The competition in the amp and multi-effects pedal market has never been fiercer and formidable, but I'll be honest straight off the bat, the Neural DSP Quad Cortex is still the one to beat for the combination of tones, profiling, usability and portability. Other amp modellers might be cheaper but the Quad Cortex is the processor I would buy right now in the Black Friday guitar deals and far beyond. That touchscreen interface is a huge draw too.
And it just keeps getting better – it's not only constantly expanding its capabilities with firmware update (as our updated 5/5 review reflects) but Andertons in the UK, Thomann in Europe and Sweetwater in the US are now offering the best prices we've ever seen on it as part of their Black Friday guitar deals. You're days of buying effects pedals and amps may be over here; this is the do-it-all solution.
The Quad has already been reduced in price recently to £1,499 / $1,699, an attractive combination itself with the news that Neural is rolling out compatibility with the company's consistently great guitar plugins like the Archetype signature series. Now Thomann, Andertons in the UK and Sweetwater in the US have taken it further: they're including the official Quad Cortex case worth $/£119 and a free Neural Neural DSP plugin worth up to $159.99 / £129 – now that's a Black Friday deal!
Both Andertons and Sweetwater are even offering the choice of a Limited Black & Gold Sparkle version of the Quad too.
The usefulness of the portability and protection offered by Neural's gig case is obvious – it's even waterproof as well as being moulded closely to the unit's dimensions. The company says it gives protection from to 20kg of blunt force. I wouldn't want to test that but it's nice to know!
With the Quad Cortex ypou're getting the SHARC processing to deliver 50+ onboard amps, 70+ effects and 1000+ IRs as it is, but the free plugin doesn't just give you the opportunity to nail the tones of artists including Tom Morello, Matteus Asato, Rabea Massaad, Metallica (Neural's Mesa/Boogie plugin can nail their Master Of Puppets tone!), Tim Henson and Plini. They give players the future flexibility of using them with their computer as a recording or practice tone source and loading them up on the Quad Cortex as compatibility is announced in 2024. Plini's plugin is already available as an enhanced 'X' version to use with the processor.
If you can't decide how to use your Neural plugin credit, you can also download trial versions to help make your decision.
A win-win situation all round! Check out this deal at:
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