Quad Cortex - I wonder where they got that idea?

[SaschaFranck]

26 minutes ago, antonio1961 said:

Tbf, that could be any modeller/fx processor that you are listening to , there's absolutely nothing in that vid that would make me even moderately interested in parting with $1500.

 

Seems like the touchscreen and the tech specs are enough for a few though.

 

There's a list of some of the included amps somewhere already, containing all the typical stuff as well. Their Archtype plugins (ported to the Cortex) will only be an addon - kinda like the genuine L6 amps (Badonk et al).
Fwiw, these aren't the tones I'm after, either. I like it quite a bit more raw. Yet, they demonstrate Neural DSPs coding skills quite fine - and I absolutely don't think you can get the same quality from each and every modeler, they're really detailed and dynamic. In case they manage to keep that level of dynamics and details with whatever standard amps, I'd be all in.

[the_bees_knees22]

the "neural capture" seems to be the most interesting feature.  

"Capture, share and download your favorite rigs’ sounds.
Equipped with our unique biomimetic AI technology, Quad Cortex can learn and replicate the sonic characteristics of any physical amplifier, overdrive, and cabinet with unprecedented accuracy."

But man.... the wording they use in their ads.  "best ever.... Unprecedented!   ..as good as it gets!"   .... they sound like a bad infomercial. 

I'm sure it'll be a good piece of gear, but instead of telling me it's the best thing ever made, just show me what it can do and how it sounds.

[TLF2007]

37 minutes ago, the_bees_knees22 said:

the "neural capture" seems to be the most interesting feature.  

"Capture, share and download your favorite rigs’ sounds.
Equipped with our unique biomimetic AI technology, Quad Cortex can learn and replicate the sonic characteristics of any physical amplifier, overdrive, and cabinet with unprecedented accuracy."

But man.... the wording they use in their ads.  "best ever.... Unprecedented!   ..as good as it gets!"   .... they sound like a bad infomercial. 
 

It does seem like an unprecedented amount of big words. "Biomimetic" loosely means using natural / biophysical construct and modeling it for a human purpose. Again, a loose and probably not entirely correct definition but this seems like the work of a marketing intern that changed their major after their freshman year of chemical engineering or biology, etc. If is it related, they haven't really explained or I missed what in the natural world is modeled for its architechure. I don't think I'd make the leap that a Fender Bassman appears in nature. 

[cruisinon2]

43 minutes ago, TLF2007 said:

It does seem like an unprecedented amount of big words. "Biomimetic" loosely means using natural / biophysical construct and modeling it for a human purpose. Again, a loose and probably not entirely correct definition but this seems like the work of a marketing intern that changed their major after their freshman year of chemical engineering or biology, etc. If is it related, they haven't really explained or I missed what in the natural world is modeled for its architechure. I don't think I'd make the leap that a Fender Bassman appears in nature. 

 

Lmao... indeed. Every marketer in existence has a PhD in bull$hit.

[codamedia]

12 hours ago, BlueD said:

 

We already know how it sounds > 

 

 

That's not a demo of the Cortex. As I said in my earlier post... I do expect this to be a high quality option in the game... but this sample is a plugin, only proof that they do good work. I already know they make good plugins.

[codamedia]

2 hours ago, the_bees_knees22 said:

the "neural capture" seems to be the most interesting feature.  

 

I agree... a combined modeler/profiler would be intriguing. 

 

Th profiling standard has been set by Kemper... just how close to "that good" will it be? 

Mooer added a capture feature to their modeler... but every demo I saw of that (feature) was sadly, laughable!

 

Get it right, success... get it wrong, what's the point! 

[rd2rk]

3 hours ago, TLF2007 said:

It does seem like an unprecedented amount of big words. "Biomimetic" loosely means using natural / biophysical construct and modeling it for a human purpose. Again, a loose and probably not entirely correct definition but this seems like the work of a marketing intern that changed their major after their freshman year of chemical engineering or biology, etc. If is it related, they haven't really explained or I missed what in the natural world is modeled for its architechure. I don't think I'd make the leap that a Fender Bassman appears in nature. 

 

My take on their "profiling" is that it not only analyzes the sound, it's algorithms take into account how humans HEAR sound, and choose what info to include, emphasize or exclude from the "profile". Since we all hear sound slightly differently, it should also take that into account. Sounds complicated and will likely be at least as subject to "YMMV" as anything else related to our highly subjective opinions/perceptions of what sounds good.

