NDSP Quad Cortex

[Elric]

It all boils down to the fact that PCOM never meant "compatibility" in the typical sense of the word. Rather than achieving a state where the QC could run existing plugins, they managed to recreate the content from a couple of plugins for QC. By modifying both the plugins, and the QC firmware. Which means PCOM can waste everyone's time for ever. That's great if you're looking for an alibi for your development team. Less great if you're a customer waiting on some unrelated feature...

Yes, was always a red herring for the QC in terms of development. Was clearly a monumental waste of time and resources in the practical sense even out of the gate to anyone who understood what they were saying… but likely sold a lot of units to folks who were sold on the plugins first and considered them the gold standard. So it likely helped them to be financially successful with the product but the product is actually worse for it in terms of what it can do, etc, IMHO. It’d actually be more capable if those resources had been directed elsewhere instead of that fool’s errand.

Feels almost like they have lost interest in even keeping the show up lately on that front too.

Like you say the idea that what they have done constitutes’compatibility’ is complete nonsense and pretty much an abuse of the term.

 

[deadpool_25]

Yes....and no.

There is a considerable amount of stuff out there in the Cortex Cloud, no doubt. Too much of it is unorganized and one-offs.

The ridiculous lack of a marketplace means a lot of vendors only ever dipped their toes in. Don't get me wrong.....I appreciated the guys that went above and beyond providing free stuff like @Burger of Headfirst Amps. But I had visions of the likes of Live Ready Sound unleashing the full might of their amp/cab collections on QC, and it just never came to fruition due to the dumb implementation that makes it a chore to buy capture packs to this day.

As for buying stuff, I'm certainly not saying you're wrong but this has not been my experience at all.

I've bought some packs from Amalgam, WT, my friend Jon Kaneshiro, and a few others and have been quite pleased both with (most of) the captures/presets themselves and with the ease of obtaining them.

It's not as simple as: add to cart, purchase, download, but it's also not too far from that. Put my cortex cloud name in a text box, go to CC and click add on their account, and wait maybe until maybe the next day is pretty much the extra stuff.

There are absolutely tons of captures out there that aren't gonna work well for me or my setup/rig. But there are also plenty of good to great ones. Can you find a good version of literally any amp? No, I don't think so. But I haven't been totally shut out looking for anything yet. I get how you say it's disorganized and one-offs as there's no standard naming convention or anything but...I search and find what I'm looking for. Is it perfect? No. But I really haven't struggled to find what I'm looking for by any stretch of the imagination.

 

[Orvillain]

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

Well you need to ask why they've been losing developers over the years.

Some companies treat developers like interchangeable block of lego, and it really shows in their output.

 

[GTR37]

Well you need to ask why they've been losing developers over the years.

Some companies treat developers like interchangeable block of lego, and it really shows in their output.

Yep , someone posted their glass door reviews a while back , that basically said not a fun place
No direction no one trying and telling you what the plan is poor upper management, you pretty much get ignored
And left to figure things out on your own

 

[Chocol8]

PCOM was necessary due to the pre and post launch promises used to sell units. One can argue the development cost was less than the cost of a false advertising lawsuit.

 

[laxu]

PCOM was necessary due to the pre and post launch promises used to sell units. One can argue the development cost was less than the cost of a false advertising lawsuit.

I have a hard time believing that to be the case. A single software developer is already pretty expensive. I really doubt that most buyers of QC would be willing to go the lengths of an actual lawsuit over PCOM.

NDSP also had total freedom for how they want to implement that. They have already fudged around with the promised stuff.

https://neuraldsp.com/device-list at the end there's a list of "Devices replaced by captures", and "Announced devices that have not yet been released".

At it's lowest, they could have just added captures of the amps in plugins, or made "based on Soldano SLO-100 plugin" models. Like "based on the plugin version of the amp" rather than "based on the real amp the plugin is based on".

I fully expect it's another case of poor management where some dev felt that it would not be that big a deal to upgrade old plugins and make the QC models. Until they have actually done it, and found it to be a much bigger deal. Now they are stuck with that pattern.

