NDSP Quad Cortex

[KingsXJJ]

I’m hoping the Nano’s go on sale sometime soon. It sounds like a fun little box I’d like to check out. I really dig modelers in the small form factor. Iridium, Amp Academy, Ampli-Firebox MKII, Solid Studio MKII, Ampero Mini. have them all and they are loads of fun to me. Easy to incorporate with my pedals if need be.

 

[Funk Soul Brother]

Well, my QC (second one I own) has now gone up for sale. It's been fun for a while but I've no confidence NDSP will be able to deliver, this century, what they set out to.

 

[LCW]

This is excellent news!

Let’s hope it leads to more prompt development and firmware updates.

 

[mbenigni]

Decided to take delivery and not refuse. This is my 4th or 5th one… I lost track.

But the upside is I was up and running in 5 minutes. Even accounting for creating a preset from scratch for my current Slipknot obsession. A testament to the ease of use and intuitive UI.

Got the Mick Thomson sig LTD last week too.

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[mbenigni]

Sorry, I have to chuckle here. I think in the entire time that Unity forum has been up they've completed 19 requests and they were all things that should have been on there at the start, if I'm not mistaken. No one will even confirm if they look at that forum anymore. There's no way they would entertain NAM unless they could make a significant flow of cash from it. The only thing that company is working on is another revenue stream for the QC.

They might have some room to breath until the Stadium starts doing profiles/captures, but it won't be much by the look of their Discord the other day. Once the Stadium is doing caps I think the only thing compelling people to go to the QC will be the size, because it won't be the features nor the price. So unless getting NAM on the QC is something potential customers really want, their entire focus after PCOM will whatever they believe will draw new customers in.

It wouldn't surprise me in the least bit if the only thing they focus on after PCOM is making new plugins for a while. Unless they have something to rejuvinate QC sales, it's the quickest and easiest revenue stream for them and it's been nearly 2 years since their last new plugin that wasn't an X version.

I think a price drop on QC is inevitable at this point. As I've already said, I just hope this doesn't result in NDSP abandoning the QC altogether. This might apply for a couple of other products (from other mfr's) as well. But QC is clearly in Stadium's crosshairs, whereas high-end competitors from the likes of FAS and Roland all have their own niches. (And TMP is simply dead, more than likely.)

Personally, I couldn't care less about NAM support. It would be 99.98% redundant with QC's proprietary captures, and I'm sure NDSP would find a way to overcomplicate the UI with these two formats trying to coexist. The only way to "do it right" would be to migrate all of the existing captures to NAM and then use NAM technology exclusively. This is assuming NAM is a sufficient improvement over QC captures to warrant that effort/ investment in the first place, and I'm skeptical.

 

[LCW]

I think a price drop on QC is inevitable at this point. As I've already said, I just hope this doesn't result in NDSP abandoning the QC altogether. This might for a couple of other products (from other mfr's) as well. But QC is clearly in Stadium's crosshairs, where high-end competitors from the likes of FAS and Roland all have their own niches.

Personally, I couldn't care less about NAM support. It would be 99.98% redundant with QC's proprietary captures, and I'm sure NDSP would find a way to overcomplicate the UI with these two formats trying to coexist. The only way to "do it right" would be to migrate all of the existing captures to NAM and then use NAM technology exclusively. This is assuming NAM is a sufficient improvement over QC captures to warrant that effort/ investment in the first place, and I'm skeptical.

Price drop as much as it’s needed would be a surprise since they actually just raised it in early May.

I got mine at discount as open box from SW. I wouldn’t have paid the new higher price.

 

[mbenigni]

Putting aside my clearly know views about NDSP .... a lot of people forget that the big reason the QC is so compact is that it uses an external brick - or spend $300 or so on a Cioks.

If the QC had a worldwide 110 / 240 switching power supply in it - as it should - like Fractal, L6, Kemper ...... it would be substantially bigger.

I think a lot of misinformation still circulates about the nature and impact of the PSU. It's actually a fairly small (and fairly ubiquitous) "wall wart". I've never had any trouble with it.

There are pros and cons either way when it comes to DC over barrel jack vs. AC over IEC. IEC is certainly more universal and more rugged, but barrel jack is easier to feed DC from a shared power supply or rechargeable battery.

 

[mbenigni]

Price drop as much as it’s needed would be a surprise since they actually just raised it in early May.

