Quad Cortex plugin support officially goes from "soon" to "eventually"

[mbenigni]

Think of all the content we could have created*

Just imagine me on the FAS forum telling everyone what I prefer about the QC... Pre-Helix Kemper forum PTSD.

 

[Lysander]

Just imagine me on the FAS forum telling everyone what I prefer about the QC...

 

[Gearzilla]

 

[mikah912]

Have you done QC captures of the Sabot or the '79 Champ?

I don't think LRS has, but Jeremy/Wicked Tones/DunkytheKhed has a Sabot pack available for purchase right now: https://wickedtones.bigcartel.com/product/sabot-50-official-armored-amplification

He was nice enough to send me it to do some beta testing, and I meant to get around to recording some Soundcloud demos, but didn't before selling mine. I remember liking one of the boosted captures in particular, tho.

 

[Deadpan]

Have you done QC captures of the Sabot or the '79 Champ?

Two quick with the Sabot but not the Champ.

 

[laxu]

I wouldn’t want to be an NDSP employee right now looking at all their social media pages. If there’s not an abrupt about face coming with their customers within the next 3 months I’d be surprised. You have to look across multiple areas to get an idea of what I’m talking about; Discord, FB user group and the Unity forum. There are several things that seem from an outsider to be coming to a head; development pace, a steady stream of RMA’d units with increasing wait times on returns (some customers reporting 6+ weeks for communication about their units they already sent in, some who are just getting ‘still figuring it out’ as an answer), it’s current functionality and customer expectations…..

I know in my job, I have to focus some of my attention on ALL things happening at my job on a daily basis; daily work, upcoming work, complaints, managing my staff and tenant expectations. If I let one of those things slip for one day, there’s hell to pay. One dip in communication can cause a lawyer to call me up reading a lease to me, one work order slips by and someone feels they aren’t getting the attention they deserve and it snowballs…..I just wouldn’t want to be dealing with ANY of that mess they’ve created. F*ck that.

Developers most likely work on their things in their own silos and besides bug fixes coming to devs, the only ones aware of any wider client issues are management and customer service reps.

I used to work for a small consultant company and the CEO once told me that during the years I was there the company was very close to going under a few times. Mostly due to e.g clients taking their sweet time with payments etc, losing a major client would have most likely done it. As an employee I was blissfully unaware of any of that because nobody was getting fired around me or there were seemingly no cutbacks.

Public info on NeuralDSP 2022 financials is not out yet but will be probably in a few months, I think how their profits look will be telling on how they are doing. If their plugins and QC sell well, they have no need to correct course because the money is coming in and just pushing updates out will tend to silence the naysayers for a bit.

QC is still #1 and #3 (bundle with case) on Thomann's "Electric Guitar Preamps" sales list. "The rank refers to the daily sales, taking into account availability." #2 is Tonex pedal.

 

[signalpath]

I watched an interview with NDSP a year or so ago and one of the things that struck me was how Doug was consistently drifting into the “VC-speak” zone. This is a style of speaking that has many practitioners in the startup space and often reflects an idealized enthusiasm, in many cases is not matched to its corresponding execution - Theranos springs to mind. I’m not trying to draw an equivalency here but bells did go off for me when I watched the interview.

 

[Lysander]

I watched an interview with NDSP a year or so ago and one of the things that struck me was how Doug was consistently drifting into the “VC-speak” zone.

It's worrying, but corpspeak and grandiose promises just... work. Elon Musk has been selling cars, and pumping stocks, on empty promises for years now.

The problem is, sooner or later, your customers will demand you actually deliver on them.

 

[Sleezy E]

It's worrying, but corpspeak and grandiose promises just... work. Elon Musk has been selling cars, and pumping stocks, on empty promises for years now.

The problem is, sooner or later, your customers will demand you actually deliver on them.

...buuuut if you can cash some checks before that happens....

 

[DrewJD82]

I watched an interview with NDSP a year or so ago and one of the things that struck me was how Doug was consistently drifting into the “VC-speak” zone. This is a style of speaking that has many practitioners in the startup space and often reflects an idealized enthusiasm, in many cases is not matched to its corresponding execution - Theranos springs to mind. I’m not trying to draw an equivalency here but bells did go off for me when I watched the interview.

