This !
- Thread starter Stone
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laxu
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Agree with Leon here.
Let me transport you back a few years when I bought the Quad Cortex on release. I also had the Helix Floor and Fractal FM3 at whatever fw they were using at the time. I spent a month trying them head to head trying to figure out which is the One Modeler To Rule Them All.
Things I really loved about the QC at the time:
I estimated back then it would take 1-2 years for rough feature parity with Helix/Fractal - bringing in more amp/cab/fx models, fixing UI issues, desktop/mobile editor...I was just way, way too optimistic about that.
In that time Line6 and Fractal have reached parity for the cab sims even if they are not quite as user friendly without a touchscreen. Tonex/NAM has made captures a commodity. That leaves few unique feature advantages for the QC and there's maybe 2-3 years left until we see next gen units from Line6/Fractal. The QC could become the "Nintendo Wii U" of digital modelers - a product that on paper was powerful, but landed in between the competitors' next gen products and was then not supported by developers to make it shine.
Let me transport you back a few years when I bought the Quad Cortex on release. I also had the Helix Floor and Fractal FM3 at whatever fw they were using at the time. I spent a month trying them head to head trying to figure out which is the One Modeler To Rule Them All.
Things I really loved about the QC at the time:
- The onboard user interface. I can't stress how easy it is to work with so I never considered the computer editor that big a deal. Tap a thing, turn the knob/switches, done!
- The compact form factor. Roughly same size as FM3, with more I/O and a modern user experience? Perfect!
- The physical controls. I think they had a good feel to them where twisting the knobs felt better than Helix or Fractal, more intuitively responsive almost like turning knobs on a pedal. Having this many knobs/switches was nice. I think they could have dropped one column and spaced them wider and avoided people's complaints about tight switch spacing.
- Captures I made of my real amps sounded and felt great, I felt they were very close to the real deal through the same output system.
- Cab sims with movable mics. No other hardware modeler had this at the time.
- I could buy it here in Finland on release. I didn't have to wait 6+ months to get it in EU.
- The effects quality. It was at best on par with Helix/Fractal fx but often worse, never better. Still good, but not great.
- The effects available. Then it was still missing a good amount of basics.
- The hit and miss amp models. Some were genuinely bad like the Soldano SLO while others needed fairly weird settings to match the reference tones from my real amps or equivalent Fractal amp models.
- While the basic fx block editing user interface was good, managing presets/captures/IRs was awful and the footswitching options had limitations. There wasn't even a graphic EQ that works like a graphic EQ.
I estimated back then it would take 1-2 years for rough feature parity with Helix/Fractal - bringing in more amp/cab/fx models, fixing UI issues, desktop/mobile editor...I was just way, way too optimistic about that.
In that time Line6 and Fractal have reached parity for the cab sims even if they are not quite as user friendly without a touchscreen. Tonex/NAM has made captures a commodity. That leaves few unique feature advantages for the QC and there's maybe 2-3 years left until we see next gen units from Line6/Fractal. The QC could become the "Nintendo Wii U" of digital modelers - a product that on paper was powerful, but landed in between the competitors' next gen products and was then not supported by developers to make it shine.
the-trooper
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That (video title) is not what @Stone is talking about, let's not turn every thread into QC rant thread.
Click the video, it's timestamped.
James Freeman
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Stone-Bait !
Stone
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Hahaha James is that a new Thing ?
Lysander
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Last edited:
Lysander
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Leon also made a great point about how effin' good modelling is across the board these days. QC's big standout feature was captures, and 3 years in... there's already plenty of competition out there.
The play field has leveled a lot, and Neural has (sadly) not been doing a great job of keeping up, IMHO.
James Freeman
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Why is Michael Schenker everywhere lately?
edit:
I also think component modeling and capturing together is a winning combination for the future, but it might turn ugly with all the patents and overprotection of things.
edit:
I also think component modeling and capturing together is a winning combination for the future, but it might turn ugly with all the patents and overprotection of things.
laxu
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My bad. I just watched it from the start as it didn't start from a timestamp.
Yeah I can see AI prompts becoming a thing in future modeling devices or at least their desktop/mobile editors until they can shrink these datasets and processing to offline environments. Then people will complain how the AI did not give them what they had in mind or how company X's AI requires less precise prompts or less tries to get results to their liking (already happening with ChatGPT = good, Google Bard etc = bad). Somebody will complain how the AI never suggests some niche amp model or gives the wrong amp model, when the user knows band X used amp Y. It opens up a new can of worms.
