Quad Cortex CorOS 3.0 - with Plug-in Compatibility - Launching July 31st

[lattjeful]

Alright, feel free to throw rotten tomatoes at me:

Fractal makes it seem like coding is easy. Cliff can fix a problem in the same day.

Quad cortex makes it seem like coding is nearly impossible.

Yeah, Cliff is nuts. Wish I had half the ability he does with any sort of programming lol. Cliff probably knows that codebase like the back of his hand which helps, but implementing fixes in the same day is some crazy work.

So does everyone get the new models or only those that bought the plugin?

I'm cool with Fractal not having a plugin version, but the Helix people are like

Only those that bought the plugins. Iirc the plugins are basically licenses to use those new models and effects on the QC.

 

[budda]

Which means they sell more and everything goes according to plan.

A good plan if you’re mostly in it for money.

 

[MetalDaze]

The X updates for plugins are free if you already own them, so it doesn't cost anymore to use them on the QC (well, other than you need to buy a QC).

In my situation (own the QC, but no plugins), I'm not feeling a draw to buy one, but maybe at one of their 50% off sales.

 

[MetalDaze]

More details emerging. One thing that I know people have asked for is mixing and matching amps and effects from multiple plugins. NDSP is claiming that will work in the QC due to them being implemented as individual blocks and not a monolithic plugin.

They also say that the plugin porting challenges are largely related to how they've changed the modeling approach over the years. So, it's not like if you port one plugin the rest naturally follow. All self inflicted, of course, but it's the reality of maintaining multiple code bases and then trying to merge them onto a new platform.

 

[Ericjutsu]

For all the delays in this update they should offer a free plugin to all quad cortex owners

 

[budda]

For all the delays in this update they should offer a free plugin to all quad cortex owners

But it would be subscriptions with auto renewal fees..

 

[RevDrucifer]

So does everyone get the new models or only those that bought the plugin?

I'm cool with Fractal not having a plugin version, but the Helix people are like

You have to have the plug-in, but I believe they’re also adding similar effects blocks to the QC so it doesn’t become entirely pay-to-play. Like the transposer, I believe there’s going to be a Plug-in version and a QC version.

Whether or not people are going to find them -/+ is for the future to tell us, but at the end of 3 years this comes off to me as “We made y’all wait 3 years to add some amps and effects that sound just like the plug-ins…..but you’re not actually running the plugins on the QC”

 

[RevDrucifer]

For all the delays in this update they should offer a free plugin to all quad cortex owners

I believe they are. I don’t think they’ve announced what they’e giving to the early adopters though.

 

[HeHasTheJazzHands]

So does everyone get the new models or only those that bought the plugin?

I'm cool with Fractal not having a plugin version, but the Helix people are like

Line 6 actually handled this better than Neural lol. They released their own plugin suites with exclusive amps, and then a few months later they made said amps available to the Helix in a free update.

 

[HeHasTheJazzHands]

You have to have the plug-in, but I believe they’re also adding similar effects blocks to the QC so it doesn’t become entirely pay-to-play. Like the transposer, I believe there’s going to be a Plug-in version and a QC version.

Whether or not people are going to find them -/+ is for the future to tell us, but at the end of 3 years this comes off to me as “We made y’all wait 3 years to add some amps and effects that sound just like the plug-ins…..but you’re not actually running the plugins on the QC”

Yeah I think the initial pitch made it sound like the NDSP was going to be some kind of plugin/VST host? EDIT: Or was that assumptions being made surrounding the hype?

 

[STRHelvete]

*Laughs in Helix*

 

[RevDrucifer]

Yeah I think the initial pitch made it sound like the NDSP was going to be some kind of plugin/VST host? EDIT: Or was that assumptions being made surrounding the hype?

I’m sure there’ll be plenty of semantics around it, but if NDSP came out 2 years ago and said “Hey, we can’t actually figure out this plug-in thing, so we’re just making comparable amp and effects blocks for the QC”, people would have been pissed that they gave up on “running the plugins on the QC”

However, that’s exactly what they did. That video with Rabea at Sweetwater discusses how these sound slightly different than the actual plugins because they had to be redesigned from ground up due to the different ways they made them over the years.

So I really wasn’t wrong with my mock quote above, they made amps/effects that sound as close as possible to the plugins and added a bunch of steps to sync them up with iLok licenses instead of just adding the damn things to the QC as normal blocks.

 

[MetalDaze]

I’m sure there’ll be plenty of semantics around it, but if NDSP came out 2 years ago and said “Hey, we can’t actually figure out this plug-in thing, so we’re just making comparable amp and effects blocks for the QC”, people would have been pissed that they gave up on “running the plugins on the QC”

However, that’s exactly what they did. That video with Rabea at Sweetwater discusses how these sound slightly different than the actual plugins because they had to be redesigned from ground up due to the different ways they made them over the years.

So I really wasn’t wrong with my mock quote above, they made amps/effects that sound as close as possible to the plugins and added a bunch of steps to sync them up with iLok licenses instead of just adding the damn things to the QC as normal blocks.

Semantics indeed. I don't believe anyone would have been truly happy if the QC just became new hardware to run a plugin and then still be limited to whatever that plugin did. I always assumed they would just take the code from the plugin, modularize it into the framework of the QC and then let you have the plugin tones with additional QC features. That's why the mix and match thing is so cool, just like you can do it with captures and other QC models.

This realization though that the plugin architecture wasn't standardized (and some are really old now) is leading to a lot of rework. While some would want the old plugin as-is, I certainly like the idea that they are modernizing them so the intent is the same but the end result might be different (and hopefully better?).

It feels like they are being more honest now about what actually needed to happen to pull this off and how it wasn't trivial.

 

[Ericjutsu]

I believe they are. I don’t think they’ve announced what they’e giving to the early adopters though.

well that's good. Early adopters should get all the plugins or at least a lot of them. Doesn't matter to me either way though, I use a Helix and Tone x

 

[MatrixClaw]

if someone could find a way to get fractals to europe the QC wouldnt even still be a thing

It's unfortunate that G66 is the only one. Also unfortunate that Fractal just flat out refuses to ship to Europe. They used to have another dealer in Russia - TubeTone. Fractal would ship all the units to me and I'd ship directly to customers in Europe, because they they wouldn't do it. If there's no middle man for G66, I can only imagine the amount of units they have to order to entice Fractal to ship them directly to them.

Alright, feel free to throw rotten tomatoes at me:

Fractal makes it seem like coding is easy. Cliff can fix a problem in the same day.

Quad cortex makes it seem like coding is nearly impossible.

I've often been very curious about programming plugins and modelers like this myself. There's VERY little information out there. Seems like an extremely niche market and I assume it's wildly underpaid compared to any other C++ job. I think it's just a really hard thing to find good programmers to do it because they've got to either:

1. Invest a bunch of time and money into programmers to teach them how to build their software, since it's unlikely they're using any sort of standardized framework, or

2. Hire someone who already has experience building software like this, which is probably a very, very small pool of engineers.

Cliff is good at it because he's been programming his software for almost 20 years. I'd bet he has more experience than everyone on the Neural DSP team, combined.

 

[Shask]

From everything I've heard Cliff does seem quite a bit of a coding prodigy. Or at the very least super obsessive lol

I love playing with different units, and thinking about different directions I could go, but man, it is hard to really take any platform seriously once you get used to the Fractal system. Nothing else is really close to being as complete.