Axe III vs Quad Cortex comparison

Sometimes a piece of gear is not the right fit for someone.

Im on another forum where a continuous comment was “oh if it had these 3 changes i’d buy that guitar.”

Suddenly theres new custom builders or model updates offering exactly that - and barely anyone actually buys in…
 
Why is it customers always think they can design it better throwing out suggestions about how to make it more user-friendly? As someone who has been developing software for 19 years professionally and had developed for web, native Windows Desktop, Android, and iOS… I can tell you that rarely, if ever, are users good at software design. Feedback for a small feature? Sure. But a system as a whole? Best stick to your area of expertise and let other stick to theirs…
 
millman said:
Why is it customers always think they can design it better throwing out suggestions about how to make it more user-friendly? As someone who has been developing software for 19 years professionally and had developed for web, native Windows Desktop, Android, and iOS… I can tell you that rarely, if ever, are users good at software design. Feedback for a small feature? Sure. But a system as a whole? Best stick to your area of expertise and let other stick to theirs…
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What does it matter if someone throws out an idea. I for one couldn’t care less. Let them I made a suggestion knowing full well it wouldn’t happen it was just a thought and I can promise if I decide to share a thought I will irregardless of someone else getting bent out of shape for it. You don’t like it that’s fine. No one ever said people had to agree a common misconception in this current world.
 
Bertotti said:
What does it matter if someone throws out an idea. I for one couldn’t care less. Let them I made a suggestion knowing full well it wouldn’t happen it was just a thought and I can promise if I decide to share a thought I will irregardless of someone else getting bent out of shape for it. You don’t like it that’s fine. No one ever said people had to agree a common misconception in this current world.
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I see a lot of ideas thrown around. Mostly half-baked at best. Useless at worst. Mostly conjecture and largely useless. Again, I’ve been on the receiving end of them my entire career. If someone really wanted to help they could learn the trade apply to work for the company. Learn everything from the company side and then help to iterate toward something better. Anything else honestly won’t go to aiding in improving any designs. If anyone wants to backseat design and code a solution I promise it won’t get beyond the efforts it took to type it out.

If it makes you feel better have at it but that is all it’s doing. Also, I think the editor software and the interface on device is a marvel as to how well it makes all the complexity accessibly manageable by the user.
 
axes said:
Those who own or have played both units (A3 and QC), do you also notice a difference in feel between them? To me the QC feels "bouncier" which is to me more similar to playing my tube amps through a Reactive Load. I found the Axe's feel more flat in comparison.
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I'd say the complete opposite

The QC feels digital and 2d whereas the Fractals feel, and sound, 3d

What sort of sounds are you going for?
 
Greg Ferguson said:
Many… OK. The nebulous many. The industry can't run on "many", they have to follow their business paths.


Why? What if that "simple seeker" strata isn't the target audience for a company?
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I just tossed out a random thought isn’t talking and chatting about these things one reason forum exist. That and learning from each other about deeper diving others tweaks others music? I think too many people are too emotional over this. Simple seekers who buys complex item that could be used simply make no sense to me. If fractal wants to capture more simple seekers than a simpler seeker box might be the thing but on my side I don’t want a simple seeker box. I love my axe rx3mk2Turbo. I tossed out the idea maybe if possibly fractal could shut them up with just a simplified dumbed down gui option. Do I think that is a viable idea? I couldn’t say perhaps yes or perhaps no. What I do know is in the environment I work in our software guys like ideas, they will let you know if it isn’t viable but will also say hey that could be done if it can. I’ll shit up now I didn’t realize I would be pushing buttons with a simple comment. Better for me to go practice because my playing needs more work. My forum time isn’t all that important for that.
 
ak301 said:
I'd say the complete opposite

The QC feels digital and 2d whereas the Fractals feel, and sound, 3d

What sort of sounds are you going for?
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I'm mainly going for high gain rhythm and lead tones (SLO, IIC+, Friedman BE, etc).
I can try and express what I felt with both devices:
  1. The QC captures (which I did quite a few of my own amps directly - reactive load to interface, but also downloaded captures) sound 95% identical to the sound I get with my amp and loadbox into the same IR, but even more importantly, the QC has the right feel - bouncy under the pick just like the real amp. I thought this was some kind of gimmick (maybe compression under the hood) but it felt great, gimmick or not, and felt very similar to my amps with reactive loads. I would say the QC feels more exciting to play than the Axe.
  2. Maybe the comparison is unfair to an extent because the QC had the chance to sample my exact amps, but considering how Fractal has the best amp modeling built in (bar none), I think it should work out in the end. Unfortunately, when I'm playing the Axe models I feel detached in a way. The bounciness I've mentioned with the QC is gone. The sound is similar in quality (the effects are obviously a different league) but I just don't feel like playing an actual amp. That kind of physical feedback under my hands is not there with the Axe which in turn also makes me play better on the QC or the real amps and play worse on the Axe because of the lack of that feel. Also, as far as sound goes, I've felt the Axe to be a little congested in the low mids with "standard" settings and "standard" IRs - the IRs that feel bright with the QC feel darker with the Axe in general.
Because of the above I relegated my Axe to FX loop processing duties and haven't really touched it for modeling since I had my QC. I sold the QC a while ago because I still much prefer using my tube heads with reactive loads into my interface and running stereo FX in DAW, so I have no need for it, but it was able to get really, really close.

