Thaddeus Johnson's Quad Cortex Rig (with MIDI CC changes)

Here is a walkthrough of Thad's touring rig for Cloverton's 2022 Christmas Tour. You'll see MIDI changes cued through Ableton to the Neural DSP Quad Cortex in real time
Featured gear:
PRS P245 10 top
Fender Limited Deluxe Thinline Telecaster
Neural DSP Quad Cortex
MONO Dual Guitar Bag
Ableton
Shure GLXD16 Wireless Guitar System
AMT EX-50 Expression Pedal
Thanks for watching! Feel free to reach out with any questions
#quadcortex #paulreedsmith #abletonlive

[@westoncp]

Great run through of the quad cortex. Thanks for taking the time to make the video

[@ronaldpieterse]

Excellent video! Thanks!

[@keithkantautas8064]

Great review!!! Thanks for this Thad. Looking forward to more details on midi changing your pedal settings real time.!!

[@jdubbs9655]

Thanks Bro. Looking forward to the full rundown on programming the Midi to run the full show.

[@jaygreer7430]

Great video! Thanks for sharing your setup. Very helpful. I’d love to see that follow up video you mentioned. All the best!

[@feartheocean]

That long cable trick for the wireless is a brilliant idea. I’m using that from now on!

[@MarcassCarcass]

That was cool, especially how you showed us some of the sequencing software.

[@caseybcraft]

The QC is such an awesome tool. I am still just running a simple single matchless amp and love it. I have had several modeling setups and always felt they were too digitized. Love to see the midi. I am thinking of using mine to run click tracks now.

[@tonepilot]

Super interesting. I have the Quad Cortex but never considered using MIDI changes. Very neat.

[@Chris-em4tc]

This is a great video! I use a Quad Cortex with Pro Tools just playing along to songs in my bedroom. My friends think I'm nuts. It really is an amazing experience to just play guitar and have a DAW change the scenes in perfect time. It's so much fun, though a bit tedious to sit and program the CC messages. The one thing people should know, which you probably were planning on going over on the next video, is that you need to have a drummer who A) Is willing to play along to a click track, and B) A drummer who can do it well. If you don't have those two things, this doesn't work in a live setting. Love the PRS too, by the way. Exclusive PRS player here.

[@thadjohnsonmusic]

Really good points there! It only works to play along with tracks if the whole band can keep up. Glad you've been enjoying the QC!

[@Utubewrk123]

Most guitarists are home guitarists. We are the majority . We buy the most gear. I play for me. When I fell in love with guitar I was 7. Started lessons at 14. I’ll be damned if some chugger who can barely play but gigs at his local pup for his 3 relatives is going to tell me what to buy. I bought two btw. I have a ton of gear k saved up for and I play for me. Family and friends. I personally don’t e joy performing. I don’t like it and have turned gigs down. So in their mind these people that gig and record for who exactly? Do they think famous guitarists should quit once they lose their fame? No they shouldn’t and don’t. I bought two btw. The used one I bought broke first batch. Bought one from tye hewwr batch. Hope it lasts longer. I missed it so got a back up. Amps and pedals first. But really love the feel m sound and coolness of the computer not needed quad.

[@spawn302]

Sounds awesome!! That tone is insane!! So glad to see more P&W pick up the quad cortex. Maverick city is using it as well and its awesome to see what is done with the quad cortex

[@SuperWelder1234]

WOW! 😱🤯! Excellent thats Awesome. I will share this video with friends ho got the QC to. Thank You for share that kind of stuff 😀! Do you have those presets to share?

[@Shred_Rocket]

Cool stuff man! Our setup is basically the same, however, I use either my QC or my Headrush Gigboard and send CCs from reaper via 18i20. Very easy and simple to set up the MIDI. There is nothing on the floor, all wireless and very clean setup, and everything is located in the racks. I definitely don't want to worry about anything other than concentrating on my playing as we have too many changes within our songs.

[@izmalcheahmad]

Love the clean sound. Any possible way it could be share on Cortex Cloud? Hehehehe

[@TobiAceBartel]

Amazing video and awesome setup. I would love to know how it works, because I‘m going to try the same setup for our upcoming tour. The tracks would play via logic though.

[@jounih2628]

Hi Thad, great video, really good run through of QC set up. A couple of questions: have you connected your microphone in QC, too? Or if you have used a singing modeller like TC Helicon's Voice Live, how does it work?

