What you actually bought
Thirty-two slots, two parallel paths, and a touchscreen that is the entire interface. What that buys you and what it costs.
This is not a pedal with menus. It is a small computer with a routing canvas, and almost everything that frustrates people about it traces back to the canvas rather than the sounds.
It does all three things
Most modellers pick a lane. The Quad Cortex does not: it carries over ninety amp models, it can make and load Neural Captures of real amps, and since CorOS 3.0.0 it runs Neural DSP's plugins on the hardware itself.
That matters mostly as permission. You do not have to choose a philosophy before you start. Grab a factory model, and if you later want a capture of your own amp sitting next to it in the same preset, nothing in the architecture objects.
It is also the clearest difference from the Nano Cortex, which has no models and cannot create captures at all. If you have used one, unlearn the constraint rather than carrying it over.
Plugins are perpetual-licence only. A subscription or trial licence will not transfer to the hardware, no matter that you own the plugin on your desktop. The unit needs internet once to verify, then runs offline indefinitely.
Quad Cortex product page · Quad Cortex Wiki: FAQThe Grid is the actual product
Four rows of eight slots — thirty-two in total. Rows 1 and 3 are main rows; rows 2 and 4 are their split rows, and splitters and mixers move signal between a main row and the one below it.
You can ignore this entirely and build straight lines, and plenty of people do for a year. But every non-obvious limit on this device is enforced against those row pairs rather than against the preset as a whole, so the moment something refuses to work the Grid is where the answer is.
One knob, and a lot of glass
There is a single physical knob and it is a master volume. Every gain, every level, every routing decision lives on the seven-inch touchscreen. Swipe down from the top for Settings; swipe up from the bottom for Gig View.
The eleven footswitches are the exception, and they are worth meeting properly before you need them on a stage.
Eleven, not eight. BANK DOWN and TEMPO sit at the right-hand ends of the two main rows and BANK UP is raised beside the screen, so the count reads as eight in most photographs. Every one of them is a rotary encoder — they turn as well as press.
Gridleak: read off the unit · Quad Cortex product pageA – H
The eight lettered switches, in two rows of four. What they do depends entirely on the mode you are in.
- Turn
- Every one of these is a rotary encoder. Turning scrolls the assigned parameter without taking your hands off the guitar. Quad Cortex product page · Gridleak: read off the unit
Worth knowingThe letters are printed to the right of each cap, not above it. In a dark room the LED above the switch is the thing to read, not the letter.