Quad Cortex Teardown Good Design? Cost? Stable? Worth? and MIDI Captain Control

[@ksukhia]

I work in the MI industry on products like this... keep doing videos exactly like this one, focus on costing and explaining manufacturing process and decisions they made or didnt make.... I guarantee your channel will grow. Nobody else I know of is offering this type of content, this is your unique gift. Congrats!

[@spanneng]

can't agree more..but I think not too many products has this quirk, so like for example maybe only god knows how many ts9 and the variants made and the price difference, design etc. it could be exhaustive but still educates someone.

[@milankotevski1663]

But you're wrong. Tony Mckenzie has been doing this kind of stuff since dinosaurs went extinct.

[@milankotevski1663]

@@ksukhia don't be a snowflake.

[@ronalerquinigoagurto555]

So interesting how oem manufacturers use component of the shelf like the dsp and uc, just like laptop manufacturers.

[@TheSason666]

​@@milankotevski1663exactly !!!

[@pyschointellectual]

I'm not a tech guy but I really enjoyed this, very educational

[@BrianVallotton]

Hello Wilson. I took the liberty to share this on the Neural Forum. Very nice work. Now I know how my QC is built and that it is built well! Thank you so much!

[@Wilson-PaintAudio]

I'm glad that more people can see the video. The more sharing the happier :)

[@trywynricketts]

there are definitely 2 types of person in this world. People like me who wants and can't afford to have a quad cortex, and people like you who wants and can afford a quad cortex and just casually dismantling it. very interesting content. 😁👌

[@rickbiessman6084]

I’m not an engineer by any stretch of the imagination - I’m a guitar player who has soldered a few analog pedals and opened an old modeller once to see if I could fix the power jack that had come loose. So I greatly admire your expertise and patience when disassembling and reassembling this unit. Also, it’s very cool to get an independent assessment of the quality and cost of the unit. I was hooked from the beginning to the end! =)

[@MisterRorschach90]

I’ve been toying around with the idea of stuffing the insides of one inside of a keyboard and making it a profiling synth.

[@rithwiksathyan1827]

@6:38 The MCP23017 is an i2c GPIO expander, basically gives you access to more IO pins to allow additional components to talk to a microcontroller/CPU- possibly used for the switches and encoders here

[@bartlettpsj]

This was great video. I really enjoyed this. Including a rough estimate was a nice touch. These Neural guys are not making much money once you factor in manufacturing, distribution and warranty costs. I've seen a Kemper one before. Would love to see an FM-3 or FM-9 teardown.

[@joeleeuse]

Thank you for your info. I did worried with the heat coming from my device.

[@razznote7586]

Great Teardown content, maybe you could do for the other ones like Line 6 Helix, Kemper, Headrush and Fractal Products (Axe FX, FM3 and FM9). Those would be awesome content!

[@steverix8181]

I disagree about the screen being the cause of how warm the unit becomes. If you put the unit into standby mode it still kicks out the same amount of heat. The case does a great job of being a heatsink though. Great to see it's well engineered and well built. Also, really nice that its built in Finland rather than the far east.

[@fikardam]

you earning my subs dear sir, PLEASE TEARDOWN ALL PEDALBOARD !!! it so eyegasm for me (maybe others too) !!!

[@freysergpal]

Thank you for your awesome vídeo. Really nice to know how it is put together, its quality and ingenuity.

[@AlanW]

Thanks for the teardown, and more, the explanation and analysis of parts! It seems clear they have done many things to ensure that this will be durable for live use.

[@DeedeeM3gaDooDoo]

Its so exciting to watch this

[@marcbenigni]

Hi, Wilson! Thank you - I really enjoyed this video. I also want to say that the Paint Audio MIDI Captain is a *perfect* complement to the Quad Cortex, and an incredible value. Anyone who owns a QC and appreciates its hands-on UI as a desktop unit should also own a MIDI Captain for 1-to-1 mapping of switches on the floor. Paint Audio caught me completely off guard and I've been consistently impressed with your products. Best of luck going forward!

