a/b'ing compressors and eq's for instance—that goes against my musical orientation. I find it creatively draining. That's why I do appreciate how you others so deeply invest in the process. I also wish that good tone, in general but especially in the upper echelons, was more common. I live in the epicenter of small, guitar-centric venues in NYC, and I've also spent a lot of time in the studio (because of another career) with big names. Point being it's not surprising to hear venerable, internationally-established musicians delivering mediocre sounds. No matter the gear. Sometimes it's the room, but not always. Those tones can hinder the performance, but with the greats, not as much as you would think. In the studio, yeah I love my vintage amps. But I also love the Kemper. I don't know. Tone is a thing. And I know how to get it. But it's both easier and less important than what you'd think if all you read about are the experiences recounted in these forums. That's why consistency, reliability, basic mechanical functionality, etc is still a big part of the value of the Kemper. It doesn't mean there aren't other ways to sound great, or easier ways to implement the magic processes that CK invented. And yeah if CK decides, and if the QC is a big part of the impetus, to "revisit" profiling, who knows, it may not be a bad thing. But in 2021, for me the Kemper platform is still the easiest way to sound good and get it done. (Yes I want a Stomp—a cheap tiny alternative, but would that really make me happy? I'm not dying to make the effort.)


    I agree completely. A great performance is most important. Some of my favourite recordings, have terrible sounds in there. I also think most musicians should stay away from engineering. I get the desire to do it themselves and understand what’s going on, but it is very hard to engineer yourself well. Concentrate on making the music.


    As I said earlier, playing with the QC only reinforces to me, how good the Kemper really is. It won’t be (and isn’t for everyone), but if the raw sound of a great amp is more important to you than multiple routing options, there is a depth and realism that is still untouched by QC. I think QC oversold themselves on the accuracy of their captures. “Easier to get a good sound, that is pretty similar to your amp”, doesn’t sound as impressive, but is a more accurate description. The comparisons to KPA don’t help either product.

    I'm fortunate enough to have both the QC and Kemper. I'll be honest, I sold my kemper a couple months before getting the QC. I fell for the #gamechanger neural dsp hype machine. I should have taken the advice I gave others on waiting to sell gear before you can A/B. Now this isn't saying the QC is a bad system, it's actually quite good. But honestly, the Kemper still has this 3d quality and bass response that seems to be lacking in the QC. Also, I could not find a clean capture that could compare to the Kemper....thats where I saw the biggest difference. Another huge factor is the Kemper rig exchange and commercial profiles are actually existent and matured well beyond the QC (which is to be expected). All in all the QC will be up there with Kemper and Axe Fx....eventually. It has a long road ahead of it. So I did end up repurchasing a kemper and will not be letting it go this time!