Chocol8
Rock Star
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I think it's simply difficult to build anything with chips right now if you aren't a big deep pocketed company. The AI data center explosion etc.
NDSP Quad Cortex
- Thread starter Jarick
- Start date
I think it's simply difficult to build anything with chips right now if you aren't a big deep pocketed company. The AI data center explosion etc.
dean701
Shredder
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- 1,072
you're probably right but I think manufacturers are also using 'the shortage' excuse to jack up prices on everything. SSD prices are insane right now.
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Chocol8
Rock Star
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NDSP is not jacking up their prices, so it seems their suppliers aren't raping them yet. The problem though is you then don't get supply. You want a bunch of components now? Pay the higher prices. If not, you get to wait.
GTR37
Rock Star
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Is that LM ? They told me mid may in Ont
dean701
Shredder
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Nope.
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Mini? Or did you get the deal of the century on an original? (If the latter, I've got to say: you're a glutton for punishment.
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I got an original for £950.Mini? Or did you get the deal of the century on an original? (If the latter, I've got to say: you're a glutton for punishment.
I do like the QC. Last time I owned one, it was before the v2 profiling was available. So.... quite interested to check that out....
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Glad to have you back! :)
I think sooner or later you need to upgrade (or crossgrade?) to the QCM to see whether it's any less noisy in complex rigs. Of all your complaints concerning the original QC, noise floor is the one I can most relate to.
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It aint a team sport for me. No followers, no leaders. I'm not part of a tribe, I just want easy to use gear that sounds amazing. Whether that's Line6, Fractal, NeuralDSP, IK Multimedia, etc.
To me, a real valve amp is still the gold standard. None of the modellers are as good. But it's about what can get closest.
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Of course. But then, no valve amp is as versatile as a modeler.
synthpenguin
Roadie
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- 747
After living with the FM9 for about 5 months, I'm on the path to the QC switch myself. I think it's what I should have gone with originally, though the FM9 and Fractal universe are amazing in a lot of ways, and I'm glad I've had the experience.
Based on what I've tried so far, I can definitely agree with this. I don't even currently have a tube amp, but for me digital is about ease, flexibility, and a different sort of fun factor. It's like an adjacent thing with overlap.
Based on what I've tried so far, I can definitely agree with this. I don't even currently have a tube amp, but for me digital is about ease, flexibility, and a different sort of fun factor. It's like an adjacent thing with overlap.
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Yeah but also, versatility is a bit of a double edged bitch. It can potentially you from developing your own voice on your instrument, IMHO.
Shask
Roadie
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- 281
Curious on why you want to switch from Fractal to NDSP.
dean701
Shredder
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It's a natural evolution to bounce around between vendors every month? Well, that's my story
synthpenguin
Roadie
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- 747
I think you can sum it up best as that the many of the pros of Fractal didn't matter to me as much in practice (especially after getting over initial coolness factor, because yeah a lot of the Fractal stuff IS very cool) and the cons mattered to me more than I expected.
And then the QC Mini pushing me over the edge. In a lot of ways, it's what I wanted after the HX Stomp. If it had existed before, I doubt I would have gone for the FM9, let alone done all of my HX Stomp + Tonex and then tube preamp + Tonex experiments.
There were also some things I didn't like about the Fractal as much as I expected to soundwise, which made me want to integrate a couple external pedals, and the size of the FM9 doesn't really work for me in that case. The NeuralDSP stuff isn't better in those areas from what I can tell, but if I'm already adding a couple external pedals, then the QC and especially the QC Mini (which I'm aiming to get) work much better because of their form factors.
The v2 captures are definitely a factor too. Not sure how much I'll use them? I don't have any amps to capture right now, and other users' captures are more miss than hit in my (pretty brief) experience with captures in general, but there are a few rarely-modeled amps I'm interested in grabbing captures of (maybe from Amalgam), and I want to mess around with capturing some of my drive pedals.
And there are a lot of other little things too. Of course the Fractal amp modeling, reverbs, footswitching, digital delays, and routing flexibility are all amazing, so it's not a cut and dry thing for me and all the praise I've given Fractal over the last several months still rings true to me. It's more just "okay what has the best combination of things I'll actually use and in a way that makes me want to play guitar more and better?"
Part of me is very tempted to go with the AM4 instead to hang on to some of those Fractal pros, but eh. I think if I ever went back to a pedalboard setup revolving around a dedicated amp pedal, it would be with a (future?) NAM player or a tube preamp (like the Tone King stuff).
Part of me is also tempted to go for a Stadium or wait for a Stadium Stomp, especially since I love a lot of the Helix FX and I think Line 6 is a great company, but I have pretty mixed feelings about where that platform is at right now tbh. I might regret not investing in it in a year after Proxy and whatever other updates, but I can't worry about that too much.
synthpenguin
Roadie
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- 747
Not for me!! lol
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You just have to know when to say when. (Acknowledging that, for many years, I did not.) Sometimes deep-diving into the tech is rewarding for me in ways I couldn't otherwise realize; and sometimes I need to take an intentional break from it and focus on my playing and music in general. The sweet spot in the middle is when I have my tech in order and I'm reaping the rewards: focusing on the music because the tech is effective.
Pretty screaming deal!