[@darrenmackay2536]

Great video!

[@willymillan]

Great Video Wilson... Thanks

[@diddymies]

Insane amount of detail in this video review/doc/teardown. Very unique and interesting content! Keep it up !

[@NaudioElectronics]

Great teardown! Thanks!

[@SubduedFlamboyance]

Thank you Wilson!

[@TheSpyrl]

"Feeling better now right?!" LOL!!!!! yes my OCD was on "11" cheers Wilson, great vid and charming as ever!

[@alexlyn]

订阅和点赞了！加油左博士，还有我很期待您的新品😘！！

[@rinkydinky-ob9pe]

fantastic video, thanks for taking the time to make it and post it for us to view,

[@TheJonOsborne]

Wow thanks for this amazing video on the QC. I definitely feel great about the quality on this device after seeing your teardown. I also subscribed!

[@Missingnin69]

Thanks for the video, this is a great teardown! The QC was an expensive device for me so it's good to know definitively that you think it's priced appropriately relative to the component hardware cost

[@MauroPavanelli]

Awesome review! Congrats! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

[@picksalot1]

Fascinating breakdown. The engineering looks very good, except for the passive heat dissipation. I've got an HX Stomp. I keep a computer fan running next to its upper left corner, to wick away the heat, as that's where the screen is and where it gets the hottest. Works surprisingly well. Heat is the enemy of electronics, but there are simple solutions. Thanks

[@CanalUHF]

Any thoughts about the wifi module? I have weak signal problems, even when the QC is close to the router, and many people reported the same issue. Could it be a design fault, low quality components or a software issue?

Perfect video, thank you so much ❤

[@MrTheog1989]

Cool teardown, I'd love to see you go into even more detail and perhaps talk a bit about "how" some of these IC's do their job or why they might have been chosen. You've earnt my subscription :)

[@Wilson-PaintAudio]

Thank you! Try to spend more time about that next time:)

[@Ninuzzo]

Thank you for that effort! Great teardown!

[@billyarsenault1970]

Nice work.

[@NickLeonard]

great video! cool to see a teardown of this

[@GOD_BLESS_THE_BEATLES]

Thanks You so much for this phenomenal video!!

[@aztele04]

very cool!

[@maximlyakhov967]

Thank you! This was very informative and deep.

[@FETeching]

Hey Wilson! Love teardown videos and comments on design choices and build quality! Thanks for your efforts to inform us.

[@robertehahntx]

Dude wicked good video! It would be incredible if you could build a custom RACK version just to do it. Wish neural would make one I’d buy it!

[@bukwok]

great stuffs! hope do more teardown stuffs like this.

[@Diego7Strat]

very nice teardown. thank you for sharing!

[@marleysheredder]

You sir is doing great service to humanity! Thaks for beautifully teardown this and discuss the bom and design decisions behind it!

[@sethorea5117]

Great video!! Can you do a Fractal FM9 tear down ?

[@Wilson-PaintAudio]

Not have one yet. Need arrange later :) Maybe I will do my old AXE FX2 first

[@TheCyberMantis]

I like to see inside these things. Thanks for taking it apart and showing us! You know all about this stuff. Great video!

[@SamU-v7b]

After around 10 year of use my Kemper powerhead LCD has darkened that reading the letters was barely readable even if there was backlight. then the silicon buttons are already yellowish. About a month ago I heard a a thud and then its gone. Apparently the power supply gave up. I called Kemper helpdesk and still having difficulty sending it for repair until now. My only regret is that I haven't used this for more than 50 times because I'm a busy person. On the other side my Axe Fx is still running flawlessly. I think Quad Cortex is build a lot better than Kemper .

