Dear Diary - Qtron+ is fat and ugly

T.O.Bass · #1 02-10-2009, 07:05 AM

I hate my stupid Qtron+ and the person who designed it. Seriously, input on the back and output on the left? How (b)ass-ackwards could you get? I may have to cut this relationship off. I mean, it's a cool pedal, but trying to work it into a board is like squeezing a fatty into a speedo - it's just not gonna work, and even if it does, it won't be any fun to look at!

All my other pedals are compact and efficient - they all use the same power source and are all about the same size, but nooooo not Mr. Stupidface Qtron+, HE needs a separate power supply! "Look at me! I'm so special! I'm gigantic and need my OWN adapter! Blaarggjh!" It's the like fat drunk guy at a party, really fun but also NOISY, gets excessively LOUD, and takes up two seats on the sofa - hey man, I like you a lot, but if your fat *** wasn't parked there I could hang out with TWO people, way less overbearing than yourself. But no, no, it's okay, you're my friend and I can't bring myself to accept that you are a douche, probably not good for me, the source of much spite and anger, so instead I will just wait patiently until you have a massive heart attack or somesuch other internal disaster and on the outside I will look shocked and devastated but on the inside I will be smiling, and I'll finally be able to tell that MF-101 you're out of my life forever, and we'll be happy, really happy....

In all seriousness, this pedal is driving me frigging bonkers. The input/output jacks have possibly the mostly brainless arrangement I have ever seen. Balls on the outside of the male body is a stupid design, and it makes more sense than this. Top it off with it being a ***** to get a nice sound of with my active basses... i'm at my wit's end with this P.O.S. It can be really fun when it co-operates, but more often than not it's like a manic-depressive with too much coffee: find the right balance and it's amazing, but push the wrong button/
tweak the wrong dial and you're screwed. Of course it's beat to hell so selling seems like a waste because I can't imagine anyone even dropping 40 bucks on this thing. I want to make it work so bad, but dammit, at some point I gotta draw the line.

So right now I'm TU-2-->SYB-5-->ODB-3-->BBM-->PH-3-->Chorus I'm having no luck getting the Qtron to work anywhere in there, and the fact that it makes arranging my board 10 times harder than it should be is making me think I should just retire it. Suggestions?

RCCollins · #2 02-10-2009, 07:07 AM

hilarious and true

of course you realize there is a more compact version of the Q-Tron+ these days, right?

T.O.Bass · #3 02-10-2009, 07:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RCCollins

hilarious and true

of course you realize there is a more compact version of the Q-Tron+ these days, right?

Oh I know. But the idea of buying the same pedal twice (even if the second one is slightly better) seems wasteful to me. I'm convinced I can make this work, but my experience leads me to believe otherwise.

3toes · #4 02-10-2009, 07:44 AM

I owned an XO Q-tron+ (smaller version) and I really disliked it. Like you said, I couldn't get a good sound with my active bass. It kept sending horrible, speaker-shredding sounds to my cabinets.

RCCollins · #5 02-10-2009, 07:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by T.O.Bass

Oh I know. But the idea of buying the same pedal twice (even if the second one is slightly better) seems wasteful to me. I'm convinced I can make this work, but my experience leads me to believe otherwise.

the XO is still kinda large, and still takes a 24v wall wart

T.O.Bass · #6 02-10-2009, 07:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 3toes

I owned an XO Q-tron+ (smaller version) and I really disliked it. Like you said, I couldn't get a good sound with my active bass. It kept sending horrible, speaker-shredding sounds to my cabinets.

Ohhhh I thought it was just my inherent sucking-at-tweaking-pedals. Is it really a lost cause then? I know I've got some good sounds out of it before, but even then it was borderline way too noisy. Would an MF-101 do the same thing with an active bass?

T.O.Bass · #7 02-10-2009, 07:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RCCollins

the XO is still kinda large, and still takes a 24v wall wart

Seriously? That's so daft.

RCCollins · #8 02-10-2009, 07:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by T.O.Bass

Seriously? That's so daft.

Not really, the voltage is part of the circuit design. They wanted to keep the same sound, so they couldn't mess with that. It's not that big an issue if you use a decent power conditioner - you just need an adapter cable.

3toes · #9 02-10-2009, 07:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by T.O.Bass

Ohhhh I thought it was just my inherent sucking-at-tweaking-pedals. Is it really a lost cause then? I know I've got some good sounds out of it before, but even then it was borderline way too noisy. Would an MF-101 do the same thing with an active bass?

