Quad Cortex VS iPad Rig (BIAS FX + XSonic XTone)

Few pieces of gear have generated as much attention online as the Quad Cortex. At the same time, lots of people are interested in great bang-for-the-buck solutions using mobile devices for their mobile rigs. No doubt we are living in a great time for guitar and bass players with so many great choices.
In this video, I compare two very popular options when it comes to mobile rigs: the iOs device (iPad/iPhone running BIAS FX2) and the Neural DSP Quad Cortex. The comparison is made from my own perspecitve and experience using both setups in pretty much every situation including live.
Of course the audio interface I use with the iPad cannot be taken out of the equation and the one I've used and include in the comaprison is the XSonic Xtone audio interface with MIDI controls/footswitches.
0:00 Intro
0:29 Price
1:41 Sound Quality
2:28 Sound Demo Comparison 1
3:52 Sound Demo Comparison 2
4:56 My Thoughts on the Sound
5:03 Reliability
6:09 Functionality
7:17 Ease of use
8:23 Portability
My instagram: / bedroom_guitar_hero
My band: / @bringtobearband
#metalguitar #guitargear #metalband

[@adam872]

For most situations, excluding live, BIAS would be totally fine I think. If you're a gigging guitarist having self-reliant hardware is the way to go however. That said I have BIAS and have no need of an expensive hardware modeller. Works fine for me.

[@DVRKSHVYVN]

That was absolutely brilliant man. The edits keep getting better and better!

[@BedroomGuitarHero]

Thanks bro, trying :p

[@MrRMB1]

Yes, there was a difference in sound as the Quad was fuller and seemed to have more depth. Is it ten times the cost better, no way. I run Bias FX on an iPad as well and also have the Positive Grid Spark 40 and cannot say enough good things about these products. Great video man, you've earned another sub!!

[@MatrixfanMacUser]

Cool video, been researching modeling options lately. Fractal is getting prohibitively expensive in Europe sadly. For ultimate testing I would recommend saturated Fender, AC/DC crunch, Malmsteen type lead sounds. Modern compressed metal sounds are much more prone to sound alike in comparisons. We need to hear how accurate circuit modeling is by listening for tube saturation , power tube distortion and amp sag. Lower gain but well saturated tones are imho better suited for testing. Also ringing chords and doing bends at almost up to pitch but not exactly reveal aliasing and harmonics handling compared to real tube amps. Of course you have know what to listen for by knowing how a real amp behaves.

[@BedroomGuitarHero]

Very useful info, thank you! Only issue is that I am not that experienced myself in how a tube amp reacts with those sounds (I only play metal). The comparison you're talking about sounds very useful, but not something for me to present :)

[@KristopherCraig]

I’ve been using bias fx in the theatre I work in on a ship about 7 years now and have just moved over to the quad cortex.

[@todoguitarras]

Hi,Thanks for your video..... I studied for several years about vst standalone or plugins and the best in sound is TH-U from Overloud, the rest are toys

[@BedroomGuitarHero]

Thanks for the recommendation, I will check it out! :D

[@arkavagoswami3068]

The rigplayer is awesome 👌🏻

[@donsantiago1]

I prefer the ipad with a bluetooth controller and a serious interface. I like BIAS but I like a lot more GE LABs, THU, tone stack pro or Nembrini. You haveYONIAC synths, MIDI guitar, AUM and Loopy pro. With the bluetooth controller, you don’t have to stare into your iPAd, neither be affraid of setping over. If you play at 128 samples audio buffer at 96khz you get very ittle latency, high resolution audio, ad serious conversion and a recent iPad model, any of them. I would like to see rematch. Thanks for the video, well done.

[@truthfactreality6814]

Quad cortex is epic. I own one. It’s totally changed the way I record and use( or don’t use) real amps and pedals. Ps use the cioks dc7 to power the quad cortex and put it on a pedalboard with expression etc

[@BedroomGuitarHero]

Great shout about the Cioks dc7, I'll look into that, thanks!