[@DanielC__]

Cool Wilson. Good to see this video. Still love the MIDI Captain and geek mode. Bring on the Color Tube! Cheers…

[@bernie_smith]

Brilliant video. Thank you and subscribed.

[@wabisabi7399]

Thanks for this. Subscribed. 🤘

[@HimothyOHooligan]

Very neat look inside. Good insight

[@aureliusandthespiral]

Great video. Now im curious about a Kemper

[@GOD_BLESS_THE_BEATLES]

"Wilson" Tom Hanks would be so proud of this video!! Since you tore down the device; other an a mini fan what would you add to enhance the performance of the QC? Please focus on the engineering side and those of us whom own the device? I.E to enhance performance My 2 cents: YOUR English is perfect; since Mandarin is your first language!

[@GOD_BLESS_THE_BEATLES]

I took Cantonese in school! I had a student from Hong Kong who just looked at the world: lost! I went to night school to learn Cantonese it helped! Your diction is almost perfect!!!

[@GOD_BLESS_THE_BEATLES]

I truly hope that your friends know you learned to speak English after the age of 12!! Remember open your mouth completly when speaking!!

[@Margilio5150]

Subscribed, great content!

[@melodikmusic]

Great!

[@pdiddysea8599]

this was interesting but given time I had to skip forward. What was the consensus on the wifi cuz that is my biggest complaint on my unit that its quite weak. Oh and the old style USB port. Should have been USB-C IMO. Keep rocking!

[@SebastianBogensperger]

I read often that usb C should be used on newer devices. But it think the old big ones are much more rugged. USB-C breaks much more easy. Don't you think?

[@pdiddysea8599]

@@SebastianBogensperger i dont really agree though I see your rationale mainly because they used such an out of date format. I am pretty sure most people would not have that cable format handy anymore especially if you need a long one as I did. USB is the standard and is being enforced in Europe across a lot of devices for uniformity so I suspect as the laws start getting enforced you will see a USB-C QC come out. I had to buy a special cable that terminated in USB-c so I could plug it into my mac. A cost I should not have to pay. But it is a trivial complaint over all. I was more pissed when they dropped the price bc I felt like I got taken advantage of. At least offer us some plug ins etc.

[@alexadamcik9055]

Great video!! Does anyone know the size of the screws needed to attach the foot switch portion of the board back to the body? A couple of mine are missing and I’m trying to replace them. Just want make sure I get the correct size before trying out a bunch of different sizes. Thank you in advance for your help!

[@lucas_brg]

Amazing video and analysis! I can say that I was kind nervous during the teardown... lol You could have opened the file in the sd card on a notepad++, I'm curious now!

[@Wilson-PaintAudio]

I saw some of the files are less than one 1k so it should be some system/hardware configuring things😁

[@markchristianson31]

enjoyed it, very informative and interesting! Any input you'd like to share about the wifi section? That seems to be the most contested component and many people seem to have trouble with it.

[@Wilson-PaintAudio]

It is a full module inside. Maybe I should check this point again next time :)

[@PatrickFlynnMusic]

Very cool vid 🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻

[@tonepilot]

Very good video. Would be interesting to get any thoughts on improving WiFi performance. With the WiFi module behind what's essentially a Faraday cage, it's hard to get a good signal.

[@Wilson-PaintAudio]

Great point! I may check again where the antenna had been put. It is a big problem for a full metal box. When I design the MIDI captain with wireless 2.4G function, I had to made the side cover by plastic.

[@FastRedPonyCar]

I literally JUST bookmarked the little Midi Duo you make as I've got a Quadcortex ordered. I'm wanting to use it to quickly control the QC looper. I'm currently using a separate looper (ditto X4) and all I do with the looper is record a loop, tap a switch to stop/play the loop and hold down that play/stop switch to erase the loop. 2 switches needed to operate the Ditto looper. What I'm hoping to be able to do is use the Midi duo pedal to do the same thing. Program one switch to capture the loop and program the second switch to stop/play the loop or hold the button to erase the loop. Do you know if the midi duo and quad cortex allow it to be programmed this way? My pedalboard space is extremely limited which is why the midi duo is at the top of my list.

