I purchased the Nano when it first came out. It’s well built, sounds great, and has a ton of potential. That being said with its current limitations it’s more of just a travel practice rig for me. Great demo as always!
Thanks for the review, I'm sure there will be updates coming eventually. I'm looking forward to trying your captures. The future is so bright I have to wear shades. 😎
"It has a great headphone out". I startet playing guitar after 36 years playing bass guitar (with finger picking). I could not get the Marshall tube combo and bought the Blackstar 1 Watt. It was too loud for my living room and the headphone was too bad. Now I have the nano cortex for some days and I love it. I can use it for bass or take a capture of my Ashdown amp. The effects are at the moment a little bit too much,. It is not so sensitive with tubes for practicing when you have it "on" for hours in the late afternoon for practicing. :-) I like to push the Edge and Crunch sounds with a little bit more gain for 80th Hardrock and Metal. I got a a Black Friday deal, but also interesting was a Friedman preamp pedal. No effects and sensitive tubes you have there. So I have some effects for learning sounds. It is enough I think. I have also a small compressor and a simple Chorus for bass. And the new Malmsteen overdrive pedal that I could also use with it. It has many sounds like my 50 Watt Marshall JVM that I love and I use for loud playing in really living room environments with thin walls :)
Great pedal but be warned, there is a slight dropout and lag when switching presets. Not ideal for live use unless you want to exactly time your step to switch a bit early from one preset to another. If you put it on one preset and leave it there for the entire song, you wont have any problem for rehearsal or live. I returned mine because I really wanted to use it in rehearsal and live, but the prest switching issue wasnt acceptable to me. I have processors and preamps that are 30 and 40 years old that switch instantly with no noticeable delay. You would think in 2024 it wouldnt be an issue. Great sounding pedal though.
Michael please profile some of your old, no longer made stuff for QC. I am a buyer for sure. Get not using still made gear but would be awesome to have some of the not attainable for a broader group. Track is awesome btw.
Great sounding captures and great playing as usual! Nicely done! Just a small request. Could you please Michael do these captures as DI as well (i.e. no cab)? 🙏 I would love to use these (especially the Princeton), but prefer using the same IRs for everything for consistency. Really appreciate all you do!
Sounds really good! I’m still debating if I need to purchase it. They say I can only access 4 presets from the gadget on stage ! Is that true? If I use my hands on it will I be able to access the rest of the 64 presets without having to use the phone app? I see you using the app to navigate through the patches.
You'd probably be better off using an external MIDI controller, then you can access lots of presets. Without getting hands on, you'll have 4 presets to work from on stage.
ToneX vs Nano cortex : -ToneX offer (much) better accuracy in amp capture - NC is much more sexy (nice casing, nice iOS app) - NC is easy to use and you won’t need computer to make a capture/training ai model - ToneX pedal has great IKM effects (comp-delays-reverbs-flangers-chorus-rotary) while NC doesn’t offer comp… (so much needed for great cleans/low gain) - IKM is a 30 years company with much more customers and better financial health so your device will be supported for years. I still have my 20 years old IKM licences of Amplitube working perfect on my m2 Mac 😂 Choice is hard. But getting both is less expensive than getting a shitty kemper player with paid upgrades 😂😂😂😂
Great review....2 questions for you. Is there a program on your laptop/computer that you could use instead of the app? How do the knobs on the nano compare to the knobs of the amp? With a capture, do you get the full range of what the amp has to offer? I've never messed with captures, but this is intriguing for travel.
No Desktop app at the moment! Phone app only. The knobs feel high quality. To capture the full range, you'd have to make several (many) captures. Clean, a little more, dirty, heavy, scooped, etc.
I picked up the nanocortex when it was released, completely on a whim before I saw or heard any reviews or demos. I’m really, really happy with it. I don’t do any digital recording (yet) - I’m using it into a Fryette Power Station into a real physical 2x12 and I was shocked at how good the captures sound. I’m new to captures/modelimg/digital stuffery and this stuff is silly fun. I’m gonna go grab Michael’s captures. I hope that Naylor has an amp head only capture. :) Thanks!