I spent a good 3 weeks with mine. I even thought it was a defective unit and returned it for another. It was most prominent when I switched to the down-sweep, which I was REALLY excited about. But I could not get a useful sound out of it. Kept sounding like it was sending one huge square-wave to my speakers to the point where I was afraid I was going to damage them.

fightthepower · #10 02-10-2009, 07:55 AM

The qtron, while nice with my active jazz, does play well with my hot pbass. I too had thought about replacing it with the smaller version, but figured I try some others out instead and only revery back to the smaller qtron if necessary.

The Grinder and Prometheus have both found their way on to my board, and either of them could have replaced the Qtron for most applications. The step filter is nice, but the regular filter sounds great as well. Very tame with no bad volume spikes, great voicing- not as wet as the qtron but a great sounding filter and very touch sensitive. Highly recommended.

Moving up in price is the Grinder, which is an awesome filter, that can do dripping wet or completely dry (filter color knob). Also highly recommended.

Both of these filters play well with both of my basses, one of them with a very high output.

kevinmoore73 · #11 02-10-2009, 07:56 AM

I've seen several people say that they can't get their Q-Tron to cooperate with active basses. What exactly is the issue?

I'm confused because the signal out of my Lakland doesn't seem as hot as my only passive bass. Is there some other issue at play?

3toes · #12 02-10-2009, 07:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kevinmoore73

I've seen several people say that they can't get their Q-Tron to cooperate with active basses. What exactly is the issue?

I'm confused because the signal out of my Lakland doesn't seem as hot as my only passive bass. Is there some other issue at play?

See that's what was confusing me! I never had a problem with my Mini-Q. But the Q+ just seemed like I was always getting too much signal into it. And hell, my Lakland has Barts on it! Not exactly the hottest pickups out there!

Thunderscreech · #13 02-10-2009, 07:58 AM

T.O. Bass, I will take the Q-tron off your hands. Just send it to me.

kevinmoore73 · #14 02-10-2009, 08:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 3toes

And hell, my Lakland has Barts on it! Not exactly the hottest pickups out there!

I upgraded the stock MK1 pickups a while back to the MK5CBC pickups and also upgraded to an NTMB preamp at the same time.

I just picked up a Q-Tron+ yesterday and played with it for a few hours last night. I'm pretty happy with the sound I'm getting out of it, though I haven't hooked my passive bass up to it yet to see what difference it makes. (Though a violin bass through an envelope filter seems silly to me.)

I'm just curious if I'm not getting something I should out of the pedal by using it with my Lakland.

One question though, how should the overload light behave? For me, it comes on with every note. Is that bad? If so, why is it bad?

3toes · #15 02-10-2009, 08:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kevinmoore73

One question though, how should the overload light behave? For me, it comes on with every note. Is that bad? If so, why is it bad?

See, I think mine was on too much. So I'm really not a good person to be answering that...

T.O.Bass · #16 02-10-2009, 08:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 3toes

See that's what was confusing me! I never had a problem with my Mini-Q. But the Q+ just seemed like I was always getting too much signal into it. And hell, my Lakland has Barts on it! Not exactly the hottest pickups out there!

That's the exact problem I have concerning the sound (aside from its ridiculous bulky design and absurd jack placement). I can see its potential, but maybe it just isn't going to work with my basses. Too bad.

T.O.Bass · #17 02-10-2009, 08:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kevinmoore73

One question though, how should the overload light behave? For me, it comes on with every note. Is that bad? If so, why is it bad?

Again, I had this problem as well. If I turned the gain down to where it wasn't overloading, all I got was a muddy, bassy note. If I turned it up, I got more response, but I also got INSANE volume spikes with it.

3toes · #18 02-10-2009, 08:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by T.O.Bass

That's the exact problem I have concerning the sound (aside from its ridiculous bulky design and absurd jack placement). I can see its potential, but maybe it just isn't going to work with my basses. Too bad.

Well again, I had wonderful experiences with the Mini Q. But those are no longer in production. If the Micro is along the same circuitry as the Mini, I'm gonna pull the trigger on one of those this week.

I just wish they had a down-sweep

kevinmoore73 · #19 02-10-2009, 08:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by T.O.Bass

Again, I had this problem as well. If I turned the gain down to where it wasn't overloading, all I got was a muddy, bassy note. If I turned it up, I got more response, but I also got INSANE volume spikes with it.

But is it really a problem? What damage, if any, is being done by the overload light coming on? I don't hear any distortion when it lights. I would have though it meant the same thing as a clip light on an amp, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

T.O.Bass · #20 02-10-2009, 08:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kevinmoore73

But is it really a problem? What damage, if any, is being done by the overload light coming on? I don't hear any distortion when it lights. I would have though it meant the same thing as a clip light on an amp, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

The problem was:

no overload light = muddy low notes with little filter response

Increasing the gain led to an almost immediate case of:

overload light + cab-destroying, ear-shredding volume spikes

I really can't seem to find a consistent sweet spot.