 

Profiling doesn't interest me, since the reason I have a modeler is that I don't/can't have real amps. Nothing I've ever heard from a KPA is that much better than Helix that I'd want to spend that much money and go down the rabbit hole of constantly wanting to buy other people's profiles looking for the "holy grail". Besides, it's one of the ugliest pieces of gear I've ever seen :-)! It will be interesting though to see how the QC profiling stands up to the industry leader.

[cruisinon2]

13 minutes ago, rd2rk said:

Besides, it's one of the ugliest pieces of gear I've ever seen :-)!

 

It is hideous, isn't it? First time I saw one in person, I actually wanted to hit it... lol

[SaschaFranck]

2 hours ago, codamedia said:

Mooer added a capture feature to their modeler... but every demo I saw of that (feature) was sadly, laughable!

 

Yeah well, the Mooer functionality doesn't seem to be much more than a match EQ (and not even a good one at that). Same goes for PGs Bias Amp.

 

10 minutes ago, rd2rk said:

Profiling doesn't interest me, since the reason I have a modeler is that I don't/can't have real amps. Nothing I've ever heard from a KPA is that much better than Helix that I'd want to spend that much money and go down the rabbit hole of constantly wanting to buy other people's profiles looking for the "holy grail". Besides, it's one of the ugliest pieces of gear I've ever seen :-)! It will be interesting though to see how the QC profiling stands up to the industry leader.

 

Personally, I like quite some of the profiles available for the KPA. IMO the MBritt stuff is just excellent - and at least for some of these profiles, I wouldn't happen to know how to get there with the Helix.

Anyway, regarding plain amp sounds, I really don't need much more (even if I could happily do with some Dumble things), but I could imagine having plenty of fun profiling (err... capturing) rather unusual things, such as, say, a combination of two amps doing different things in the high and low registers. Fwiw, I'm actually wondering why there seem to be so little experimental profiles - well, maybe there's a lot of them and they're just not very wellknown.

 

Still, so far there's just pictures and no sounds or anything. But then, in 1.5 hours their live Q&A stream on YT will start. That should be quite interesting.

[SaschaFranck]

Hm, I actually like the design of the Kemper a whole lot.

[antonio1961]

5 minutes ago, cruisinon2 said:

 

It is hideous, isn't it? First time I saw one in person, I actually wanted to hit it... lol

I think you're being kind describing it as 'Hideous' :-)

 

[phil_m]

When the Kemper toaster first came out I remember thinking it looked like a piece of medical or dental equipment. The toaster still does. The look of the rack doesn't bother me as much. The whole Kemper

 

I owned the Kemper rack for about six months, and I don't know. I really wanted to like it, because I thought it would be fun to shoot some profiles of the amps I left and then just sell them and have the profiles live on indefinitely. I did create some profiles, and they were alright, but when I compared them to presets I had created in the Helix, there wasn't much difference. I could pretty much make the Helix presets sound like those profile with not much work. Beyond that, editing on the Kemper itself is a slog. It's not that it's hard to understand. It's just slow. I liken to when you first start trying to learn a scale. It feel slow and unnatural, but eventually it gets faster. Well, with the Kemper, it always just felt slow. On the Helix, I can make changes without really having to think very much about the hardware just because the hardware part of it serves the functions very well.

 

So if this Neural device actually does do profiling and offer a fast editing experience, that could be nice. I'm not completely sold on the whole footswitches as knob thing, but we'll see. I'm hoping to see this thing in person at NAMM this week.

[the_bees_knees22]

8 minutes ago, cruisinon2 said:

 

It is hideous, isn't it? First time I saw one in person, I actually wanted to hit it... lol

lol  the looks are pretty slick to me.  There's something about the compactness that I like.   But i don't buy modelers for the looks.   Still prefer the helix deign though.  It's just hard to beat.

[rd2rk]

18 minutes ago, the_bees_knees22 said:

lol  the looks are pretty slick to me.  There's something about the compactness that I like.   But i don't buy modelers for the looks.   Still prefer the helix deign though.  It's just hard to beat.

 

The hideous device we're talking about is the KPA, and I don't see that as being compact. The QC, OTOH, is pretty slick looking. I wish it had scribble strips though.

[codamedia]

34 minutes ago, rd2rk said:

The QC, OTOH, is pretty slick looking. I wish it had scribble strips though.

 

Since we only see photos at this time... it's hard to tell if they dealt with this through a "Performance View" like the Helix LT has. 

If the concept is completely missing.... that would be Strike 1 :) 

[phil_m]

4 minutes ago, codamedia said:

 

Since we only see photos at this time... it's hard to tell if they dealt with this through a "Performance View" like the Helix LT has. 