I got mine at discount as open box from SW. I wouldn’t have paid the new higher price.

It will be a struggle for them for sure. Add in all kinds of international trade complications I'm not supposed to talk about, and it's a perfect storm, basically. QC will probably be an extremely low-margin sale for them - bordering on a loss-leader - for a while. I hope it doesn't kill the product, because I still think it's awesome, with (take this whichever way you prefer) lots of room to grow.

 

[Mongillo19]

It will be a struggle for them for sure. Add in all kinds of international trade complications I'm not supposed to talk about, and it's a perfect storm, basically. QC will probably be an extremely low-margin sale for them - bordering on a loss-leader - for a while. I hope it doesn't kill the product, because I still think it's awesome, with (take this whichever way you prefer) lots of room to grow.

It's a sin what NDSP has done to the QC

 

[mbenigni]

It's a sin what NDSP has done to the QC

I really think this is taking it a little far. TBH, I feel that way about a lot of the NDSP hate. Yes, they're dorks; yes, they screwed up repeatedly; yes, on their very worst days, they misled their customers. But despite all of that... I've had my QCs for 4 years, and they (the QCs) have always made me very happy. Whenever I had issues, NDSP has taken care of me. A few missing amps does not a disaster make. IMO...

 

[Mongillo19]

I really think this is taking it a little far. TBH, I feel that way about a lot of the NDSP hate. Yes, they're dorks; yes, they screwed up repeatedly; yes, on their very worst days, they misled their customers. But despite all of that... I've had my QCs for 4 years, and they (the QCs) have always made me very happy. Whenever I had issues, NDSP has taken care of me. A few missing amps does not a disaster make. IMO...

I don't think it is. The potential that was there for the QC has been squandered by poor management. And it started from day 1 with preorders.

I agree it's a good unit and of course people should be pleased with that it is. But imagine how fantastic the QC would be if a competent group was running the show. I think we are also being too light by saying "it's just missing a few amps"

 

[LCW]

I view the QC as a desktop unit. Not a floor modeler. Just works better that way imo. Also seeing a few pro musicians running them in a drawer in their rack rigs.

Just something that popped into mind vs a Helix floor or Stadium floor.

 

[Lysander]

I agree it's a good unit and of course people should be pleased with that it is. But imagine how fantastic the QC would be if a competent group was running the show. I think we are also being too light by saying "it's just missing a few amps"

The QC launched five years ago and was basically uncontested in features for, like, four of those five. It was also incredibly popular - i recall QCs still reselling for insane figures a year later. And yet, the device has barely grown from what it was at launch.

NDSP really screwed the pooch here, truly victims of their own success. It will be interesting to see what happens sales-wise once the HXS finally ships

 

[laxu]

I don't think it is. The potential that was there for the QC has been squandered by poor management. And it started from day 1 with preorders.

I agree it's a good unit and of course people should be pleased with that it is. But imagine how fantastic the QC would be if a competent group was running the show. I think we are also being too light by saying "it's just missing a few amps"

I agree. Ok, they could not save overpromising and marketing features that are still not completely available.

But they could have said "Look, we thought plugin support would be straightforward but it's actually very difficult due to technical reasons X, Y and Z. I know many were looking forward to it, but we believe we should focus on providing new amp, cab and fx models and put the plugin support on a backburner. Instead we aim to bring in QC versions of the amps etc from our plugins".

I think many people want the amps and effects from the plugins, but only a subset of users wants to take their plugin presets and load them directly into QC.

 

[deadpool_25]

The thing is...it's not really even missing a few amps. You can access about any amp with captures.

All these doom and gloom posts do seem a bit overly dramatic to me. In my experience the QC is plenty powerful, sounds great, is very flexible, has mostly good and usable effects, is very easy to use and has a generally great form factor. More objectively, it's a top selling unit with the big retailers and plenty of folks are using it live.

The main issue with the QC, imo, is NDSP's mishandling of marketing, and extremely slow pace of updates/development especially for features that "should've been there at launch"--mostly just because they were marketing points that they said/implied would be there at launch.

I get that the QC isn't perfect and isn't for everyone. I absolutely agree that are valid reasons to hate on NDSP--they annoy me too--but I sure wish you guys would calm down with this type of stuff in this thread at least. I know that's just wishful thinking though and that it won't happen. As Logen Ninefingers would say, "you have to be realistic."