I'd really like to be able to say the same about the Axe but unfortunately even though I've had multiple Axe IIIs throughout the years, I could never get the exact tones and feel I've wanted out of it. I liked it on its own but when I had a tube amp in the house and gave them a fair comparison I've always felt the Axe lacking.

I'm not bashing the Axe, this is just my experience.
 
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One thing Is models, another captures.
Captures are a lot Better of models in QC, and this said from a (ex) strenght Defender of QC models :-) i have changed my thougts today..when prime Is on my table (only for models)
 
I keep reading “bouncy” and “feel under fingers” which always makes me think theres a parameter or 3 that could be tweaked, I just have no idea which it could be thus cant recommend.

I know people have said which parameter to change to obtain immediate pick attack - iirc on a thread still on pg1 here.
 
axes said:
I'm mainly going for high gain rhythm and lead tones (SLO, IIC+, Friedman BE, etc).
I can try and express what I felt with both devices:
  1. The QC captures (which I did quite a few of my own amps directly - reactive load to interface, but also downloaded captures) sound 95% identical to the sound I get with my amp and loadbox into the same IR, but even more importantly, the QC has the right feel - bouncy under the pick just like the real amp. I thought this was some kind of gimmick (maybe compression under the hood) but it felt great, gimmick or not, and felt very similar to my amps with reactive loads. I would say the QC feels more exciting to play than the Axe.
  2. Maybe the comparison is unfair to an extent because the QC had the chance to sample my exact amps, but considering how Fractal has the best amp modeling built in (bar none), I think it should work out in the end. Unfortunately, when I'm playing the Axe models I feel detached in a way. The bounciness I've mentioned with the QC is gone. The sound is similar in quality (the effects are obviously a different league) but I just don't feel like playing an actual amp. That kind of physical feedback under my hands is not there with the Axe which in turn also makes me play better on the QC or the real amps and play worse on the Axe because of the lack of that feel. Also, as far as sound goes, I've felt the Axe to be a little congested in the low mids with "standard" settings and "standard" IRs - the IRs that feel bright with the QC feel darker with the Axe in general.
Because of the above I relegated my Axe to FX loop processing duties and haven't really touched it for modeling since I had my QC. I sold the QC a while ago because I still much prefer using my tube heads with reactive loads into my interface and running stereo FX in DAW, so I have no need for it, but it was able to get really, really close.

I'd really like to be able to say the same about the Axe but unfortunately even though I've had multiple Axe IIIs throughout the years, I could never get the exact tones and feel I've wanted out of it. I liked it on its own but when I had a tube amp in the house and gave them a fair comparison I've always felt the Axe lacking.

I'm not bashing the Axe, this is just my experience.
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Have you tried the output compression. Kemper uses compression in a similar way to get that kind of chewy pick bounce
I know what your talking about in the real world Bogner does that and it coming from low voltage in the preamp and compression
To try and replicate that in axe
Look at the following

Output compression set to Feedback
Input dynamics
Preamp stage compression
Working with those 3 parameters you may find some success
Especially the output Feedback just use sparingly
 
millman said:
I see a lot of ideas thrown around. Mostly half-baked at best. Useless at worst. Mostly conjecture and largely useless. Again, I’ve been on the receiving end of them my entire career. If someone really wanted to help they could learn the trade apply to work for the company. Learn everything from the company side and then help to iterate toward something better. Anything else honestly won’t go to aiding in improving any designs. If anyone wants to backseat design and code a solution I promise it won’t get beyond the efforts it took to type it out.

If it makes you feel better have at it but that is all it’s doing. Also, I think the editor software and the interface on device is a marvel as to how well it makes all the complexity accessibly manageable by the user.
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I think it was Heraclitus who said: "Those who can't do, criticize".

Or it might have been Pauly Shore.
 
I got a QC as a trade for my mk1 fm9 as i recently got a mk2T fm9. I wasnt using it, just a backup and figured why not.