How does this respond to the volume knob of your guitar? Could you put a small pair of monitors (ilouds or equivalent) right into the outputs and use that in a hotel without a computer? I saw you mentioned the volume, but wasn't sure if the computer was still needed.
It's OK reacting to the volume knob. Not bad, but not great. I haven't ever found a digital product that can handle the guitar volume like a tube amp. Yes, you can easily plug headphones, or a speaker, or spekaers directly into the Nano. No computer needed at all.
Cloud tones are always free for Cortex. Kemper Tonex and other have a sub-industry where people sell sounds. I have a site that I sell sounds and presets. QC is not really setup for being able to do that (for better or worse). So, all of the sounds are free, but on the flip side, there's no incentive to take the many many hours of time to create extended captures for the QC.
Man Michael, what a great song and what phantastic solo... I got goosebumps...
Thank you Bert!
Michael your work is excellent.
I purchased the Nano when it first came out. It’s well built, sounds great, and has a ton of potential. That being said with its current limitations it’s more of just a travel practice rig for me. Great demo as always!
That Naylor and the Naylor capture sound freaking Awesome!
YEAH brother!!! It's a really interesting amp!
Thanks for the captures! Sounds fabulous.
Wow,that capture was really close. Great to have on a small board. Detune sounded great. And looks like the bluetooth works well!
Awesome demo Michael !! Im going to pick a Nano Cortex up . Well done Dodgers !!!!! All the way from New Zealand
Thanks for the review, I'm sure there will be updates coming eventually. I'm looking forward to trying your captures. The future is so bright I have to wear shades. 😎
"It has a great headphone out". I startet playing guitar after 36 years playing bass guitar (with finger picking). I could not get the Marshall tube combo and bought the Blackstar 1 Watt. It was too loud for my living room and the headphone was too bad. Now I have the nano cortex for some days and I love it. I can use it for bass or take a capture of my Ashdown amp. The effects are at the moment a little bit too much,. It is not so sensitive with tubes for practicing when you have it "on" for hours in the late afternoon for practicing. :-) I like to push the Edge and Crunch sounds with a little bit more gain for 80th Hardrock and Metal. I got a a Black Friday deal, but also interesting was a Friedman preamp pedal. No effects and sensitive tubes you have there. So I have some effects for learning sounds. It is enough I think. I have also a small compressor and a simple Chorus for bass. And the new Malmsteen overdrive pedal that I could also use with it. It has many sounds like my 50 Watt Marshall JVM that I love and I use for loud playing in really living room environments with thin walls :)
Dammit Bobby… Captures sound 🔥 Thanks to NDSP for forcing you to give them away for FREE! 🤘😂
It really sounds great!!! I hope they add some more effects and eventually add an FX loop :)
Forget about the Nano Cortex.
Let's talk about that great snare sound lol.
Sounds awesome man.
Thanks!!!! I love beating up drums!!! ... and drummers 🤣
Does this mean you could do the Dann Huff pack for quad cortex now. Pleeeaaaaase. I will pay lol.
And the Rockman!
Agreed. This pack (Huff) was my favorite for Tonex. I miss it. Haha
Great pedal but be warned, there is a slight dropout and lag when switching presets. Not ideal for live use unless you want to exactly time your step to switch a bit early from one preset to another. If you put it on one preset and leave it there for the entire song, you wont have any problem for rehearsal or live. I returned mine because I really wanted to use it in rehearsal and live, but the prest switching issue wasnt acceptable to me. I have processors and preamps that are 30 and 40 years old that switch instantly with no noticeable delay. You would think in 2024 it wouldnt be an issue. Great sounding pedal though.
Do a capture of that Snorkler 50 and upload it to the Neural cloud. I bet it’s still laying around there…
Michael please profile some of your old, no longer made stuff for QC. I am a buyer for sure. Get not using still made gear but would be awesome to have some of the not attainable for a broader group. Track is awesome btw.
Great sounding captures and great playing as usual! Nicely done! Just a small request. Could you please Michael do these captures as DI as well (i.e. no cab)? 🙏 I would love to use these (especially the Princeton), but prefer using the same IRs for everything for consistency. Really appreciate all you do!
I will try to do this. Busy now, but gonna try!
cool video ..I like the nc as a pedal platform...