[@1970Richiez]

Good video, I prefer my katana 100 for everything… In saying that I love AmpliTube in stereo to my two rigs, it’s glorious

[@AttilaVorosOfficial]

Hey there, I'd just wanna make sure I heard the demo and understood you correctly... so is that true, that with the Bias Fx2 you cannot have delay / reverb trails? How about any gaps if you turn on and off effects, oor use it with the dual mode and split between two amps (one set to clean, and the other to distorted)? Thanks, this has been a very helpful, and great video!!

[@edlynrichardson9726]

Love the idea of using an iPhone. Would pretty much make the setup up almost one touch & forget for a bass rig.

[@BedroomGuitarHero]

Yeah I honestly wanna try it out, and make a video on it, the tech is there for us to be able to do cool stuff like that

[@tomaszsynkowicz4417]

Great video. Thanks a lot! I have one question regarding EVH. I have Bias FX Elite and I cannot find EVH amp on my IPad.

[@thanksforwatching73]

Nice! Thank you! Can you share your favourite lead presets?

[@figtheoryvlog]

Ipad has a ton more processing power than the Quad Cortex. You can also run a lot more devices at once. You can run all the vocals, synths, bass, guitar, backing music or click track and even drums (for digital triggers) all at once without even putting a load on a newer ipad. I don't feel that this video does the ipad justice.

[@BedroomGuitarHero]

That is true, there are lots of ways of using these devices, and so many perspectives which to compare from. I am comparing them from the perspective of how I use them though :)

[@garytimeless7251]

I am using an ipad as my first setup and bought a gt100 as backup. I am thinking about a cortex but at least i am not sure if i would use all its fancy stuff. A ipad case for gigs would be nice

[@AEP2x]

Compare tonex with amplitude and the Xtone pro. I think it will now Compete even more with QC.

[@Brixiomendoza]

Jajajajaja amazing video bro xD

[@BedroomGuitarHero]

Thanks! :)

[@matheusexpert8666]

If you put Tonex in Aum you can get basically the same tones with some fx on, and all for free ;)

[@VanjaSpirin]

Ok, there is a BIG difference in sound quality. Also, there is a Tonex, which sounds equaly good as QC, and NAM which is the most accurate amp capturing solution. And NAM is open source and I use it regularly in my productions. QC is great thing, but way overpriced.

[@kelleywhite5761]

Try TH-U from Overloud it has delay trails and and sounds amazing.

[@BedroomGuitarHero]

Yep, heard of it before, will aim to try at some point :)

[@igorbassi3470]

Do iPad's support running Neural plugins for live use!? And the Neural plugins have exactly the same sound as the neural Quad cortex, using an iPad or is there a difference!?.. Because it would be really cool if it had the same sound on the iPad to use live..

[@BedroomGuitarHero]

Last I checked there are no neural plugins for mobile device plaforms. The quad cortex has the same sound depth/quality (to my ear) as the plugins, but is of course way more customiseable, which means its gonna be difficult to get the same amazing tones out of it straight out of the box as you get from the plugins. You’re gonna have to craft your own sound with the QC.

[@noodlehair6566]

Although I would love to get my hands on the QC, I just can't justify the cost since I only need 3 sounds in our band, with 99% of our songs are me on rhythm or solo. I hope neural makes a smaller and more affordable quad cortex like, say, the HX Stomp in Line 6's case.

[@BedroomGuitarHero]

I agree, I only got it because I wanted good tones for home recording and something that is easy to carry around at the same time. The modern interface helps too :)

[@PJ-uv6ve]

I had the Quad Cortex (QC) but sent it back and kept my Helix. To me the ability to capture sound wasn't worth the extra money. Plus the QC always sounded thin and not as full as the Helix to me. It lacks that "umph" in chuggy metal riffs, plus you have to pay $160 more for a decent expression pedal because it doesnt come with one, while the helix has one built in it which is awesome. As mentioned, the power supply is laughable for an $1800 system, The helix has a sturdy power supply and is built like a metal tank. The Helix also has a snapshot feature which is to me a game changer which allows for turning off and on multiple effects simultaneously with one footswitch click. I think DSP is a great concept, but was rushed out too fast and now people are found waiting for updates for features it should already have for the price. I may go back once they iron out all the issues and update basic needs for a guitarist, but until then I think a Helix is the better option for sound, durability, and price. As for Bias, I don't think Apple is in their element for guitar effects and that's obvious from the sound alone, and too many fragile components and battery charges to deal with.