Yeah, I think after the 2nd or 3rd launch delay there were some Theranos comparisons being made that surely caused a few people to get banned at TheOTherPlace.

The biggest thing that I‘ve noticed from Doug’s post/interviews is this sense of “We don’t need to give a sh*t about what came before us because AI/Neural networks/machine learning does it for us” There’s some quote about not learning about history and being doomed to repeat it some smart guy said one time, but that’s not an NDSP-exclusive thing and seems to be a fairly common take on most things that existed before 2010 these days, especially when it comes to the younger generation.

 

[mbenigni]

The biggest thing that I‘ve noticed from Doug’s post/interviews is this sense of “We don’t need to give a sh*t about what came before us because AI/Neural networks/machine learning does it for us”...

I still think you may have taken this one out of context. There was that weird statement he made about "no one" understanding what's going on in a power transformer or whatever, but more broadly his observations seemed to be about white box component modeling vs. black box profiling/ capturing.

What remains a mystery is how NDSP - despite their having embraced black box machine learning captures - still manages to make it look so difficult (read: time-consuming) to provide new amp models every now and again.

 

[creative360]

The parade of double standards on this one is just a little glaring.

The ToneX launch has been different enough, startling really—so cheap (one fifth the price of the QC), so complete, so timely—that pretty much everybody is questioning pretty much everything, about our current digital rigs. That doesn’t mean anyone has to like it, but it’s reasonable to be intrigued, especially versus the QC launch.

IK-calls-it-a-model

Now that right there, that’s messed-up.

my advice is to get yourself situated as fast as possible and interact with it as little as possible.

This goes for anything and everything.

 

[laxu]

The biggest thing that I‘ve noticed from Doug’s post/interviews is this sense of “We don’t need to give a sh*t about what came before us because AI/Neural networks/machine learning does it for us” There’s some quote about not learning about history and being doomed to repeat it some smart guy said one time, but that’s not an NDSP-exclusive thing and seems to be a fairly common take on most things that existed before 2010 these days, especially when it comes to the younger generation.

He's technically not wrong though. If you look at for example the Neural Amp Modeler code, there is basically nothing specifically about guitar gear. The neural network processing doesn't really care if you are feeding it a vintage Fender amp or a kazoo, it will churn some kind of model out of it.

If Fractal is working with not only audio but also measurements of various components, intricacies of tube amps etc and replicating them in the virtual realm, machine learning companies are dealing with "how do we make this input signal accurately into a model that responds just like it with any input signal". It's a different game that has allowed several companies to leapfrog 10+ years worth of digital modeling expertise.

IK was really smart by leveraging desktop/laptop computer power for the capturing process instead of trying to make the hardware DSP unit itself do that as well. We will have to see if QC's eventually released editor then starts to pivot by offering an "advanced capture" feature that skips the hardware capture's processing phase by piping the data to your computer instead. It could even be wireless since only the audio part requires physical connections.

 

[Whizzinby]

damned if they do, damned if they don't scenario with this crowd.

Tone is difficult to convey via text, read this as if we are having a beer together…

If we are talking about a 2-3 day window then I’d agree. The blog post is certainly not a bad thing given their history of a lack of good faith communication with users.

But, “Damned if they do, damned if they don’t” seems like quite the stretch on this topic if we are going back as far as say… LAST WEEK. They literally just released a QC “launch” amp as a plug-in.

Is that a “damned if you do” or a “damned if you don’t”

 

[Mongillo19]

The ToneX launch has been different enough, startling really—so cheap (one fifth the price of the QC), so complete, so timely—that pretty much everybody is questioning pretty much everything, about our current digital rigs. That doesn’t mean anyone has to like it, but it’s reasonable to be intrigued, especially versus the QC launch.

100 percent this. There were no hype campaigns, no promises of what the device would do, no deposits needed, no delay from announcement of product to it being available etc etc. The device just dropped and at a great price point.