If the concept is completely missing.... that would be Strike 1 :) 

 

I asked about that over on The Gear Page, and the guy from Neural replied to me and said they would have that... So I guess they'll be copying that, too... :-)

 

Really, without something like that, I think it would be almost unusable as far as switching goes.

[bsd512]

I must be the only one that is glad the Helix does not have a touch screen. Or bluetooth.

 

I used to have a Line 6 Amplifi that used a bluetooth app on an iPhone touch screen. Using it was an exercise in extreme frustration with constant bluetooth disconnects and the screen not registering slider actions - go to slide a slider ... nope. Try again ... nope. Third time - ok it worked. Then it disconnects arbitrarily. Try to reconnect ... nope. Exit the app, got to iPhone settings bluetooth. Reconnect. Re-open app - "app not connected to bluetooth". Arrrgh!

 

Please please please do not do the stupid bluetooth and touch screen thing on Helix. :-)

 

The capacitive touch switches are genius, though!

[SaschaFranck]

They're mainly not using bluetooth on the Cortex but Wifi - which usually is *way* more robust (and way faster, too). And as far as the touchscreen goes, I fail to see what's bad about it. Have you seen the video where they adjust the parametric EQ? That's just gorgeous. Also, dragging blocks around should be *heaps* quicker. No idea why one wouldn't want that.

[rd2rk]

13 minutes ago, bsd512 said:

Please please please do not do the stupid bluetooth and touch screen thing on Helix. :-)

 

The capacitive touch switches are genius, though!

 

I like the touchscreen, but I'm with ya on bluetooth.

If Future-Helix had a touchscreen that, when you touched a device the scribble strips changed to the device parameters that could then be adjusted using the rotary stomp switches - oh, wait, then it would be copying the QC......no, HXFX kinda does that already, just needs rotary switches, but that would be copying........darn those pesky lawyers!

 

FREE THE UI! BEST PRACTICES RULE!

[terraplane]

On 1/11/2020 at 7:12 AM, robertgoddard said:

Looks a lot like something I proposed a few months ago, Digital Igloo even said there may not be a market for it.

 

My concept from a few months back:

 

 

Hehe, mine is here:

 

[BlueD]

15 hours ago, codamedia said:

 

That's not a demo of the Cortex. As I said in my earlier post... I do expect this to be a high quality option in the game... but this sample is a plugin, only proof that they do good work. I already know they make good plugins.

 

This is silly. Do you believe the Nolly models will not be included? C'mon, don't be obtuse on purpose, it's not a good look. OBVIOUSLY that's the codebase they'll be using, how could it be otherwise?

[codamedia]

7 hours ago, BlueD said:

This is silly. Do you believe the Nolly models will not be included?

 

I'm not interested in the Nolly models... Not that it isn't good, it's simply not what I do....

I want to hear the Deluxe Reverb and the AC30... Please point me to those samples! 

 

I'm going to say this a 3rd time. I KNOW they do good work and I am CERTAIN this will be a great unit! I'm not arguing that, I just want to see an actual demo of the unit itself. 

 

7 hours ago, BlueD said:

C'mon, don't be obtuse on purpose, it's not a good look.

I'm not sure why you decided to take this into a personal attack, but I don't appreciate it! 

 

[Hedon09]

7 hours ago, BlueD said:

 

This is silly. Do you believe the Nolly models will not be included? C'mon, don't be obtuse on purpose, it's not a good look. OBVIOUSLY that's the codebase they'll be using, how could it be otherwise?

actually it is stated in the faq, that neurals plugins will be available on the quad cortex for those who already own a copy of them via a separately sent activation link for the quad cortex. so, no....if you haven't bought the nolly plugin it will not be on your quad cortex as far as i understand it.

[codamedia]

16 hours ago, bsd512 said:

I must be the only one that is glad the Helix does not have a touch screen. Or bluetooth.

 

You are not alone... 

[SaschaFranck]

So, would someone elaborate what's the bad thing about a touchscreen?

[codamedia]

2 hours ago, SaschaFranck said:

So, would someone elaborate what's the bad thing about a touchscreen?

 

Myself... it's just a preference. Not a big deal either way. 

For others... zombie finger, ghosting and dexterity issues can make them a big problem. 

 

Company's need to give the people what they want.... I understand that. I just hope they also consider the minority and don't make touch screens the only way to get around... like most smart phones.  

[antonio1961]

2 hours ago, codamedia said:

 

I'm not interested in the Nolly models... Not that it isn't good, it's simply not what I do....

