Quad Cortex - Neural DSP

#3,321
Earlier this summer, I began doing captures.

I did a capture of my Walter Woods that I use as my default amp sim.

I uploaded it to Cortex Cloud on the chance that anyone else would be interested. You can download it from here.

I've been using it with both my upright and electric and am happy enough with it that it's become my default.

I did a round of captures of my AI Focus and plan to do my Demeter Bass Pre later this year. I may even dust off my Trace Elliot from my hair band days (mid-1980's).

If you have feedback on the woods capture or want to try the AI one, let me know.
 
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#3,323
Don Box said:
I did a capture of my Walter Woods that I use as my default amp sim.
I did a round of captures of my AI Focus and plan to do my Demeter Bass Pre later this year. I may even dust off my Trace Elliot from my hair band days (mid-1980's). If you have feedback on the woods capture or want to try the AI one, let me know.
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I'll try whatever you feel like making.
The WW cap is great; subtle but balanced and just the right vol level. Good work. I dig it! (we've been using the hashtag #Talkbass on the Cortex Cloud uploads, it makes for a good bass-centric search term. Maybe you could slap that onto yours?)
 
#3,324
I recently put my SLO up for sale as my captures are working so well.

Yesterday, I set up a little board with it just to do some A/Bing before anyone snaps it up. Much to my surprise, I like the capture more, not a lot between them. The capture has a little less sparkle but seems fuller. I'm so impressed with the captures on the cortex.

It did get me thinking that the Nano would probably cover of 90% of scenarios for me. Might see if they start cropping up 2nd hand in the not too distant future.
 
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#3,325
xush said:
I'll try whatever you feel like making.
The WW cap is great; subtle but balanced and just the right vol level. Good work. I dig it! (we've been using the hashtag #Talkbass on the Cortex Cloud uploads, it makes for a good bass-centric search term. Maybe you could slap that onto yours?)
Click to expand...

Thanks for the feedback. #Talkbass tag added.
 
#3,326
Don Box said:
If you can go for it and not put your lifestyle in jeopardy, yes, I'd suggest going for it.

If you don't love it, you can sell it on Reverb (or if it's within the return window, just return it).

If you do love it, then you can ditch everything else. Although based on this thread and other forums, for some reason people who've been pedalboard people always have one or two pedals they can't let go of and still carry a pedal board.

As a lifelong "my bass only louder" person but also an amp snob, I went for it and am not looking back. And loving it.

I don't plan to sell my boutique amps/preamps though. For one, I have some emotional attachment issues with one of them. More importantly, it's inevitable that within five years, there will be new/better capture technology from someone and I'll want to recapture into that platform. Ideally it would be available as a Mac Audio Unit ;-)

BTW, my only two complaints/wishes for the device are:

1. I wish it had an IEC power cable rather than a flimsy wall wart.

2. I wish NDSP would sell TINA as a service and/or offer a TINA-ish robot for under $1k. Right now, building "aggregate/composite captures" is a lot of manual labor AND highly subjective.
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I agree on the IEC port not being on board. I got around this by using a Temple Solo 18 board with an IEC port.
 
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#3,327
MascisMan said:
I have in the past but currently running one of the QC comps. That could be a logical replacement for the DCX Bass should I remove it. Honestly, in a mix, I dont really notice or hear a difference between an external comp and the one on the QC. Is there a difference? Yes, just not sure the return on investment is good enough for me for my setting (which is 100% IEMs in an 8-9 piece church band mix).
Click to expand...

Why not just capture your favorite DCX Bass pedal setting?
 
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#3,330
I have been trawling over the internet lately about the Quad Cortex and I am starting to seriously consider replacing almost all of my pedalboard with it. However, a lot of the impressions and info I can find is from earlier OS versions and it seems lots of stuff has been changed over the years.

Currently I have a Source Audio Ultrawave, C4 Synth, HX Stomp, Darkglass Infinity and a canvas tuner - all controlled with a piratemidi bridge6. I would like to achieve more flexible routing options as well as easier tweakability on the fly, less weight and smaller size.

