This year Neural DSP did something strange at NAMM 2024. Instead of a booth where they have things to show like they did in 2023 when they demoed Cortex Control, in 2024 Neural DSP left “SOON” instead.
Instead of the usual booth setup, they’ve left a cryptic message: “SOON” in big, bold letters. This has sparked a flurry of speculation and rumours within the community. Could this be a teaser for a new product launch? Did they get annoyed? Or perhaps an indication of a significant update to existing offerings?
Rumours swirled they couldn’t set up the booth they wanted and just left the letters. People seem to ignore that they even had those letters, and transporting “SOON” to NAMM 2024 would have been premeditated. Neural DSP are from Helsinki, NAMM is being held at Anaheim Convention Center. It’s quite a distance from Europe to just put SOON up. Especially considering it costs money for vendors to have stall space.
Rack mountable Quad Cortex?
The Quad Cortex, Neural DSP’s flagship floor modeler has been a hit since 2021, even if the updates and delivering of promises has been slow.. A rack mountable version would be a logical step, offering a more stationary and robust option for studio and live sound engineers. This would cater to a segment of the market that prefers rack setups for their stability and ease of integration into larger systems.
But, would existing Quad Cortex owners be mad they introduced a new version of the QC before deliving on key selling promises made?
Plugin compatibility?
We know Neural has committed to plugin compatibility on the Quad Cortex by Q2. Is it possible they’re going to announce it early or a Quad Cortex specific plugin at launch?
Neural DSP is known for pushing boundaries, so it’s entirely possible they have something else up their sleeve. Maybe it’s Quad Cortex native, a plugin for NDSP plugins or something entirely new.
Conclusion
If you think Neural DSP are going to show up to NAMM 2024 with huge letters, you’re sorely mistaken and don’t know this company at all. They’re going to announce something. I wouldn’t be surprised if they add “ER” to the end to make “SOONER” to string people along. It’s what they do when they announce things.