[@zaien]

sibscribed... thanks for this awesome teardown, can you also do the same teardown and analysis of kemper stage please.

[@raldtechtv1251]

Helix LT teardown please!

[@bibiair1]

Please do headrush padal board teardown!

[@Wilson-PaintAudio]

Too many expensive device need to buy now 😅

[@elbeto_sg7403]

Hi do you think that the heat could damage the circuits inside the QC? Would you recomend to use a laptop cooler for the QC?

[@soundscapejourneys-wileymonroe]

Greetings! Are you an electrical engineer? I was in the electronics industry for about 38 years and worked as a repair technician. I enjoyed your tear down here, very nice video

[@Wilson-PaintAudio]

Yes. I'm both an electrical and mechanical engineer and I love guitar and audio 😁.

[@soundscapejourneys-wileymonroe]

@Wilson-PaintAudio very nice. I am into electronic music. I compose and produce, and I have been an audiophile for a while, along with my career in the field. It has been an interesting career over the years

[@jaza69]

The SD Card contains firmware and also user data. It contains Linux partitions which are invisible to Windows machine. Relays are for ground lifts, I believe.

[@Wilson-PaintAudio]

👍 I had a guess that maybe the SD(TF) Card can store the user/thirdpart IR response files, but 64M is too small to hold many IRs.

[@jaza69]

@@Wilson-PaintAudio The card is 32 GB. Windows is not correct. You need Linux machine or third party Linux file system software on your Windows machine to read it correctly. Nice teardown by the way!

[@MrHitthespot]

Could I use the quad cortex set to scene mode to control scene changes, and at the same time use the midi captain to change / turn on and off pedals? Mimicking pedal mode?

[@adilsonobelard9690]

What is the plan to copy the Neural Pedal? Kkkkkk

[@danielevo2]

Hi Wilson do you know if I can get this wifi module after market?

[@maximlyakhov967]

do you have plans for teardown some Line 6 or other processors? :)

[@ototel]

seria muy bueno que el resumen del video este escrito en ingles.. o el idioma que sea... par poder traducirlo y poder entender! saludos desde ARGENTINA. SALUDOS

[@moddaudio]

I have been thinking that the sharc dsp days are numbered. The ARM V9 stuff runs at a much higher clock and has a higher core count. For $10 you can get a 800MHz dual core A9 chip, or a quad core arm for not that much more. Unfortunately I have seen ARM based designs use embedded linux (fender mustang gt), this ends up causing 4mS of latency (measured using the free software on my channel). This pedal could have much better latency, but it depends a lot on the software design.

[@Wilson-PaintAudio]

Yes, I think currently SHARC DSP still has its advantages in audio processing, and there are historical reasons as well, such as commonly used algorithm libraries. While other application-level processors may have higher clock frequencies, they may have shortcomings in terms of latency, vector processing, and parallel multiplication and addition operations. We can think it is like a GPU and a CPU. However, technologies like NEON (Advanced SIMD) in ARM have already blurred the boundaries between audio DSP and ARM.

[@moddaudio]

@@Wilson-PaintAudio I looked at analog devices offerings nowadays, Its been a couple of decades since I used one (Gibson MaGIC), they have chips with dual SHARC cores plus an Arm A9 and some some coprocessors for FFTs and IRs. Clock for clock the SHARC would absolutely beat an Arm A9 for this workload. But, thanks to cell phones, the Arm chips are more mature with higher core counts and clock rates. Plus the tools are free on arm rather than the 1K + yearly subscription fee for the adi chip. I guess I was confused by the product name, as an engineer 'quad cortex' to me implies Arm, I was surprised it was SHARC based.

