neural dsp quad cortex Undoubtedly one of the finest guitar amp modelers in the world. For a particular type of gigging musician who wants to reduce bulk and doesn't need as many effects, it can recreate any number of amps in a very solid way, and includes features like delay, reverb and chorus. There are lots of options for bread and butter effects. , Plus, its Neural Capture feature allows you to quickly and easily create bespoke presets based on your gear or even download captures from other users.
If you have a vintage Big Muff and a Marshall Half Stack that you love, but you don't want to carry it around for simple club tours, you can create a model of your specific Marshall and Big Muff by simply pressing a few buttons. Can make. On the quad cortex. There's just one problem: it's $1,699.
Nano Cortex is Neural DSP's attempt to bring its unique capture capabilities and powerful amp modeling to the masses. At $549 it's still not cheap. You don't get the screen, or some of the more advanced functionality, from the higher-end models, but my experience tells me it can be an incredible stage and studio companion.
no screen
The most obvious sacrifice made in the name of cutting size and cost is the lack of a touchscreen. The Quad Cortex is an extremely complex device that would be impenetrable without a touchscreen. The Nano Cortex has pared down the feature set so much that it's reasonable to navigate the pedals with just a few knobs, buttons, and footswitches.
Photograph: Terrence O'Brien
Where the Quad Cortex gives you over 90 amp models, over a thousand impulse responses, and over 100 different effects, the Nano offers the greatest hits from that massive library. This classic pedal-based 25 amp model comes with 300 impulse responses (IRs) and solo options for chorus, delay and reverb.
There are still a lot of possible combinations to contend with, and that's not accounting for the ability to load custom captures and impulse responses that you've either created yourself or downloaded from other Cortex users. Navigating them can be a little confusing as the only indicators on the pedals are five LEDs on each footswitch and all your captures and IRs are divided into colour-coded banks. But it's not too bad if you stick to a few key combinations.
An excellent companion app if you find yourself wanting to change things up a lot. I've tested several pedals with mobile apps and they've always been pretty unreliable. They are often poor and Bluetooth connections are spotty at best. I had no such problems with the Cortex mobile app. It connected quickly and reliably every time and everything worked exactly as expected.