I think it sounds great. I think the IR's sound really good and "mix ready" lots of the flub and annoying frequencies cut out already.
but id argue that the af3/fm9 side of things you just get more "information" and it feels more authentic and real...to which you can then carve out frequencies if you want to or not. Ultimately the QC for me is still just sitting around.

I will say i do LOVE the captures of drive pedals, but kinda like kemper...its alot of trust in that the person who posted X actually profiled/captured X and you can get sold snake oil pretty easily.
 
You might think so but no. How one user out of thousands might think something needs to improve is a useless sample. Also, most ideas are suggested like (needs touch screen). Now your one idea has created thousands of problems that need to be solved. You also don’t have visibility into the companies internal plans. Perhaps they are already working on that for the next product version. You have no perception into this because all you know from the outside looking in is what it does today.

There is an entire field called Human Computer Interaction (HCI) that studies this exact thing. Contrary to what seems to be the popular belief it takes considerable amount of time, energy, and money to produce serious changes. And there is a user base much larger than one individual and their notions of what could make it better.

Edit: corrected the name of the field of study to HCI.
 
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jclemensfl said:
But those critiques are important to the evolution of products and ideas, no?
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Yes. Pauly Shore has proven to be incredibly influential on society.

Critiques that understand the subject well can help. Critiques that don’t understand every aspect of the subject are not useful, no more useful than waving a magic wand and claiming it was useful.
 
Randalljax said:
Have you tried the output compression. Kemper uses compression in a similar way to get that kind of chewy pick bounce
I know what your talking about in the real world Bogner does that and it coming from low voltage in the preamp and compression
To try and replicate that in axe
Look at the following

Output compression set to Feedback
Input dynamics
Preamp stage compression
Working with those 3 parameters you may find some success
Especially the output Feedback just use sparingly
Click to expand...
Thank you for the tips, I'll try them and will report back :)
 
axes said:
I'm mainly going for high gain rhythm and lead tones (SLO, IIC+, Friedman BE, etc).
I can try and express what I felt with both devices:
  1. The QC captures (which I did quite a few of my own amps directly - reactive load to interface, but also downloaded captures) sound 95% identical to the sound I get with my amp and loadbox into the same IR, but even more importantly, the QC has the right feel - bouncy under the pick just like the real amp. I thought this was some kind of gimmick (maybe compression under the hood) but it felt great, gimmick or not, and felt very similar to my amps with reactive loads. I would say the QC feels more exciting to play than the Axe.
  2. Maybe the comparison is unfair to an extent because the QC had the chance to sample my exact amps, but considering how Fractal has the best amp modeling built in (bar none), I think it should work out in the end. Unfortunately, when I'm playing the Axe models I feel detached in a way. The bounciness I've mentioned with the QC is gone. The sound is similar in quality (the effects are obviously a different league) but I just don't feel like playing an actual amp. That kind of physical feedback under my hands is not there with the Axe which in turn also makes me play better on the QC or the real amps and play worse on the Axe because of the lack of that feel. Also, as far as sound goes, I've felt the Axe to be a little congested in the low mids with "standard" settings and "standard" IRs - the IRs that feel bright with the QC feel darker with the Axe in general.
Because of the above I relegated my Axe to FX loop processing duties and haven't really touched it for modeling since I had my QC. I sold the QC a while ago because I still much prefer using my tube heads with reactive loads into my interface and running stereo FX in DAW, so I have no need for it, but it was able to get really, really close.

I'd really like to be able to say the same about the Axe but unfortunately even though I've had multiple Axe IIIs throughout the years, I could never get the exact tones and feel I've wanted out of it. I liked it on its own but when I had a tube amp in the house and gave them a fair comparison I've always felt the Axe lacking.

I'm not bashing the Axe, this is just my experience.
Click to expand...
For a more apples-to-apples comparison, have you tried changing the Speaker Impedance Curve to "Resistive Load" or one of the "Load Box" curves? Theoretically, that should put it on closer to a level playing field with your amps using a reactive load.

That said, the true ideal is a tube amp into a real speaker. In that sense, the Fractal modeling has an advantage that it can model power amp interactions that aren't happening with a load box.
 
I have seen many device comparisons and my opinion is purely that whatever the device is, you need to know how to adjust the right sound for yourself. Today, there are so many different brands and devices with different user interfaces that you just have to find the device that suits you.

And no matter what the device is, in the end it's the skill of the player that counts.

And the sound is affected by e.g. the guitarist's skills and, for example, the plectrum and the thickness and material of the plectrum and the whole chain of devices and the acoustics of the environment and finally the ears of the listener.

The main thing is the musician's musical ability to express and technical skill.

And no matter how good the device sounds, a bad player can't make it sound good.

These are just my general opinions.
 
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