A new MOD competitor

The devices are pretty robust in this regard; in my case the device is frequently hanging at the boot screen. I’m able to use the device fully after a restore up until the next freeze up when I have to repeat the process. I believe this is a hardware problem and am in contact with the support team.

My perspective is one of a few-year forum participant and I’ve occasionally looked through the Github repositories to learn about the inner workings.

The company tends to stay quiet about big product plans. I check the forums frequently and am subscribed to communications. For me, the announcements of both the DuoX and Dwarf came as surprises - at least, I don’t remember any “we’re working on something big” kinds of hints appearing.

I don’t have any insight about how work is prioritized but have gotten the impression that the team is frequently discussing the best path forward while weighing out user requests, product goals, and market pressures. In my experience the team is pretty good about responding to user feature and bug requests with at least a cursory acknowledgement of whether something might be feasible and where it might fall on their roadmap. I feel this is again a place where the generalized, powerful nature of the device is a blessing/curse. Being able to accommodate different instruments and different genres means users come up with lots of technically viable possibilities. Some people want more synths, some want more powerful loopers, some want better IR / cab sims, some want MIDI passing between plugins, some want audio interfacing, etc. It’s a lot to sift through and consider, and ultimately each new feature and plugin added to the system implies more complexity to support and maintain in perpetuity.

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@unbracketed
All right. Thanks a lot for the extensive answer. I understand better now how things works, device and company wise.
The level of headheach must be huge in the dev and HW teams when it’s time to make choices as options and requests are almost endless. Nevertheless, as you stated, the pressure of the market could be of an help if you need to choose between features. At some point, I believe pragmatism must speak in order to keep the product on par with competitors, even though no choice is easy.

As for the dwarf goes, HW organisation (fs and knobs at least) seems pretty close to the HX stomp. The presentation clip also insists on the ability to twick you settings on the fly. Sounds really promising to me…

There is a thread going on regarding beta plugins hanging in the store forever.
I believe support should be limited to HW of course and to a certain amont of ‘validated / production’ plugins. Otherwise it’s just not possible, the scope is too wide.

thanks again for you reply.
regards
PE

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The latest development update posted today on kickstarter will give you a bit more of an idea about the current progress and feature priorities :wink:

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Thank you James, very interesting update.
Looks like the Dwarf will soon be ready !
Very good work indeed from the Mod teams ! Congrats !
PE

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@unbracketed I had some time to read through your post earlier and since you took the time to formulate a very detailed message I wanted give you a detailed response

I personally would love to design a new device that has 10 footswitches, 2 expression pedals and maybe 8 knobs, that is an all in one. In the same space as the Helix for example. Or perhaps a controller of the same design to be used with the dwarf or duo x. But it may not be what everyone wants and there are many products that we want to develop. One step at a time

I agree, I think ideally each footswitch on a midi controller should have it’s own display or the device needs to have a really large display that spans across it so the labels can be spatially paired with the footswitches. This is really expensive though and requires some serious RND

MOD UI v1.10 is planned to add improvements for this because they are needed for the Dwarf. It’s likely to get even better in v1.11/v1.12

This feature is also planned to come to the Duo in v1.10

v1.10 is planned to bring raw MIDI data access to plugins. There will be a MIDI monitor plugin available.

v1.11 is planned to bring HMI widgets. This means plugins can take over the part of the display + actuator state + LED

There are many other plugin effect systems out there that work like this but they generally lack in terms of routing flexibility. That’s the beauty and uniqueness of our platform. Infinite routing possibilities. I really like Guitar Rig and Amplitube but the routing options in our system are much better in my opinion. I think it would be crazy to change that unless it were to be an extra more simplified pedalboard builder. Could be a separate app that uses the same pedalboard builder back end but this would still be in the web gui. The pedalboard blocks might be the solution for you then we have an on the fly pedal board builder coming with the dwarf that should also get ported over time to the Duo X and also the Duo if possible.

OTF (on the fly) pedal board builder may help with this. The Pedal Board Builder will also see the addition of “Pedal Board Blocks” which will mean we will have blocks with premade assignments so you don’t need to make all the assignments yourself. For now, if bringing your laptop to a rehearsal is too much trouble then you can also use your phone if you have a bluetooth dongle in the device.

This is something we talk about fairly often. The feature request is in our backlog and we definitely will address it but it has not been scheduled into a software release yet

File management is almost here. It’s coming with v1.10 which is our next release. We are already testing an IR loader for cab sims, an IR loader for convolution reverb and there are 3 new loopers coming which will integrate recording and HMI widgets

Audio interfacing over USB is in the pipeline. We have already managed to get input working. More testing needs to be done to see the full capability but currently there are more pressing issues on the developers plates

We’re a small company trying to achieve a lot of big things simultaneously while also trying to keep ourselves afloat financially

The situation will be much better with the introduction of the OTF pedalboard builder and pedalboard blocks

This is very much caused by the implementation of the plugins. Therefore we can usually not do much about it other than request the plugin developer to fix it. Please report issues with specific plugins either directly to the developer of said plugins, or to us so that we can forward the report.