Today at work one of our sales people was asking if we have anybody familiar with prompt engineering, which seems to be a future career choice where your task is to figure out how to match what people type or say into an AI prompt with the data so the end user gets results they were looking for. I wouldn't be surprised if we see this as one of the open positions on modeler makers' career websites.
As a programmer in my early 40s, some of this stuff makes me feel old and I'm now starting to understand how old people end up struggling with new technology. In my field the amount of stuff you need to know has become a lot over the years. In my last project I was writing code in 4 different programming languages, multiple different frameworks, working with a variety of cloud services etc. Now add having to eventually learn AI related things on top of all that...
Eventually I might just want to be like those wizard-bearded COBOL programmers stuck in a basement, getting paid big bucks to maintain some business critical legacy system, because nobody else knows how to do it.
laxu
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I've been barking up that tree for years. They all sound good, it comes down to your preferred workflow and feature set.
James Freeman
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"Waiting" still exists though when it comes to specific models, that also can be a thing of the past if the clever people put their mind into it.
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"Not everyone spends all their time on forums arguing about the specifics of where of a particular knob should be..."
Lysander
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metropolis_4
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I don’t know, that doesn’t appeal to me at all. Maybe I’m just not the primary audience for it.
Learning how to create the sounds yourself is the fun part. And I have way more fun coming up with unorthodox ways of achieving tones. I think the last time I was playing along with some Dream Theater backing tracks I was using a Tele and a 50w Plexi with an RC Boost in front.
Telling a modeler “build me Dick Dale’s 1963 rig” makes me think we’re headed towards this:
Learning how to create the sounds yourself is the fun part. And I have way more fun coming up with unorthodox ways of achieving tones. I think the last time I was playing along with some Dream Theater backing tracks I was using a Tele and a 50w Plexi with an RC Boost in front.
Telling a modeler “build me Dick Dale’s 1963 rig” makes me think we’re headed towards this:
metropolis_4
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My bad. I just watched it from the start as it didn't start from a timestamp.
Yeah I can see AI prompts becoming a thing in future modeling devices or at least their desktop/mobile editors until they can shrink these datasets and processing to offline environments. Then people will complain how the AI did not give them what they had in mind or how company X's AI requires less precise prompts or less tries to get results to their liking (already happening with ChatGPT = good, Google Bard etc = bad). Somebody will complain how the AI never suggests some niche amp model or gives the wrong amp model, when the user knows band X used amp Y. It opens up a new can of worms.
Today at work one of our sales people was asking if we have anybody familiar with prompt engineering, which seems to be a future career choice where your task is to figure out how to match what people type or say into an AI prompt with the data so the end user gets results they were looking for. I wouldn't be surprised if we see this as one of the open positions on modeler makers' career websites.
As a programmer in my early 40s, some of this stuff makes me feel old and I'm now starting to understand how old people end up struggling with new technology. In my field the amount of stuff you need to know has become a lot over the years. In my last project I was writing code in 4 different programming languages, multiple different frameworks, working with a variety of cloud services etc. Now add having to eventually learn AI related things on top of all that...
Eventually I might just want to be like those wizard-bearded COBOL programmers stuck in a basement, getting paid big bucks to maintain some business critical legacy system, because nobody else knows how to do it.
I relate to all of this so. much.
I’m a front end web developer and some days I just want to give up and open a coffee shop or something
Stone
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Very Valid Point for sure, And yes I love tweaking my FM9 cause yes im learning, and as for me a pre-built patch will give me a general idea of the workings, OFC ill always mod it to my likingI don’t know, that doesn’t appeal to me at all. Maybe I’m just not the primary audience for it.
Learning how to create the sounds yourself is the fun part. And I have way more fun coming up with unorthodox ways of achieving tones. I think the last time I was playing along with some Dream Theater backing tracks I was using a Tele and a 50w Plexi with an RC Boost in front.
Telling a modeler “build me Dick Dale’s 1963 rig” makes me think we’re headed towards this:
and what @2112 I think is saying is that it will probably be the future of Modelling
IK Multimedia does this to an an extent with their artist Patches
IK Multimedia - Dimebag Darrell CFH Collection for AmpliTube
DimeBag Darrell CFH - 9 amp & FX models for AmpliTube created to mirror the rig used by Dimebag Darrel to record Cowboys From Hell album
www.ikmultimedia.com
Bob Zaod
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I work in the medical field troubleshooting database issues and various other crap. I am ready to open a lemonade stand and let the chips fall. 30 years in IT now. I retired once and then had to un-retire. next time is permanent and I hope it's soon.