Now, I am pretty happy with the sounds I get from the HX Stomp - which I mainly use for modulation effects - but I LOVE the Infinity. Both the tube preamp, the multiband B3K and the Vintage distortion models as well as the easy compressor and IRs. My biggest worry is that I will miss some of these things, or have trouble dialing something very similar in on the Quad Cortex. There is just something special about how the Infinity works for me that I just gel with a lot. Hard to explain!

I am pretty sure I will keep the C4 and put in in a stereo loop in the QC, and keep the Ultrawave in front of it as I have dialed in some really nice compression/EQ/Distortion combos with it that sounds good at the very front of the signal.

Has anyone tried both the DG Infinity and QC and have some input for me on this?
 
#3,332
mikko93 said:
I had an Infity on my board before I made the switch to QC and I have not missed it one bit as I still get to have the sound with the captures and I love the flexibility and amount of options I now have.
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Thanks, that is super helpful and what I hoped people would be saying! I can of course keep both the QC and Infinity at the same time for a little while to make some captures of my favourite Infinity tones, but I can´t afford to keep both. Hmm...
 
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#3,333
I'm thinking about getting a QC, but am still on the fence. I have an Aguilar DB680 that I'd like to capture, but it has a noisy DI out. Can I use the unbalanced output on the Aggy instead of the DI out to capture with the QC? I just don't want to damage either unit.
 
#3,335
RGerhart said:
I'm thinking about getting a QC, but am still on the fence. I have an Aguilar DB680 that I'd like to capture, but it has a noisy DI out. Can I use the unbalanced output on the Aggy instead of the DI out to capture with the QC? I just don't want to damage either unit.
Click to expand...
Although I haven't personally tried this, the QC can take both an XLR and 1/4 inch into Input 2 which is that the "out of the device" into the QC input for captures, but I would probably recommend using a DI box in between and converting the unbalanced into balanced coming from the DI box. Something like a Radial DI should do just fine.

As for damaging the units, I'm not familiar with the Aguilar unit, but when I do captures of my Fender Super Bassman, I still have to have a speaker connected, and the Speaker Out turn off, but I don't see any of that on the back of the Aguilar. to be safe, I would hook up your amp as normal and just have the unbalanced out to the DI as describe above.
 
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#3,337
Ibycan said:
Although I haven't personally tried this, the QC can take both an XLR and 1/4 inch into Input 2 which is that the "out of the device" into the QC input for captures, but I would probably recommend using a DI box in between and converting the unbalanced into balanced coming from the DI box. Something like a Radial DI should do just fine.

As for damaging the units, I'm not familiar with the Aguilar unit, but when I do captures of my Fender Super Bassman, I still have to have a speaker connected, and the Speaker Out turn off, but I don't see any of that on the back of the Aguilar. to be safe, I would hook up your amp as normal and just have the unbalanced out to the DI as describe above.
Click to expand...

I’ve done several captures using the 1/4” line out of an amp (either send or DI out) and plugged it directly into the input 2 combo jack.

You can even tweak the input impedance and gain on both input 1 and 2
 
#3,338
RGerhart said:
I'm thinking about getting a QC, but am still on the fence. I have an Aguilar DB680 that I'd like to capture, but it has a noisy DI out. Can I use the unbalanced output on the Aggy instead of the DI out to capture with the QC? I just don't want to damage either unit.
Click to expand...
have you tried capturing from the DI? In many cases the QC will ignore the noise and still capture the gain structure just fine. I've been surprised by a few buzzing/hissing devices that cleaned up really well in the capture process
 
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#3,339
Considering replacing my little fly board with a QC and have a couple quick questions if our trusted community would oblige:

1) Forget MY preferences...will my FOH engineers (pros) be happy with this replacing my J48?

2) It seems like it would be relatively straightforward with the impressive I/O routing options, but this should replace my IEM amp, right? I currently use the Behringer Powerplay P1 on my board and a handful of times have sent the 2nd out of my HX Stomp to the other channel to get a bit more "unprocessed" bass at my fingertips/in my ears. It seems like I should be able to plug the IEM feed into input 2 and route it to the headphone out. Should theoretically be able to dial in some pre-desk "more me in the monitor" signal as well, right?

3) I'm just beginning my research journey into the capabilities of IR capture. It seems like it's primarily being used for amps, cabs, and drive effects. Can it also be used effectively to capture things like some of my favorite out-of-the-way envelope filters, etc.?
 
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