 

[Chocol8]

I have a hard time believing that to be the case. A single software developer is already pretty expensive. I really doubt that most buyers of QC would be willing to go the lengths of an actual lawsuit over PCOM.

I am going to assume you are not familiar with the US legal system, specifically class action lawsuits, but it only takes one customer to file the lawsuit and behalf of all customers. The payouts are usually tens of millions of dollars or more, and the lawyers work completely on contingency. The lawyers do all the work, including recruiting the customers to serve as the lead plaintiff. Everyone else just fills out an online form and collects a settlement check.

Trust me, it would have cost NDSP a heck of a lot more than a couple dozen developers. Even if they won, it would have cost them millions of dollars in legal expenses.

 

[Lysander]

I am going to assume you are not familiar with the US legal system

NDSP is a Finnish company. There was some speculation on how a US class-action lawsuit would work before PCOM got (finally) announced, but it would probably fall on the distributor - which for the US is Sweetwater.

 

[Stone]

Pretty sad that one would have to turn to suing a company

 

[Chocol8]

NDSP is a Finnish company. There was some speculation on how a US class-action lawsuit would work before PCOM got (finally) announced, but it would probably fall on the distributor - which for the US is Sweetwater.

Any foreign company that sells products and services in the US can be sued in US courts. There are international conventions and treaties that allow for enforcement of the verdict.

 

[DrewJD82]

“Tow the bullshit NDSP feeds us and nothing else!”

That’ll go over well.

 

[Lysander]

Any foreign company that sells products and services in the US can be sued in US courts. There are international conventions and treaties that allow for enforcement of the verdict.

tl;dr, it's a tad more complicated than that, particularly on the "minimum US contacts" requirements for a class action. We're not talking about Wolkswagen here.

This is all from an actual lawer who commented on a potential lawsuit back in the day, over Reddit. I need to look that thread up...

 

[Lysander]

View attachment 46963

I'm really confused.... isn't that the official NDSP forum?!
Why do they have a volunteer moderating it, and why is it not used for official communication?

 

[Mongillo19]

That’ll go over well.

Never forget

 

[DrewJD82]

I'm really confused.... isn't that the official NDSP forum?!
Why do they have a volunteer moderating it, and why is it not used for official communication?

Man, I thought there was some kind of Mandela Effect going on with that myself. I could have sworn the original intent of that place was for company/community engagement and seem to recall people being directed there for those purposes from Discord, but ultimately shrugged and figured I was just misremembering.

I can understand it being moderated by some volunteers, but not entirely.

Never forget

I actually DID forget about that! ‘Totally not a mod’

 

[JiveTurkey]

Man, I thought there was some kind of Mandela Effect going on with that myself. I could have sworn the original intent of that place was for company/community engagement and seem to recall people being directed there for those purposes from Discord, but ultimately shrugged and figured I was just misremembering.

I can understand it being moderated by some volunteers, but not entirely.



I actually DID forget about that! ‘Totally not a mod’

I wonder if those guys are still over, taking bullets for their precious

 

[mbenigni]

I'm really confused.... isn't that the official NDSP forum?!
Why do they have a volunteer moderating it, and why is it not used for official communication?

Ask me why I haven't bothered visiting that site in literal years.

 

[Mikael Dez]

The discord is basically filled with people complaining about updates, the mods shutting it down, people asking stupid questions and people circlejerking

 

[mbenigni]

Man, I thought there was some kind of Mandela Effect going on with that myself. I could have sworn the original intent of that place was for company/community engagement and seem to recall people being directed there for those purposes from Discord, but ultimately shrugged and figured I was just misremembering.

I can understand it being moderated by some volunteers, but not entirely.



I actually DID forget about that! ‘Totally not a mod’

Step 1: Choose a software platform which, by its very nature, buries content more than n hours old.
Step 2: Step 2 doesn't matter because see Step 1.

 

[mbenigni]

On a more positive note, NDSP just wrote to say my QC was repaired and on its way back to me. Woot!