I totally agree with this. Firstly we are getting very close to going live with “LABS” which will make a much clearer distinction between official and community made plugins. Secondly, we have spent some time already conceptualizing a better way to categorize and browse the plugins. The OTF pedalboard builder was a big driver for this and we have made some improvements browsing plugins on the device. I hope this will also be reflected in the web GUI since we want to improve the experience there too but the process is evolving over time.

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Thanks so much for sharing all this info - it’s really exciting to hear about these developments and future plans! IMHO it would be fantastic if the roadmap was shared a bit more regularly and transparently to keep backers and investors excited and engaged. It wouldn’t have to include any dates, and it would also be fine if it changed direction over time, as a roadmap is a roadmap, not a promise or guarantee. This is somewhat related to Is MOD building products or a platform?.

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I totally agree and I have brought it up with the rest of the team on tuesday actually. The conclusion at the moment is that we agree that it would be really nice but we need to think more about how we can achieve this and right now we don’t have the luxury of time to solve it. I just thought I’d reply so you know that we’re listening and we do indeed want to improve the transparency

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Much appreciated! And don’t let me distract you too much from important work on the Dwarf and expression pedal, since I’m eagerly awaiting both!

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You do not need to create a complex system to inform planning. Nor do they need to prepare elaborate texts describing everything. They can simply start with a to-do list. You probably organize yourself into goals and divide them into tasks. It would only be enough to make them public. Some ideias:

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I can second that - GitHub milestones work very nicely and are ridiculously simple to get going (especially given that you are already using GitHub). You can also combine milestones with GitHub projects for Kanban-style development. And of course it’s possible to make some or all of this public while restricting who can edit it. As an engineer I know all too well the urge to overthink things :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:, but I suspect @SrMouraSilva is right that no complexity is required here.

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Hi @James

Thank you for your response and for all the information. It’s great to hear that all these points are being addressed in some fashion. I acknowledge that many users are happy and productive with the current state and that many of my annoyances are from a self-imposed desire to have the Duo act as “the brains” for my musical rig. The device and the supporting platform have so much potential that in some weird way it works out for me as a point of frustration because I know that technically all these things can be made to work and I don’t have much control over when.

Before purchasing my Duo I researched everything I could find about it and I decided that the MOD vision was something I wanted to get behind - the open source roots and “computer as audio device” concepts appeal to me. I’ve been active in the forums for the last few years, learning a lot from others and answering questions when I can, suggesting improvements. I participated in the now defunct beta testers group. I’ve had some ups and downs with my Duo unit, including not booting right before one of my first gigs :cold_sweat: This has been an experience :blush:

It sounds like the features in the pipeline will make many of the items I outlined possible. Being priveleged and impatient, I decided to use a different product for now which has all the features I desire today w.r.t usability, hardware mapping/control, and file transfer. When my Dwarf comes I’m hopeful to use it for vocal effects, synth, and probably some additional send/return guitar processing. I still believe that Dwarf / DuoX with 2 footswitch and 1 exp. pedal extensions could exceed the capabilities of other products like Helix, Headrush, etc. That’s exciting to me. Yet as a developer I can see the massive hill that needs to be scaled still to get the user experience on par with the market leaders. (and I’m not assuming that MOD is trying to compete specifically with those products / companies)

I agree that the routing is a unique and uniquely powerful feature. I’m skeptical that most users in the broader consumer market will care about that as a foundational feature when considered against other aspects like:

  • variety in effects available - a good set of effects in each classic category, well-tuned to the DSP hardware, tempo awareness, reverb spillover,
  • quality tones / IRs / good simulators; easy expansion with third-party options
  • usability - the “CRUD” actions for pedalboards, snapshots, presets, actuator assignments needs to flow well and the hardware / displays should provide context-aware options and visual feedback during editing

I recognize that I’m biased as a guitar-player and “infinite routing possibilities” isn’t something we’re used to thinking about whereas this might be more natural with other musicians and genres. For me, I’ve used the capabilities of infinite routing approximately zero times in the last few years, but have logged hours of frustration due to shortcomings in the usability. I’m using another product where the whole experience of building, modifying, and navigating/organizing is fluid and powerful. I know that I’ve traded away some of the potential experimental flexibility, overall variety in effects, and multi-instrument capabilities. However, I’m able to put together and demo a lot more sounds in a fraction of the time and the results have been very good. Problems with noise/static are effectively gone and I don’t miss the chore of polluting level meters and pre/post gains all over the place to understand what’s happening at each plugin.

