Ok, what in the hell is the quilt top Majesty at 14:17 in the Ola video?!?!?!?
EDIT Purple Nebula Majesty... damn
EDIT Purple Nebula Majesty... damn
Neural DSP teasing something new (Quad Cortex)
- Thread starter HeHasTheJazzHands
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The tones that were dialed up for Ola in this video sounded like crap imo. Not his fault, but I'm surprised they didn't have some better high gain tones ready to go at the booth.
Rabea's video sounds WAY better.
Ola's video was recorded with a camera mic in a somewhat shitty situation. It could sound both worse or better in real life. Who knows.
It does sound like the Quad Cortex has a general "blanket sound" that is very much covering all the proper demos so far. Kinda like the Pod HD, but not sure I would call it a bad sound in the same way the Pod HD shits all over its tones. Will be interesting to see what happens when the product exits the beta stage.
I hope the Quad Cortex nails the feel of the VST amps. That is about the only real differentiator I sense at the top of the current modelling game.
Wolfhorsky
Regular idiot
Honestly I’m underwhelmed by the sounds so far. I hope they make it sounding more like their plugins.
HeHasTheJazzHands
Well-Known Member
I haven't checked out Beas video yet, and I understand this is a prototype with hopefully unfinished models... But yeah, they need work.
I understand the need to build hype, but it would be nice if they were a little more done baking this thing before taking it live. Maybe shoot for Summer NAMM. Oh well.
Shoeless_jose
Well-Known Member
A few others have nailed it there isn't some groundbreaking new sound to be had because it's just amp modelling. Providing no hardware failure my Helix will still sound fantastic and totally serviceable years from now, it will really come down to what form factor your prefer and other features like I/Os available, user interface ect ect.
I've never messed with the plugins but I think part of the appeal of them is the quality of the sound for a relatively small financial outlay, if you are spending money for a flagship level unit I feel like you may be more critical of performance.
Either way I hope the launch goes well when it does happen, like others have said the more people pushing the limits of hardware design and user interface and all that stuff help the products get better so keep it up.
I'm sure if Line 6 released an updated Helix touch people would be all over it.
I've never messed with the plugins but I think part of the appeal of them is the quality of the sound for a relatively small financial outlay, if you are spending money for a flagship level unit I feel like you may be more critical of performance.
Either way I hope the launch goes well when it does happen, like others have said the more people pushing the limits of hardware design and user interface and all that stuff help the products get better so keep it up.
I'm sure if Line 6 released an updated Helix touch people would be all over it.
Shask
Well-Known Member
Line 6 introduced the new POD GO, which a lot of people seem to be happy about.... Helix modeling, color screen, less I/O, only $449.
Shoeless_jose
Well-Known Member
Yeah I saw that but it's not meant to compete with full size Helix, Axe FX III ect, and I think the Neural unit is meant to be in that weight class.
GunpointMetal
Well-Known Member
I really wanted to see what kind of crazy shit/full band presets you could make with all that supposed DSP available, maybe show off some cool switching options (momentary/scenes), at least show it connecting to a device via internal Wi Fi. Demos sound like demos, nothing amazing, pretty average for people who haven't sat with it a minute to really dial it in. I think they should have waited till Summer NAMM and planned for a winter release, just because they really didn't have anything to show besides a cool looking box and a list of yet-to-be-implemented promises of things. I mean, if the modeling isn't engineered for the DSP chips, they might only get two of the lines of FX before the thing is full or whatever. This is barely even a proof of concept at this point.
axxessdenied
Arium Addict
The hardware is done. A lot of the modelling is already in VST format for testing. Big thing now is porting over the code by their DSP team. I think they'll have a ton of good feedback from people trying it at winter-namm to run with and make the unit solid. The biggest hold up would be the hardware part which is done. The coding portion is just a matter of man-hours which can easily be planned for.
The Cortex should be able to cover a wide range of sounds, since it's a modeler.
Did you not read the features that you can load plugins you already own into it? Or are you talking about the built-in amp models that are going to be available out of the box?
I agree having a full band use it in a performance would have been more impressive.