I want to hear the Deluxe Reverb and the AC30... Please point me to those samples! 

 

I'm going to say this a 3rd time. I KNOW they do good work and I am CERTAIN this will be a great unit! I'm not arguing that, I just want to see an actual demo of the unit itself. 

 

 

 

There are only two certainties in life.

[bsd512]

2 hours ago, SaschaFranck said:

So, would someone elaborate what's the bad thing about a touchscreen?

Too unreliable for control - like I mentioned before in using it for Amplifi (and other products, not by Line 6), touch your finger to a control point and slide, etc - it doesn't register. Your slide slides nothing. Try again - doesn't register again. Maybe it works the third time. Makes the whole device and interface feel cheap and cheesy.

 

I remember watching and Anderton's review of a product like that and it was happening to them every other time they tried to use it, and even though they didn't comment on it, it was painful to watch them try and adjust simple things, like BMT on an amp. And I experienced the same thing on the Amplifi product that uses an iPhone as the touch screen. The advantages aren't worth the hassle - just my opinion, of course. A button or rotary is way more reliable when working on the device itself. And these issues don't present themselves when connected to a computer and using HX Edit. So I see it as fluff that cheapens the device and actually diminishes user experience.

 

You did mention the graphic EQ - I think that would be great, but you don't need a touch screen for that. The Global EQ is like that when using HX Edit with the Helix. I wish the normal EQ blocks worked the same way in HX Edit. No need for a touch screen for that, though.

 

EDIT: I forgot to mention, it would also be a real pain for folks with vision issues. We have a couple of blind folks on this forum using the Helix and can work the interface by remembering how many rotations, clicks, etc using the physical knobs to get the job done. So accessibility for folks that can't see the screen is an issue, too.

[phil_m]

2 hours ago, SaschaFranck said:

So, would someone elaborate what's the bad thing about a touchscreen?

 

I think a touchscreen would make some things easier. Adding and moving blocks would probably be the primary thing. Depending how it's set up, doing stuff like copying and pasting or rearranging presets and snapshots could be faster, too. Anything involving typing would be faster, too. As far as editing parameters, I think touchscreens are almost always inferior, especially fine tuning. I will be interested to see how their rotary footswitches feel. I think they're an OK concept, but I think I'd much rather have knobs right under the screen as the closer the label is to the knob you're turning, the lower the chance of grabbing the wrong knob is. I wonder if this touchscreen will have multi-touch features, like if you hold you finger on an area for a longer time, it does something else. I could see that being useful...

 

It's really impossible to say how any of this will actually feel without trying it for yourself. I'm going to try to look at it at NAMM, but we'll see how busy it is. From the live Q&A session they did yesterday, it doesn't sound like those units are going to be set up to actually process sound anyway.

[rd2rk]

According to an article in Consumer reports, if you suffer from Zombie Finger and don't have a stylus handy, you can use a pork sausage.

Just sayin'......

 

https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2015/06/zombie-finger-and-touchscreens/index.htm

 

[phil_m]

22 minutes ago, rd2rk said:

According to an article in Consumer reports, if you suffer from Zombie Finger and don't have a stylus handy, you can use a pork sausage.

Just sayin'......

 

https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2015/06/zombie-finger-and-touchscreens/index.htm

 

 

[bsd512]

1 hour ago, rd2rk said:

According to an article in Consumer reports, if you suffer from Zombie Finger and don't have a stylus handy, you can use a pork sausage.

Just sayin'......

 

https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2015/06/zombie-finger-and-touchscreens/index.htm

Hmmm ... from that article:

 

...

In the end, though, capacitive touchscreens are not foolproof. Living, breathing people with thick callouses on their fingers—think guitar players or carpenters—struggle with these touchscreens because the dead skin on their fingertips prevents the flow of electricity.

...

 

Lol :-)

 

So ... maybe not the best interface marketed to guitarists with our calloused fingers. :-)

 

[bsd512]

I have to admit, though, it does look really nice. $1600, though ... pretty steep, but looks pretty featureful, comparable to Helix so maybe that's not out of line. A lot can happen between now and September. But it does look like if you back out of the pre-order, you don't lose anything so you're not fully committed financially if you pre-order - you get a full refund of your deposit. But I wonder why they announced so early?

[the_bees_knees22]

The price is on par with other modellers and whatnot on the high end market. 

they announced so early and have the pre-order option, because they want to get more capitol upfront lol   

I don't think they're a big company right?  I actually have no idea.

[SaschaFranck]

6 hours ago, bsd512 said:

Too unreliable for control - like I mentioned before in using it for Amplifi (and other products, not by Line 6), touch your finger to a control point and slide, etc - it doesn't register.