The big draw to me of the QC was the captures. Now I have (what data tells me) is a capturing device that is more accurate, smaller, cheaper, and not run by a company such as NDSP. I know some don't like IK so that may vary from user to user lol

Is it an all in one solution? Heck no. But I got it for $320 out the door, I throw in my stomps I already have coupled in with a used HX effects and I've spent max $770 on a complete rig that is just as viable if not more so than the $2000 Quad cortex.

Obviously this is a personal opinion but I don't see the double standards because imo IK did their product launch the right way. I think many have mentioned here that we don't have an issue with the tonal capabilities of the QC, more so the management team/company.

 

[mbenigni]

Tone is difficult to convey via text, read this as if we are having a beer together…

If we are talking about a 2-3 day window then I’d agree. The blog post is certainly not a bad thing given their history of a lack of good faith communication with users.

But, “Damned if they do, damned if they don’t” seems like quite the stretch on this topic if we are going back as far as say… LAST WEEK. They literally just released a QC “launch” amp as a plug-in.

Is that a “damned if you do” or a “damned if you don’t”

Fair enough. I was really just referring to the content/ tone of the update itself, not the outcome of the whole plug-in compatibility debacle. Which, admittedly, I’ve had the luxury of not really caring about.

P.S. Having to use the word “update” this way is even worse than having to use the word “model” IK’s way.

 

[DrewJD82]

He's technically not wrong though. If you look at for example the Neural Amp Modeler code, there is basically nothing specifically about guitar gear. The neural network processing doesn't really care if you are feeding it a vintage Fender amp or a kazoo, it will churn some kind of model out of it.

If Fractal is working with not only audio but also measurements of various components, intricacies of tube amps etc and replicating them in the virtual realm, machine learning companies are dealing with "how do we make this input signal accurately into a model that responds just like it with any input signal". It's a different game that has allowed several companies to leapfrog 10+ years worth of digital modeling expertise.

IK was really smart by leveraging desktop/laptop computer power for the capturing process instead of trying to make the hardware DSP unit itself do that as well. We will have to see if QC's eventually released editor then starts to pivot by offering an "advanced capture" feature that skips the hardware capture's processing phase by piping the data to your computer instead. It could even be wireless since only the audio part requires physical connections.

I can certainly understand that aspect of it, but where it seemingly works against them is understanding the functionality in the leading modeling units that lead to members on their own forums asking if they’re being punked by developers or if guitar players ever actually had any input on the programability/functionality of the unit, which eventually lead to “Just buy an MC6 or an MC8 to control the world’s most powerful floor modeler”.

 

[laxu]

I can certainly understand that aspect of it, but where it seemingly works against them is understanding the functionality in the leading modeling units that lead to members on their own forums asking if they’re being punked by developers or if guitar players ever actually had any input on the programability/functionality of the unit, which eventually lead to “Just buy an MC6 or an MC8 to control the world’s most powerful floor modeler”.

That's fair. I never considered the QC a floor unit in the first place so for me it worked pretty great as a desktop box. The marketing obviously wanted to have that "most powerful floor unit" title, only to have Fractal dunk on them within a few months with the FM9.

For the record I didn't like the FM3 as a floor unit either. Fractal just recently added a larger text mode to the home screen to make it decently readable on the floor. Both Helix and QC did better for on-screen readability.

 

[yeky83]

Our software teams have prioritized porting our plugins at full speed while only a handful of our team members remain working on new products.

The tenses in this sentence don't make sense, the announcement is unclear. So are they saying they were prioritizing plugin porting at full speed for the last 2 years?

Also, all that talk about "separate teams, plugin dev doesn't impact the QC at all"

 

[dronerstone]

Fair enough. I was really just referring to the content/ tone of the update itself, not the outcome of the whole plug-in compatibility debacle. Which, admittedly, I’ve had the luxury of not really caring about.

P.S. Having to use the word “update” this way is even worse than having to use the word “model” IK’s way.

100% agree, feels like the ToneX pedal was widely available very quickly after the rumors were first posted.

Of course, there's a lot of marketing involved, but even though I've never been a huge fan of IK for some reason, I believe they pulled it off like a champ!