![]() So, for live FX use, the Helix is pretty tough to beat.įinal Thoughts on the Neural DSP Quad Cortex vs. If your priority is FX and you plan to play through a real tube amp, the Helix gives you an experience that is much closer to using a tregular pedal board through an amp. The Helix does excel when it comes to pure FX, however. The Helix’s models are excellent, but you always get the feeling that you’re playing a model, whereas the Quad Cortex could genuinely pass for the real thing. While there aren’t as many built in FX or amp profiles, the QC has a much more natural sound. ![]() Given how much the two units look alike, from the form factor to the UI, the Quad cortex has a noticeably better playing feel. The Helix has 3 looper blocks, including a 6 switch, a 1 switch and a shuffling looper. Given the cost of the Quad Cortex, this is definitely a flaw. It’s also worth mentioning that the Quad Cortex does not feature a looper. Although, the support for the QC is growing daily as more and more players enter the ecosystem. There are a lot more IRs available to download for a Helix than there are profiles for the QC. Additionally, the Quad Cortex struggled with modulation and phasing FX when using expression pedals, whereas the Helix models fully supported their use.īecause of the Helix’s extended time on the market compared with the Quad Cortex, aftermarket support is a lot stronger. The Quad Cortex can accommodate external expression pedals, but they require a separate purchase, and not all models are supported, although our Jim Dunlop Cry Baby worked perfectly. The Helix picks up a slight advantage over the Quad Cortex when it comes to expression based FX as the floor based LT (and above) models feature a built in pedal. If you’ve got an analog pedal that you want in your digital rig, the QC can fully profile it using Neural Capture Technology the same way it would capture an amp or cab. While the Helix is packed with excellent models, it isn’t able to profile new pedals on its own the way the Quad Cortex can. We were able to get similar results with the Helix, however, as it also offers the ability to use multiple signal paths. The signal chain is set up to allow 4 parallel FX sets to be used simultaneously, which let us get some really cool stereo sounds. The Quad Cortex does come with 70 built in FX presets over 32 different blocks. The selection of built in FX is especially impressive, and it includes just about every big name pedal you could imagine, in fact there are 231 built in FX over 12 blocks.Īs you’d expect, the models have had their names changed, clearly for copyright reasons, but Line 6 does provide a guide to the FX and names the pedals on which their models are based. The models are built into blocks that can be combined to make a signal chain similar to an analog pedal board. They sounded just like the originals they were modeled on, and required little if any adjustment.Įffects have traditionally been a strong suit of Line 6 products, so we weren’t surprised to find that the Helix’s selection of pedal models were extremely accurate. That being said, the quality of the other pre loaded amps that we tried in the Helix were outstanding. You can manually create an IR recording outside of the Helix and upload it for use, but there’s quite a process. It won’t record impulse responses the way a Quad Cortex or a Kemper will. Despite this, know that the Helix model is genuinely excellent, just not quite as excellent as the Quad Cortex.īecause the Line 6 Helix is a modeler, rather than a profiler. It was a very close match, but in the end the Quad Cortex just manages to capture more of the organic tube tone than the digital model could reproduce. With the AC30 profile recorded on the QC we played come comparison riffs between the clean take and the distorted profile, and compared them to an AC30 model on the Helix. For this comparison, we profiled our Vox AC30, again both clean and dirty so that we could compare it to the AC30 model in the Helix. We tested the process by capturing our Bugera V22 during our Quad Cortex vs Kemper comparison, and found that it produced an indistinguishable emulation that we were beyond happy with on both clean and high gain recordings. The QC can profile an amp directly within the unit. ![]() Capturing amps, cabinets and pedals is the Quad Cortex’s party piece, so there’s very little competition here.
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