I understand the MOD team’s philosophy that the platform exists to aggregate the work of others and let the end-user decide what to run on their system. But we both know this will basically never happen (users reporting issues to plugin authors). I’m a long-time developer and I use Github everyday. This is sad to say, but it is unlikely that I’m going to interrupt my creative time to go log a ticket. From experience, I’ve looked through the source code for some of the plugins - in a few cases it wasn’t trivial (to me) after a few google/github searches to find the source for some. I doubt most users will be motivated to acquire Github/Bitbucket/SourceWhatever accounts and regrettably I’ve seen numerous occasions of innocent, well-intentioned strangers wandering into technical corners on the internet and not being well received. I also know from experience that if I spend 30 or more minutes composing a detailed report in hopes the author will be motivated and equipped to take action, there’s no guarantee that I will even receive an acknowledgement.

I don’t have a good solution here, but MOD could improve their stance around all this. For example, including links and reporting instructions into the plugin descriptions would reduce some friction and show MOD’s commitment to following-up on these third-party relationships.

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Great post @unbracketed! I’d love to hear more details about the pros and cons of competitor systems you’ve experienced. Presumably that would be useful to the MOD team too.

Potential solutions to the developer problem have been suggested in Is MOD building products or a platform?, as I think you’ve already seen - mentioning again in case others have missed it.

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Hi @aspiers,

Here are some things that have made an impression on me after a couple weeks using the Headrush Pedalboard. They have their own terminology with some slight logical differences (setlists, songs, rigs, scenes vs. banks, pedalboards, snapshots). I’m sticking with the MOD terminology here and glossing over some functional nuance in the features where it’s not important.

Building pedalboards

  • Grid layout - uses a block-based layout system with a few different options available for splitting and merging the signal path. Tap an open slot, select an amp/cab/effect, done. It is automatically connected into the signal chain appropriately.
  • Drag 'n drop - change the order of effects around arbitrarily just by dragging to a different slot, no need for disconnect+reconnect dance.
  • Demo’ing sounds - you can cycle through different effects available when filling or editing a slot by jogging a dial - instant comparisons. To find out what the 9 different flanger or 17 different fuzz pedals sounded like I was creating tedious temporary setups using switchboxes for example.
  • Amp + Cab combos - being targeted toward guitar players, naturally it comes with a good stock of high-quality amp and cab simulators. There’s also a good selection of third-party vendors providing IR kits for a variety of sounds/genres. There’s an option for linking amp+cabs where if you select an amp the associated cab will automatically be placed next to it. When a slot has an amp/cab it has an option to double up so you can have 2 amps and/or cabs and they don’t have to be of the same model. Nothing earth-shattering, but another nice touch that helps speed up building.

Adjusting / Exploring

  • Auto-mapped controls - when you build pedalboards, each slot that you fill automatically gets mapped to an available footswitch. Drop a distortion effect into a pedalboard and you now have a footswitch hooked up to operate it as a stompbox.
  • Hands-free mode - hold the footswitch for an effect and you can access a hands-free editing mode using the footswitches and exp. pedal for selecting and modifying parameters.
  • Foot navigation - a hold on a dedicated footswitch gives you a menu to adjust the layout/function of the footswitches for a few different modes. It’s easy to use and once you get used to it, you can easily navigate between Banks, within Banks, and manage your current pedalboard within a few foot presses.

File Transfer / Firmware update

  • File Manager - a dedicated app that connects to the device and lets you manage your files in clearly marked directories for: banks, pedalboards, IR files, and looper files. Duo backup/restore is opaque and I happen to know how to access the data directly only because I’m curious and Linux-capable.
    • Access Looper files - You can save your looper audio into named files and retrieve them with the file manager. You can add samples / backing tracks via the file manager and then load them in the looper

Reverb tails
Support built-in for handling reverb tails when changing state or switching snapshots. I don’t have a good sense of how well this is handled across the board with digital effects products. Headrush highlights it on the product box and I’m increasingly aware that this is a pretty important audio capability to support, especially for modern or post-rock musicians relying on modulated signals.

Looper pre/post
The looper is intended as a one-trick pony and will never be much use to people who rely on looping for recording or performing. Even so, it’s been really useful to have at the ready for spontaneous moments. As well, the looper has a handy “pre/post” option and by setting “pre” you move the looper to the start of the signal chain. Loop a few chords or a solo line in this mode and then you can start dialing in the parameters without having to touch the instrument.

Production build quality
I struggled with noise/static on the Duo, constantly fiddling with In/Out gains, guitar pickup volume, different combos of amp/cab plugins and pre/post levels. So far no noticeable noise except for some that creeps in on the hottest or super-verby boards (as expected).

