Mongillo19
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Yeah and the criticism of them not being a 1:1 GUI I thought was well known for years lol they also pumped the idea of them being blocks you can mix and match
Oh well!
NDSP Quad Cortex
- Thread starter Jarick
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Oh well!
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He actually managed to get it right the second time…
The GUI critique as it relates to “compatibility” is silly, but you could argue without the ability to sync presets between the two they aren’t compatible in the purest sense of the word. It’s just content.
Which ultimately doesn’t mean shit if nobody cares.
The GUI critique as it relates to “compatibility” is silly, but you could argue without the ability to sync presets between the two they aren’t compatible in the purest sense of the word. It’s just content.
Which ultimately doesn’t mean shit if nobody cares.
MirrorProfiles
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He actually managed to get it right the second time…
The GUI critique as it relates to “compatibility” is silly, but you could argue without the ability to sync presets between the two they aren’t compatible in the purest sense of the word. It’s just content.
Which ultimately doesn’t mean shit if nobody cares.
I don’t think they can every truly be compatible in that sense, because on the QC you can mix and match gear, change the routing and do all kinds of things that aren’t possible with the plugin.
Guessing at this stage, people are using their QC in different contexts to where they’d use a plugin and therefore would prefer to build presets incorporating aspects from the plugin but in a format that suits how they use the HW. Otherwise you’d just use the plugin?
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Plug to QC is where it would have utility, because presumably you only own the plug because you use the plug, and probably would like syncing stuff you used recording etc.
I’d guess Neural is about to sell a shitload of plugs to QC owners that will never install, much less use, the actual plugin. It will just be additional content for QC users imo
The plugin drama comprises perhaps 1 percent of my Neural criticism, if that.
MirrorProfiles
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this just seems mental to me, but people just have an insatiable appetite for more. Although my guess is the number of NDSP plugin users FAR eclipses the number of QC owners, and likely always will.
Lysander
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Well, the overall idea of PCOM is that you can run your plugins live in your QC.
In that sense, i'm kinda surprised by plugin -> QC preset conversion not being a thing yet. That should be the easiest part of the equation.
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MirrorProfiles
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True, but I can’t imagine anything in the plugins is complex enough to make it a pain to just recreate manually within about 2 minutes. and you’d likely want to tweak it at least a bit for live use (or with a cab/other guitar gear), let alone setting up scenes and other switching etc.
There’s obviously some overlap expected but they’re distinct enough that expecting them to behave 1:1 limits both of them.
I think the "insatiable appetite" and all of the drama surrounding this wouldn't be an issue at all had Neural done their job on QC content development. We're at 3.5 years after launch and it still doesn't offer everything they said it would at or "soon after" launch.
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I agree, but there are people in this very thread talking about plugs they want to get once “compatible”. (That they’ve had YEARS to buy/use as plugins)
It’s silly, and if anything counter to your own self interest to buy these solely as QC content, but let’s not kid ourselves, the average QC owner is going to buy a ton of these only for the “added content” aspect. IMO
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The base structure of any NDSP plugin is a pre-pedalboard of 3-to-4 effects + amp model + eq + cab + post slab of 2-4 more effects. So presets can and do routinely have 9-11 blocks active. (and that doesn't count the Gate, Transposer and Doubler, which have to go somewhere on the QC grid)
The max a QC single lane can hold is 8 blocks. So any sort of automated translation scripting would have to account for how to split up 8+ block presets and which lanes to add the excess to. It would also have to guess where to place the Gate, Transposer and Doubler on the grid for exact fidelity).
All of that is to say it probably requires more than 2 minutes of manual tweaking just to bring it over, then a good amount of manual testing to make sure it sounds identical to the original preset.
Lysander
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Eh, it's not like NDSP needs to guess any of these
All of their plugins have a fixed signal path, so converting presets should be very very straightforward - it's reusing the same template each time, changing only parameters/state on each block.My guess is that the pain point is handling logistics (i.e. how to sync them back and forth) more than the conversion itself.