[@rokguitarist1]

Would love the how to midi video! Just subbed!

[@NicolasHosford]

This is so great, thank you for sharing! I am trying to do the same thing with Ableton and my QC. I have successfully been able to to make the Scene changes, but I cannot get it to do the Preset Changes. How are you getting it to change presets from song to song? I would happily pay you for help. Cheers, Nick

[@LetsDanceEntertain]

Great! Thank you Thad. I was basically interested in your informations about midi. In the video you said that you gonna make another video how to program the midi. I could not find the video on your KZbin Channel. Can you send the link or does the video actually not exist?

[@thadjohnsonmusic]

I finally have that made and it will be up next Friday here on my channel! Thanks for reaching out!

[@openup007]

Excellent overview of your rig... no more tap dancing! :) What is the device you have strapped around the nut of both guitars and what is it for?

[@feartheocean]

It’s a mute - just a bit of fabric strapping that stops string noise.

[@Norhther]

Nice video! I was thinking about using my quad cortex and connect it to ableton so I can use some plugins in the last step of the chain, but I dont know which approach is better, if using the send and return of the cortex and connect there my audio interface or connect the neural cortex as an input of my interface and using the outs of the interface to my amp (with a preamp). What would you suggest?

[@thadjohnsonmusic]

Are you using the quad as your amp sims? or would all the plug ins be coming after the quad in general? I would think to use the quad as your interface because you have more options of using the sends/returns from the usb channels

[@anthonygomez2215]

is there a way to the exact reverse of that. like you use the quad cortex as a controller to affect a feature in your daw or another midi capable program. I am currently running vocal effects through an Apollo twin and would like the QC to control the different FX needed based on whatever preset is currently selected. If you have an idea of how to do this could you please show me.

[@thadjohnsonmusic]

There might actually be a way to do that! You'd have to spend some time programming, but you would go out of the QC on a different MIDI channel in to the daw then have midi commands programmed to the CC or PC messages you'd send. In theory that's how I see it happening but haven't actually done it like that before

[@Ozman77]

What power supply are you using? I have a QC and just broke down and bought a cioks because I can’t get rid of the buzz

[@thadjohnsonmusic]

I was using the standard power supply it comes with! I've heard good things about the cioks, but didn't have time to order one before tour. My solution was setting a noise gate on all of my presets, and I didn't have any issues with a buzz. I was also running directly out of the XLR outputs which I've heard cuts down on the noise compared to the 1/4" outputs

[@bassyey]

Switching supplies are noisy as shit. In electronics laboratories I've been to, we use linear power supply even if they're heavy af, because it's cleaner by design. I don't know the community keeps pushing those switching shit.

[@practicallyparadise]

How are you running the patch change channel?

[@Slavetskiy]

Hi! Have second QC for reserves purposes?

[@thadjohnsonmusic]

I do yeah! I just sync backups anytime I do major changes to anything

[@receptionenbonnier3980]

What was that!!!????? Very curious!!!!!!!

[@Zyzlik]

It's strange that you like quad cortex, it's only easy to control, but it sounds like cheap processors, and you unfortunately become an example of this

[@spawn302]

Nah that's all in your head. The only thing i might agree is that the effects aren't extremely diverse and "intricate" that a more dedicated pedal would do. Nonetheless 99% of the time the amp simulators are indistinguishable from the real thing. Not much more different than the axe fx or kemper, which are all microprocessors and used by many studio productions in all the big name blues, metal, and rock hits.

[@stephenhodge8417]

Plenty of examples out there with the Quad Cortex sounding great. I own one and would put it up against any of my amps at any time.

[@markdonatelli5742]

To each his own. I own kemper, helix, helix native, fm3 and QC. QC is the best sounding to me and has the most realistic “amp” feel. Yes they have some catching up to do with the marketplace and an editor but the future is bright for the QC 🤘

[@ttguitarnoob]

He’s kinda using the qc in a bad way, setting it up as a clean amp with pedals in front. It really shines if you use amps for overdrive rather than simulated overdrive pedals into a simulated clean amp. Still not as good as using real amps for overdrive but close enough in a live setting it will never matter.

[@feartheocean]

Who’s to say he hasn’t used Capture to copy a real amp? I’ve blind tested captures against my own Rectifier in a studio environment and can’t tell the different.