 

[mbenigni]

I don't think it is. The potential that was there for the QC has been squandered by poor management. And it started from day 1 with preorders.

I agree it's a good unit and of course people should be pleased with that it is. But imagine how fantastic the QC would be if a competent group was running the show. I think we are also being too light by saying "it's just missing a few amps"

I know most everyone would agree with you. When you look at QC's record of updates vs. the constant love Line 6 and FAS poured on Helix and AxeFX, respectively, it's pretty glaring. But when I look at it more practically - what did my QC fail to deliver that I felt I needed on any given day when I powered it up? - the answer is almost nothing. I sometimes wished I had a convincing spring reverb (because "neato"), or a slow gear effect (because cello), and honestly, that's about it. Every tone I ever needed, it's delivered, and it's always been easier to use than anything else I could opt for.

Worth noting here: I think I'm a pretty demanding customer when it comes to weird routing and configuration features, etc. If anyone was going to find some little detail to bitch about, it would have been me. (Just ask the Helix team LOL.)

The QC launched five years ago and was basically uncontested in features for, like, four of those five. It was also incredibly popular - i recall QCs still reselling for insane figures a year later. And yet, the device has barely grown from what it was at launch.

NDSP really screwed the pooch here, truly victims of their own success. It will be interesting to see what happens sales-wise once the HXS finally ships

This is exactly what I'm talking about, though. We talk about "squandered potential" and simultaneously observe that it barely needed improving. "It was so great it could have been great if only NDSP had made it more great."

P.S. "HXS" means HX Stomp. "Stadium" means Stadium. And to answer your question, QC sales have probably already tanked, just by virtue of the announcement.

 

[mbenigni]

But they could have said "Look, we thought plugin support would be straightforward but it's actually very difficult due to technical reasons X, Y and Z. I know many were looking forward to it, but we believe we should focus on providing new amp, cab and fx models and put the plugin support on a backburner. Instead we aim to bring in QC versions of the amps etc from our plugins".

I think many people want the amps and effects from the plugins, but only a subset of users wants to take their plugin presets and load them directly into QC.

Now this I can get behind, 1000%.

 

[Mongillo19]

The thing is...it's not really even missing a few amps. You can access about any amp with captures.

All these doom and gloom posts do seem a bit overly dramatic to me. In my experience the QC is plenty powerful, sounds great, is very flexible, has mostly good and usable effects, is very easy to use and has a generally great form factor. More objectively, it's a top selling unit with the big retailers and plenty of folks are using it live.

The main issue with the QC, imo, is NDSP's mishandling of marketing, and extremely slow pace of updates/development especially for features that "should've been there at launch"--mostly just because they were marketing points that they said/implied would be there at launch.

I get that the QC isn't perfect and isn't for everyone. I absolutely agree that are valid reasons to hate on NDSP--they annoy me too--but I sure wish you guys would calm down with this type of stuff in this thread at least. I know that's just wishful thinking though and that it won't happen. As Logen Ninefingers would say, "you have to be realistic."

Thing is, both can be true

1) the QC is a top selling piece of gear that many people are happy with

2) NDSP stunted the growth of their product and failed to capitalize on an open market being one of the first digital units with such an awesome UI and having both modeling and capture tech

If we don't want these alleged hyperboles, then NDSP should give us something positive to chat about. However, fact of the matter is that it has been 6 months since an update and it seems like moving forward, most of the updates are going to be PCOM related.

And of course me saying NDSP's handling of the QC is a sin isn't real. I don't think that's on the sin list but again, the voices are only going to get louder with the stadium and it's always been loud when compared to FAS just due to their update pace

 

[deadpool_25]

Thing is, both can be true

1) the QC is a top selling piece of gear that many people are happy with

2) NDSP stunted the growth of their product and failed to capitalize on an open market being one of the first digital units with such an awesome UI and having both modeling and capture tech

Yes, we agree on this. It's part of what I said.

 

[mbenigni]

I view the QC as a desktop unit. Not a floor modeler. Just works better that way imo. Also seeing a few pro musicians running them in a drawer in their rack rigs.

Just something that popped into mind vs a Helix floor or Stadium floor.

I agree, and I think it's going to be the same with the smaller of the two Stadiums. It's a lot easier to add a foot controller than to replace the UI functionality of having the touchscreen and encoders at arm's reach.