Neural DSP has been changing the game both in and out of the box since they exploded onto the scene some years ago.
There’s been a handful of key players in the amplifier emulation game, and to be blunt, a handful of endorsees of Neural DSP competitors jumped ship when their flagship Quad Cortex was released. The Fortin Nameless Suite plugin helped skyrocket Neural to fame, immediately appearing on countless mixes as well as in the plugin folders of songwriters of all levels. Neural DSP’s plugins offer a lot, including multiple cabinet options, mic options and in the case of the Fortin Nameless Suite, multiple pedals and a very good emulation of Mike Fortin’s masterful amplifier designs, supported by pedals the Zuul noisegate, Hexdrive overdrive and Grind for additional gain.
From here, Neural DSP branched out into various artist collaborations, their ‘Archetype’ series featuring Gojira, Plini, Tom Morello, Tosin Abasi, Tim Henson and more. Beyond this, Neural DSP’s plugin catalogue includes a Morgan Amps Suite, a recently unveiled Soldano emulation to name but a few! All of this is to say that Neural DSP know tone, which is why their hardware, the Quad Cortex, is helping to push guitar tone to the next level.
The Quad Cortex is, at its core, is a two-in, four-out amplifier emulator. What it brings, besides world-class emulations and total control over your tone, is an additional two sends and returns, a ‘Capture Out’ and a headphone out. The Main Outputs are split into two ¼ jacks and two XLRs. There’s jacks for two expression pedals, as well as 8-pin MIDI in and a MIDI thru/out. The ‘Capture Out’ serves as a dedicated output to be used for Neural Capture technology.
The routing capabilities of the Quad Cortex allow it to serve as a direct to front of house via XLR, or via ¼ to an external power amp and a speaker cabinet, or both! Routing can be controlled via the 11 stainless steel stomp+rotary actuators. Every audio connection on the unit features world-class Neutrik connectors.
The Quad Cortex is supremely powerful, stating ever so eloquently that it’s a ‘Vulgar Display of Power’. Under the hood it has four SHARC®+ and two ARM Cortex-A5 running at 500MHz each that would rival some personal computers. This enables the Quad Cortex to process up to four instruments simultaneously, and somehow the unit is still impossibly compact and easy to travel with.
Versatility is the name of the game for Neural DSP, but especially so in the Quad Cortex. Toggle between the best clean amp in your arsenal and the dirtiest, all controlled overall by a master volume and switch effects in and out for good measure! Heck, you can even get effects switching happening via MIDI if you’re handy enough. Even for us caveman type riffers, the Quad Cortex’s controls, layout and sounds are easy to use, but maybe most important of all: believable.
While Neural’s current offering is a huge step forward in the digital modelling world, I’m equally excited for what’s on the horizon for a company already writing the future of guitar tones.
