I don't even own a QC yet, but your vids make me feel like I'm gonna be a pro once I do take the plunge. The peaks and valleys comment hits hard, as I love when a player has done the work to get their patch volumes dialed.
Interesting video... the whole gain staging discussion is still something that I can't fully grasp and there are definitely conflicting forum posts about online. I have learnt, that a lot of advise online... stems from analogue gain staging practices... and don't always translate well to the digital realm, which this is. Here are the things that I have learnt: a) Volume knob on the QC unit - Set that to full volume or 80-90% if you want to have a small amount of adjustment and aren't a gigging musician. b) Input level gain - Actually, you probably want to leave that at 0 to emulate the fact that different guitars have different outputs and drive amps in different ways (in real world). I agree with your previous video and the fact you shoud be using your higher output guitar to set set the baseline. However, changing this everytime you swap a guitar... is like making the guitar into something it is not (there are no input levels on physical amps as far as I know). The only time you would perhaps want to do it, is if you suddenly need to play all your presets with an alternative guitar but want to have the original sound - and this is when the global adjustment would make sense. c) It would be really useful to know what was the input level gain (or more precisely db level they were hitting when strumming hard) of people who made captures and presets in Cortex Cloud.
Agreed. It's definitely an involved process, but establishing a stable global I/O input setting goes a long way. That puts you in a position to worry more about setting output levels per preset. At least, you more than likely know what guitar choices you would be making to play. It does become more of a guessing game on cortex cloud though.
Alternative to turning the volume knob all the way up you can change the settings so that the knob only controls headphone volume, leaving all other outputs on unity gain.
@@GaryWrightMusic Cheers Gary.. only just got my QC so your videos have been so helpful, coming from the Kemper ecosystem (which i'm still going to use, however) the QC takes a little more to get your head around. Thanks for the great work
The amount really depends on the overall output of your pick-ups. -18db across the board would generally be for a pretty hot input. I would say -8 through -12db is a good starting point, then moving as you see fit. Keeping levels as even as possible across devices that add leveling.
@@DSKComposer I think he means reducing the input gain for a hot input (i.e. active pickups). You would lower input gain for that guitar, to keep it around the same gain as lower output pickups and input gain of -8 to -12
Hmm, if I turned the volume dial all the way to the right, I would likely blow up my studio monitors and my eardrums. I have the QC as my audio interface and, just watching UA-cam videos or listening to music on iTunes, I keep the QC volume knob on 1 (and that is with setting Out 1 and Out 2 (XLR to my studio monitors) at -10.0dB each. I am at a loss as to how to set the input/output levels.
Hey! I would take a look at your overall volume levels of your audio interface. Turning the knob to 100, puts you at gain unity, which is a universal measurement of level aimed to normalize audio. So if you are seeing output from the QC much louder compared to other devices / system volume, I would be checking your gain levels on the output of the QC and whatever other audio interface you might be using.
@@GaryWrightMusic Thank you for the reply. The QC as my only audio interface. The only outputs I have connected are the XLRs to my monitors and I have those set to -10.0dB.
I don't even own a QC yet, but your vids make me feel like I'm gonna be a pro once I do take the plunge. The peaks and valleys comment hits hard, as I love when a player has done the work to get their patch volumes dialed.
Thanks so much for the kind words! 🙏🏻
Interesting video... the whole gain staging discussion is still something that I can't fully grasp and there are definitely conflicting forum posts about online. I have learnt, that a lot of advise online... stems from analogue gain staging practices... and don't always translate well to the digital realm, which this is.
Here are the things that I have learnt:
a) Volume knob on the QC unit - Set that to full volume or 80-90% if you want to have a small amount of adjustment and aren't a gigging musician.
b) Input level gain - Actually, you probably want to leave that at 0 to emulate the fact that different guitars have different outputs and drive amps in different ways (in real world). I agree with your previous video and the fact you shoud be using your higher output guitar to set set the baseline. However, changing this everytime you swap a guitar... is like making the guitar into something it is not (there are no input levels on physical amps as far as I know). The only time you would perhaps want to do it, is if you suddenly need to play all your presets with an alternative guitar but want to have the original sound - and this is when the global adjustment would make sense.
c) It would be really useful to know what was the input level gain (or more precisely db level they were hitting when strumming hard) of people who made captures and presets in Cortex Cloud.
Agreed. It's definitely an involved process, but establishing a stable global I/O input setting goes a long way.
That puts you in a position to worry more about setting output levels per preset. At least, you more than likely know what guitar choices you would be making to play.
It does become more of a guessing game on cortex cloud though.
Alternative to turning the volume knob all the way up you can change the settings so that the knob only controls headphone volume, leaving all other outputs on unity gain.
Definitely. I just wanted to provide details on the default behavior.
Thanks for the video, if you turn the volume no ball the way up, then from where you will control the volume ?
You control it by the gain settings on your input. Having the knob turned to 100% gives you gain unity.
Thanks!
So nice of you!! Thank you! 🙏🏻
@@GaryWrightMusic Cheers Gary.. only just got my QC so your videos have been so helpful, coming from the Kemper ecosystem (which i'm still going to use, however) the QC takes a little more to get your head around. Thanks for the great work
I thought that, in order to gain stage, you had to keep everything averaging -18dB throughout the signal chain?
The amount really depends on the overall output of your pick-ups. -18db across the board would generally be for a pretty hot input. I would say -8 through -12db is a good starting point, then moving as you see fit. Keeping levels as even as possible across devices that add leveling.
@@GaryWrightMusic How is -8 not hotter than -18?
@@DSKComposer I think he means reducing the input gain for a hot input (i.e. active pickups). You would lower input gain for that guitar, to keep it around the same gain as lower output pickups and input gain of -8 to -12
FIRST!! 🤘🏻
Hmm, if I turned the volume dial all the way to the right, I would likely blow up my studio monitors and my eardrums. I have the QC as my audio interface and, just watching UA-cam videos or listening to music on iTunes, I keep the QC volume knob on 1 (and that is with setting Out 1 and Out 2 (XLR to my studio monitors) at -10.0dB each. I am at a loss as to how to set the input/output levels.
Hey! I would take a look at your overall volume levels of your audio interface.
Turning the knob to 100, puts you at gain unity, which is a universal measurement of level aimed to normalize audio.
So if you are seeing output from the QC much louder compared to other devices / system volume, I would be checking your gain levels on the output of the QC and whatever other audio interface you might be using.
@@GaryWrightMusic Thank you for the reply. The QC as my only audio interface. The only outputs I have connected are the XLRs to my monitors and I have those set to -10.0dB.