[@JanGottschau]

👍👍👍

[@wildeocean]

I can't hear any sound

[@ДмитрийСыроваткин-м7ю]

Hi. I repairing now this one for my friend and I need to find an IC on DSP board as known as a U27, because this IC is damaged. Can you tell mell me a SMD code on surface IC U27? Thank you.

[@sunhead-x]

The wifi module appears to be the weakest part of the system. Wifi is just horrible on it. Do you have any opinion on that? 😊

[@pino_7428]

Subscribed! Thanks for taking the time to do this.

[@muurimc]

How many parts was left out after reassemble? :)

[@mikalow26]

Hey Wilson, can you do a video on the midi captain and Axe Fx 2? I programmed in Geek mode but it's not the same when I switch to normal mode

[@Wilson-PaintAudio]

Normal mode and Geek mode are seperated program. There is a preset in Normal mode for Axe Fx2. Also you can set midi at the AXE host side from Menu "I/O" -> MIDI and CTRL page

[@IwanCumi]

So i don’t have to be worried about the heat…

[@MOAB-UT]

Do a video on the FM9 please.

[@Wilson-PaintAudio]

FM3 and FM9, I also want to try.

[@MOAB-UT]

@@Wilson-PaintAudio Please do a FM9 Turbo video.

[@moroboshidan7960]

Disappointed with the encoders as footswitches. I thought it would be something more sturdy. The plastic shaft is sus. I know, the upper part takes the hit and the distances are set to not force the encoders. But anyway... And about the cost, the more important, the software.

[@Wilson-PaintAudio]

Understand your feeling. Me too! However, I don't want us to mistakenly think that this plastic thing will be fragile. In fact, it is capable of fulfilling its functions, and from a design and manufacturing perspective, injection molding is also the best choice. What I think it can be better is that the foot button actually feel a bit stiff when stepped on, expecially when a little deviating from the axial direction.

[@12341234rock]

请问, 像您视频里用midi controller 来控制QC的bank up 和bank down, midi cc # 是多少? midi controller 要怎么设置?

[@Wilson-PaintAudio]

Bank up down 一般就是PC控制来做，发送的不是CC指令，而是PC指令，PC是默认的，PC0-127，超出的部分需要用CC MSB来选，我在midi captain上做的是CC scene 控制 CC43

[@12341234rock]

@@Wilson-PaintAudio 那就是说bank up down 的pc # 是系统默认从0到127。请问，如果是自己想编辑某一个按钮做为Bank up，那这个pc #要如何设置？

[@mrdali67]

I am actually surpriced that there actually is real DSP chips inside. I always wondered why these Items vere so expensive as the name indicates it's based on an ARM Cortex Processor. Today It's becomming more and more common that many Synth's and effect boards is based on just a Pi Compute board which is dirt cheap as long as they can actually get them.

[@ChrisM541]

I'd be very, very surprised to see any similar type of product without an 'off-the-shelf' DSP. The Axe-FX 3 has a widely available Texas Instruments DSP. Remember, these DSP's are already developed, proven, extremely functional and, most importantly, cheap (the Axe-FX 3 DSP is around $60).

[@geezberry8889]

lotta engineering in this box. i can see why it's $2k

[@MOAB-UT]

Gets too hot. Needs a fan. Better yet- sell it and get a FM9.

[@Wilson-PaintAudio]

I just get a fan fit for it. And planning a video on how to add it in😄

[@MOAB-UT]

@@Wilson-PaintAudio Sad for 2k you have to add a fan.

[@steverix8181]

It really doesn't get too hot. The fact that the casing gets warm means it's doing its job as a heatsink. A fan will only fail or become noisey over time. Passive cooling is a plus in my books in this instance.

[@MOAB-UT]

@@steverix8181 As a former EE major...and studied at an Ivy...I know a bit about that...heatsinks and Kirchhoff's voltage laws, etc. Good stuff. Still, buy a Fractal FM9.