Cohesive set of effects
I’m aware of concern for being too generic or too limited but I’ve found from my experience and research that you can get a wide variety of sounds and fine-tune as needed. I like that each of the effects has been hand-selected and designed to work with the system as a whole.

Routing overrides / Alternate outputs

You can override the outputs in the settings and use different outputs for different points in the signal chain (like send the dry signal through the line outs, and the wet signal through the XLR outs). The feature is useful if you need to move between a PA and amp so you can choose whether to include amp/cab processing in the output or not without having to modify your pedalboards.

Audio interface / Re-amping

Use it as an audio interface for recording, or run your recorded clean signal through from the DAW to apply effects processing and capture the wet signal

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That’s an amazing list. I’m sure the MOD team will find it helpful feedback too. Thanks a lot for sharing!!

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For what it’s worth, I really like the mod way of building pedal boards by connecting cables. This allows for some really experimental signal chains, for example feeding a pitch shifted delay back into itself. It also makes it easier to allow effects to have arbitrary amounts of inputs and outputs, as well as different types such as audio, midi or cv

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I know many users enjoy the current interface and its flexibility. I’m not advocating that MOD would jettison the interface or routing feature set, but there’s room for a more plug-and-play style interface that could complement the pedalboard builder. Perhaps you wouldn’t use that, but as of today the web interface isn’t designed to be responsive and the usability drops off drastically with smaller screen sizes. I wouldn’t take my Duo to an important gig without having a laptop available - at least, I wouldn’t feel confident in my ability to successfully make last-minute adjustments on the current web interface running on a mobile browser.

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Thanks for your elaborate description! That is surely a long list of potential improvements. And things I did not even know I wanted. My pain points are mostly with building pedal boards and, like you, I found that I mostly create linear effect flows. Help with connecting them could be in the form of short cuts: Why not automatically connect two effects if one is dropped onto the other? Or replace them if the effect is drag’n dropped from the effect selection at the bottom. I would also love to delete a connection by holding the CTRL key clicking on a cable. Oh, and uninstalling plugins from their respective info screen (“i”) and not having to go to the plugin store would be fantastic, too. And like your list shows, there is plenty more.

But things will improve over time. Duo runs on a mainline kernel, the long awaited new version is (somewhere) on the way, crowdfunding was successful and the whole open source platform concept and community is still great. I get your points and would love to see many of them implemented. Yet, as a hobbyist I definitely would not change my Duo for a Headrush.

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Maybe the MOD shouldn’t be limited to a single interface. Or let’s say that the GUI could offer different modes of editing whichever suits the user better.

In the current one something that would be cool would be the ability to drop a plugin on top of a cable with the effect of inserting it in the middle (if the plugin has several inputs/outputs, we could decide that the first input and output are used by default, unless it’s a stereo plugin and the upstream and downstream where already connected in stereo, in which case, the plugin would be inserted in stereo as well). I think that should be an easy improvement that could prove very useful. I don’t know how easy it is to make the cables sensitive to the mouse hovering, but I wouldn’t even mind seeing a small label attached in the middle of the cable as a target for inserting a plugin.

Do you think that it would be possible @falkTX ?

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We are being very careful about changes to the web interface patchbay. Some things might appear simple, but have nasty side-effects.
At the moment we have enough stuff to do (I mean in the plans) that goes until around middle of next year.
Most of these things are needed for the Dwarf, some for plugins. But ideas do not hurt. If enough people think it would be something great to have, of course we consider it and try to put it somewhere in the roadmap.

Since we do not have a public roapmap at the moment, and talks in the company give me the impression it is quite okay to be more open about future release plans, I will just write here a basic overview:

  • v1.10 - dwarf MVP; has the whole set of features for plugins to support arbitrary messages and a file manager; software bypass (Dwarf does not have true-bypass relays like Duo and Duo X)
  • v1.11 - Pedalboard builder (in the device itself, no PC) for the Dwarf; MOD Labs, if that ends up being ready this time; “HMI Widgets” (plugins can take control of the widgets on the device screen, for custom values, led on/off, etc); Improve addressing lists to device actuators and CC, so we can e.g. individually pick from a preset list
  • v1.12 - audio/midi over usb (focus on Dwarf, we will verify for which units it is also possible to enable this); Offset for MIDI channel snapshot/pedalboard loading; overall improvement to MIDI sync

of course, this is not set in stone, by any means.
we already tweaked what was going to be v1.10, by pushing MOD Labs forward and bringing file handling earlier.

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@falkTX thanks for this information
I’ve been holding off making any suggestions regarding the web interface until the work on Dwarf is completed. I have a very long list of, IMO, much needed improvements that would be better addressed once the dev team isn’t occupied with the Dwarf.
could there be some kind of official thread in these forums to collect web interface suggestions?

thanks

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