The opening reminds me of Joe Satriani. If you knew how much I love his music, you’d know how big a compliment that is.
Ok great playing, great demo. But all that is meaningless because of your…GREAT DODGERS HAT!
Nice but I am still enjoying the LPD Eighty7 pedal you recommended years ago.
Awesome! Me too. I have mine on my board right now. :)
@ Oh nice. This and my REVV G3 are my faves. Your tone is outstanding!
I second the G3. It’s super cool.
…IIC+ reissue!!!????? 🤯🤯🤯
Sounds really good! I’m still debating if I need to purchase it. They say I can only access 4 presets from the gadget on stage ! Is that true? If I use my hands on it will I be able to access the rest of the 64 presets without having to use the phone app? I see you using the app to navigate through the patches.
You'd probably be better off using an external MIDI controller, then you can access lots of presets. Without getting hands on, you'll have 4 presets to work from on stage.
@ Thank you. I guess any midi controller should work. Can I use it the cortex with a regular Boss or Strymon adapter?
ToneX vs Nano cortex :
-ToneX offer (much) better accuracy in amp capture
- NC is much more sexy (nice casing, nice iOS app)
- NC is easy to use and you won’t need computer to make a capture/training ai model
- ToneX pedal has great IKM effects (comp-delays-reverbs-flangers-chorus-rotary) while NC doesn’t offer comp… (so much needed for great cleans/low gain)
- IKM is a 30 years company with much more customers and better financial health so your device will be supported for years. I still have my 20 years old IKM licences of Amplitube working perfect on my m2 Mac 😂
Choice is hard. But getting both is less expensive than getting a shitty kemper player with paid upgrades 😂😂😂😂
I have a video coming in the next week (or so) that compares all of the major players capturing the same amp.
@ wow nice!!!! Thanks for your very informative and entertaining videos. Always having great fun watching
Great review....2 questions for you. Is there a program on your laptop/computer that you could use instead of the app? How do the knobs on the nano compare to the knobs of the amp? With a capture, do you get the full range of what the amp has to offer? I've never messed with captures, but this is intriguing for travel.
No Desktop app at the moment! Phone app only. The knobs feel high quality. To capture the full range, you'd have to make several (many) captures. Clean, a little more, dirty, heavy, scooped, etc.
I picked up the nanocortex when it was released, completely on a whim before I saw or heard any reviews or demos. I’m really, really happy with it.
I don’t do any digital recording (yet) - I’m using it into a Fryette Power Station into a real physical 2x12 and I was shocked at how good the captures sound.
I’m new to captures/modelimg/digital stuffery and this stuff is silly fun.
I’m gonna go grab Michael’s captures. I hope that Naylor has an amp head only capture. :) Thanks!
How does this respond to the volume knob of your guitar? Could you put a small pair of monitors (ilouds or equivalent) right into the outputs and use that in a hotel without a computer? I saw you mentioned the volume, but wasn't sure if the computer was still needed.
It's OK reacting to the volume knob. Not bad, but not great. I haven't ever found a digital product that can handle the guitar volume like a tube amp. Yes, you can easily plug headphones, or a speaker, or spekaers directly into the Nano. No computer needed at all.
So the cloud tones are not always free for owners of cortex?
Cloud tones are always free for Cortex. Kemper Tonex and other have a sub-industry where people sell sounds. I have a site that I sell sounds and presets. QC is not really setup for being able to do that (for better or worse). So, all of the sounds are free, but on the flip side, there's no incentive to take the many many hours of time to create extended captures for the QC.
@ From what I hear , the Cloud tones really sound great even compared to the tones on any other hardware in the market.
Can the cab be turned of if the capture has been made with a cab?
I don't believe so.
@BigHairyGuitars yeah, thats what I thought. Would be great guys who play through real cabinet
Does it come with a looper?
I don't believe it has a looper function
I’m unsubbing. I can’t bear the temptation from all of your reviews 😂.
Dude, you should see the $600 reverb pedal he reviewed a month or so ago ...... my wife still isn't happy with me.
Both him and RJ are so good you think if you buy the gear they have you’ll sound like them but I just don’t. Talent is overrated. lol 😂