Also I think they could have set up an A/B station showing the amp capture process and giving people the chance to compare a tube amp & cab to the captured sound. Or maybe the NAMM floor is way too busy and noisy to be able to tell a difference? The upcoming youtube reviewers will put that through its paces either way.
These two things I mentioned above are what make it stand above other modelers in this price range. (Though I suppose a full Helix can do a band as well, or at least a guitarist and vocalist with plenty of room to spare).
Doug Castro
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Ola's video was shot with a camera mic so it's not really representing the unit's actual sound.
The first tests we did a few months back were using our plugin algorithms, since those are tried and true, and after porting them to SHARC they were indistinguishable in sound and feel from our software products, so if you like those, do not worry, that's the quality you're getting with Quad Cortex.
The first tests we did a few months back were using our plugin algorithms, since those are tried and true, and after porting them to SHARC they were indistinguishable in sound and feel from our software products, so if you like those, do not worry, that's the quality you're getting with Quad Cortex.
LeviathanKiller
Knee-shooting Archer
While I still prefer the sound of Fractal's products, the tone definitely wasn't unusable. I didn't get to tweak it much as it was a "guided" demo as I was playing. I'm interested in how the turnable stomp-switches will behave when actually getting stepped (there's a floor mode that locks turning somehow). Lastly, I'm not sure I understand the overall appeal of the unit at $1600 when Fractal is letting the FM-3 sell for $999. That said, the Quad Cortex interface was awesome. It felt like using the Axe-Edit III computer software but on the device itself thanks to the touchscreen controls. I think anyone not sold on Fractal's stuff will like this unit a lot. The inclusion of wireless connectivity without an up-charge is a smooth move too.
Flappydoodle
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I could be wrong, but I strongly suspect that this simply isn't ready yet. From the Q&A videos, the software all seems like very early days.
And when people have asked for more details about the profiling they have shied away from saying how this actually works. Probably part of that is because they must have had to do some workaround to avoid the Kemper patent. Add whatever AI terminology you want, but at the end of the day, they're still most likely going to be playing a known signal through a guitar amp/cab/mic setup, then capturing the processed sound and analysing it for gain, EQ response etc.
I do really like the company, love their plugins, and I hope this QC lives up to all the hype. But according to what I've seen, it is very early days and they are promising a lot by September. Fingers crossed that they can deliver.
rokket2005
Well-Known Member
The problem with them waiting to unveil it at summer NAMM is that no one gives a shit about summer NAMM.
narad
Progressive metal and politics
Kemper doesn't have a patent on on that. This general problem is well established in DSP (signal matching), and methods of doing it existed long before the Kemper. They only have a patent on a very specific way of doing it.
Flappydoodle
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Then why has nobody made a better Kemper? The thing has been out since Apple released the iPhone 3G, and they haven’t updated it once. On the Kemper forum they always say it’s because that general profiling method (play known signal, monitor return) is patented. Of course, I haven’t read their patent for myself, but that’s what they use as explanation for why Axe FX, Helix and others only have EQ marching and not profiling.
If that’s not the case, I am really surprised if no competing profiler has been invented in the decade that has passed.
WTF is "EQ marching"?
The method used at Fractal and Line6 is actually "modelling" - hence the products being called modelers.
Flappydoodle
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WTF is "EQ marching"?
The method used at Fractal and Line6 is actually "modelling" - hence the products being called modelers.
EQ matching. Typo.
And yes they are modellers, but Axe FX also has a tone matching feature. Not sure about Helix. Axe Fx (and Positive Gris BIAS) uses only basic EQ matching that you can also easily do in a DAW. That gets pretty close, but it can’t account for gain levels, attack character, sag and other properties that profiling can.
Given the popularity of those competing units, and the appeal of the Kemper, I can’t imagine why Fractal or Line6 didn’t add that feature to their products. The patent seems like the most logical obstacle. IMO, if Fractal had added proper profiling to the AXFX, the Kemper would have been dead years ago. Then you’d have their great modelling, and the ability to take your studio tones on the road with total reproducibility.