[@BedroomGuitarHero]

Yeah the power supply is a joke on the QC, but another consideration that's quite important to me is size and weight. I often have to take trains and busses to get places, and other units are mostly significantly bigger.

[@jazzylei143]

Please try the mooer ge labs cause it is free. Please compare it with bias and cortex

[@BedroomGuitarHero]

Hey that's a good suggestion, thanks! It might not happen for a while though as the video idea would join the pipeline and be prioritised :D

[@mnemosftb]

IOS rig costs more like 700$ if you include the price of the ipad itself. I know some people will already have one, but it's definitely worth mentioning when talking about the price/performance compared to the Quad!

[@BedroomGuitarHero]

Yeah, I agree, but you could also use an old iPhone to run bias, and that would cost you way less. Plus in my mind buying the iPad just to run this rig doesnt make any sense vs buying a dedicated floor sim which will be more robust and better value. This high variability of price of the iOs unit, plus the fact that I dont expect anyone to pay more than a dedicated floorsim costs are the reasons I didnt include the price of the iOs device. As I said in the video, if I wanted to play a 4x12 live, I'd need a car to transport it, but I wouldnt count the cost of my car in my consideration of how much the 4x12 costs.

[@mnemosftb]

@@BedroomGuitarHero That's a fair point and I can understand why you didn't include it, I also somehow missed that whole bit of the video so my apologies for bringing up something you'd already addressed! I'm currently weighing my options for live gigs and while the idea of an all-in-one box that just does everything I need it to is great, the fact that I already have Bias FX, a laptop and an audio interface makes me feel I should give that a go first. Also worth noting, if you use Bias FX as a VST on Ableton then you can have delay/reverb trails when switching between presets.

[@BedroomGuitarHero]

Oh interesting regarding delay trails in a DAW. Is that when you add delay as a separate VST or as part of BIAS?

[@mnemosftb]

@@BedroomGuitarHero Both. Best way I've found to do it is to make an audio track for each of your presets, then run an instance of Bias (or any other plugin) per track. You can assign midi to activate each track one at a time, then as you switch between them the trails don't die!

[@BedroomGuitarHero]

Oh that's a cool workaround. I think ib terms of function it would be great to have a machine with a proper DAW with you, only thing is that I'd feel like I cant really rely on it and all the cables and stuff :p

[@amptiness2365]

A somewhat experienced QuadCortex and Kemper owner here. I know that's not intentional here, but there is a way this video is making a wrong point: you should be comparing Quad Cortex not to some generally unknown iPad app for 10$, but to NeuralDSP's very own Plugins which you can buy for $50 on periodical sales, and which sound _BETTER_ than a piece of Hardware for ~$2,000 which can't even run those plugins, because inside of it is a cheapo CPU slower than one in Amazon Fire Stick 4k being sold for 25$ on Amazon.

[@BedroomGuitarHero]

Im sure those comparisons exist, for me it is not a valid one as the neural plugins cannot be reliably used live (no way am I running my sound off a laptop - also a reason why I dont wanna run my sound off an ipad). Cost is one aspect of comparison between solutions, but its not the only one, and its importance fluctuates depending on the person. For me the important comparison here is overall quality and stability and ease of use. I believe the QC is the best unit in its class (for my needs) so the price is very justified.

[@monoshred]

Latency iPad vs Latecy Quad Cortex??

[@BedroomGuitarHero]

Both not noticeable to me, but I know people who do notice it, so I suggest trying :)

[@cacawachi]

not agree on functionality. Actually if you use an audio interface and use AUM you are A LOT more capable that the dedicated unit. You are able to multiple routes, midi, combinations, guitar MIDI notes, synths, etc.

[@BedroomGuitarHero]

Yes, but a large consideration for me is live use, and Im not bringing a laptop :p

[@AngeloDau]

Sounds more like 9920

[@figtheoryvlog]

The quad has 4 very low quality processors and is very limited......

[@mikeramirez5622]

Bias fx better