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Unless NDSP is being honest about providing a bunch of native QC content as well. And in a timely fashion.
MirrorProfiles
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This. But I do think most users aren't as black and white between HW users vs plugin users. Maybe for NDSP more than any other company, there is going to be a good bit of crossover. (saying that my friend with the QC said he has barely used the plugins since getting the unit so maybe I'm just out of touch).
I mean, there's trying to rebuild the entire plugin into a single preset, and then there is porting presets. How many presets regularly use every single pedal/amp/cab/fx/transpose/doubler etc? For porting presets over, if 1:1 compatibility is a priority, I don't see any reason not to use all 4 lanes and have things spread around. Any preset that is using that ALL of the FX all at once (including the dreaded doubler) is something I don't think I even want to hear, let alone play. I never really think of any NDSP plugins being so complex with their routing and included gear that it wouldn't be straightforward to recreate.
Aside from compensating for input levels, where else are things going to deviate sound wise from the plugins? Would the (likely different) playback system being used require a greater degree of adjustment anyway? Similarly, the QC has way more available internally to go beyond what's possible in any NDSP plugin - if I was trying to build a patch, it would feel like sitting my hands to not take advantage of other processing or features that is available in the QC.
I say all this with the caveat of not being a heavy preset user. The only presets I tend to use in plugins are very simple (compared to what I might build in a HW unit designed for rehearsals and gigging). Maybe there is someone that was gigging with a laptop and needs the exact sounds and tones in a QC?
Legit curious what kind of presets are going to cause issues to rebuild
Lysander
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Which ultimately doesn’t mean shit if nobody cares.
Snark aside, the reaction of that Sweetwater rep at the "soon" was
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Unless NDSP is being honest about providing a bunch of native QC content as well. And in a timely fashion.
I think that ship has already sailed. Not in their ability to aggressively produce native content moving forward, (Soon) but to have already aggressively produced and built a library of native content that people wouldn’t feel desirous to supplement now.
I mean, they will for sure release more plugin content than native content in the next year. And that’s not even a Nefarious Neural statement. They just have way more backlogged plugin content produced and in the queue. So even if they are aggressive and dropped a couple new amps or effects in the fall, I don’t think that alone will make QC owners any less interested in using the plugs to supplement additional content now.
IMO
I’m not Neuraldamas but I would guess by this time next year the average QC owner will have purchased 2-4 additional plugins, with actual plugin use being an afterthought at purchase.
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MirrorProfiles
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Are existing QC users buying more plugins going to generate more money for NDSP than bringing in new customers who are buying an entire QC? I think they'll add enough free stuff purely because they can shift more HW units by improving it. If they were fully going for the DLC route, they'd sell the HW at a ridiculously low price and make up the cost with DLC.
With NDSP, they'd probably rather sell a single QC and no DLC than 5x plugins. A bit like how Apple can price their software absurdly low, the HW is balancing the books for them and the cheap software helps sell the HW. Its likely more beneficial to load up the QC with free content to keep sales for that up, than just paywall everything. Realistically, users will probably buy a ton of the plugins anyway because gutiarists gon do stuff guitarists do.
I'm sure Line 6 and IK somewhat get away with their LOW AF pricing by either subsiding margins of some units with the margins of others in the product range, or in IK's situation by selling you the same products over and over again (with DLC being part of that).
norminal
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Laughs in HX Native.
MirrorProfiles
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Tbf, for a fair comparison, you'd need to compare a QC Native to QC. If/when they do QC native, there's no way it wouldnt handle presets like Line 6 currently does.
The like for like comparison here would be making a preset in a Metallurgy suite and opening it in HX Native/Edit, which you can't do. And with that comparison, Metallurgy involves buying a plugin for gear you already have. With NDSP, you are getting something added to the HW as well as plugin support. IMO Line 6 get a bit of a free pass with Metallurgy being neglected/below its potential.
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