 

Well, then the implementation is just bad (or it's the wonky bluetooth protocol, which really isn't worth anything). I mean, do you have issues with the touchscreen of an iPhone or Samsung Galaxy? There's no reason why the screen of the Cortex should be any worse.

[HonestOpinion]

3 hours ago, bsd512 said:

Hmmm ... from that article:

 

...

In the end, though, capacitive touchscreens are not foolproof. Living, breathing people with thick callouses on their fingers—think guitar players or carpenters—struggle with these touchscreens because the dead skin on their fingertips prevents the flow of electricity.

...

 

Lol :-)

 

So ... maybe not the best interface marketed to guitarists with our calloused fingers. :-)

 

 

All good points but seeing as how they provided knobs and touchscreen, depending on the implementation, there is at least the potential to accommodate most users regardless of their level of skin conductivity :-)

[antonio1961]

Just watched yesterday's live stream ,l find it a bit lazy that they couldn't hook it up to let people hear it, especially when there were guitars hanging on the wall behind them.

Also ,would've been easy to set a camera on to the screen to see it actually working too.

 

Although i appreciate the need for them to set the unit up properly prior to any sort of demo ,I'm still not totally convinced that the two that were on the desktop were actually fully operational ones.

If i had created what they describe as 'The most powerful floor modeler on the planet' , then i would be screaming it from the rooftops at every opportunity, and i didn't get that at all from yesterdays live stream.

What i did get, was the impression that the NAMM show is where they will be properly demoed, because it seemed to me that they are still actually working on the finished product.

 

A few sketchy answers to certain questions too, and i was quite surprised that CEO Doug didn't seem to be at all familiar with term 'intelligent pitch shifter',  though tbf ,the effects side of things is not necessarily his forte..

 

 

[rd2rk]

21 minutes ago, antonio1961 said:

Just watched yesterday's live stream ,l find it a bit lazy that they couldn't hook it up to let people hear it, especially when there were guitars hanging on the wall behind them.

Also ,would've been easy to set a camera on to the screen to see it actually working too.

 

Although i appreciate the need for them to set the unit up properly prior to any sort of demo ,I'm still not totally convinced that the two that were on the desktop were actually fully operational ones.

If i had created what they describe as 'The most powerful floor modeler on the planet' , then i would be screaming it from the rooftops at every opportunity, and i didn't get that at all from yesterdays live stream.

What i did get, was the impression that the NAMM show is where they will be properly demoed, because it seemed to me that they are still actually working on the finished product.

 

A few sketchy answers to certain questions too, and i was quite surprised that CEO Doug didn't seem to be at all familiar with term 'intelligent pitch shifter',  though tbf ,the effects side of things is not necessarily his forte..

 

 

 

 

You should check out the thread over on TGP, where Doug has been an active participant, answering questions including those that arose from the video.

[HonestOpinion]

2 hours ago, the_bees_knees22 said:

The price is on par with other modellers and whatnot on the high end market. 

they announced so early and have the pre-order option, because they want to get more capitol upfront lol   

I don't think they're a big company right?  I actually have no idea.

 

Agree, announcing this early with some specifics regarding the device does gives a lot of lead time to competitors. They must need to raise more up-front capital.

 

36 minutes ago, antonio1961 said:

Just watched yesterday's live stream ,l find it a bit lazy that they couldn't hook it up to let people hear it, especially when there were guitars hanging on the wall behind them.

Also ,would've been easy to set a camera on to the screen to see it actually working too.

 

Although i appreciate the need for them to set the unit up properly prior to any sort of demo ,I'm still not totally convinced that the two that were on the desktop were actually fully operational ones.

If i had created what they describe as 'The most powerful floor modeler on the planet' , then i would be screaming it from the rooftops at every opportunity, and i didn't get that at all from yesterdays live stream.

What i did get, was the impression that the NAMM show is where they will be properly demoed, because it seemed to me that they are still actually working on the finished product.

 

A few sketchy answers to certain questions too, and i was quite surprised that CEO Doug didn't seem to be at all familiar with term 'intelligent pitch shifter',  though tbf ,the effects side of things is not necessarily his forte..

 

 

 

Yup, might not be quite ready for a crash-free demo in the wild. They are still many months away from delivery.

[SaschaFranck]

While the guys were quite cool, IMO that live video was lame and didn't offer any information to me that I wasn't aware of before already. They didn't bother to answer my questions about the lack of SPDIF, either (which will really annoy some folks).