I would think that good sales figures may also encourage investors. Which is also my motivation for ensuring pedalboard and plugin repos continue to operate even if MOD is experiencing complications for paying their hosting bills… as nobody would be very keen in buying a device without this.
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It’s been some days since the announcement and the original post said that “this couple of weeks are crucial for the reebot” so, any hope until now? any bussines talking to Mod Devices to buy it or similar? I mean, are we waiting for some miracle or this is just a long process? thank you
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Cortex, KPA and fractal are 4 times more expensive than Dwarf, and probably 4 times bigger - they are not comparable to MOD IMO. I am sure their simulations are better than those from mod, but since I spent a lot of time with modx I can tell you that it has much more options if it comes to create very unusual effects - it lets design effects since there are CV modules. Since there is an pc editor it is really easy to do really crazy stuff. Mod also lets to use in one time foot keys, Tec BBC and guitar, you can create many audio paths and mix them as you wish, every audio can be run through different effects, the functionality is almost endless. IMO if you need top notch effects and amp simulations go for Cortex etc, but if you need something which lets you design sounds, in all directions you can imagine go for mod, and offcourse take into account that mod is much cheaper and smaller unit.
I can agree that the YT videos shows very little part of mod capabilities, it should be done more deeply since mod can be used in so many ways.
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I would like to doubt that we will hear any tangible news about a rescue by an investor or a start-up in the near future. For one thing, the officially appointed insolvency administrator has probably taken the helm by now. He will first get a precise overview of what assets are still available and what debts still have to be paid. He will negotiate with debtors and look for investors.That can’t be done in a day or two, and they are very precise about it, because the payment of the insolvency administrator also depends on what comes out of this. Only when he has an overview will he decide whether it is worth saving the company or closing it down. And with the amount of work that the people from Moddevices have put into the company, I don’t think that they will leave the sinking ship immediately and build something new (as far as that is possible at all, without getting problems with the legal succession). So everyone will have to be patient. This will take several weeks.
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I’m not comparing a Dwarf with a Cortex or an FM3 in terms of size or costs, referring to first posts on this topic where @gianfranco says that “new MOD” would watching to guitarists, I’m only saying that those are sounds that most part of “digital guitarist” wants: basically a good amp block, responsive dynamics, capable to load large IRS, and 1/2 blocks available for every of these effects: pitch, mod/dly, rev, compr, drive.
Also 2 xlr out…
But to manage only 2 hi quality reverbs and 4 hi res IRS, trust me, you need more DSP.
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I would like very much to openly speak to the community members about a dilema regarding such projects.
I´ve opened up a topic for that: A conflict between Open Source and Business
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Look I appreciate this is a sad time but getting worried that forum members are being encouraged to invest in the reboot.
Chucking 400 euros of your hard earned money at the business that hasn’t been able to fulfill most of its promises is not going to solve any problems.
If you want to help out buy one from thoman and gift it to somebody here as they would appreciate it so much more.
The Dwarf in my mind was a poorly promoted and visioned pedal.
As a guitar pedal - bit lack lustre compared to ANY multifx unit.
Near impossible to edit without a computer
NOT really open source or LV2 standard , can’t use any LV2 plugins. Can’t add plugins if they aren’t converted to run on MOD. A lot of the plugins nothing amazing apart from k devices and shiro stuff both of which are paid plugins. So more cost on top of pedal. Helix , fractal and cortex do not charge.
Control Chain near useless and pointless.
Over priced 4 button switch
No expression pedal.
Dreadful demo videos on YouTube
No exciting pro user list - think Pete Thorne, pi42, rabea et al even look mum no computer. etc not chords of orion or members of staff.
Stop pushing the pedal for guitarists .
The pedal should be pushed like the Zoia - in fact I was googling Zoia when I first saw the Dwarf.
Synths ,more synths, more filters more sequencers. Basically if you had put cardinal modules separate instead of the clunky plugin / pc hybrid.
Also really push the bits that were missing - audio interface both working and ability to accept more inputs.
Bluetooth and WiFi midi / osc maybe even reporpuse the eternet socket for server connection.
Show the joystick / joypad midi control - maybe see if the wii mote works for a cool vibe.
But please please please do not ask for anymore money to try and save the company.
The company isn’t as strong as the products.
Nothing personal but also please listen to the forum members more we are your market and some of us know first hand what you are going through and it’s frustrating to know that concerns raised where pushed down either with false hope or aggression.
I wasn’t going to write this but found the whole thing quite upsetting.
Please note that I am so sad for everyone Involved in this project. You can be proud of what you have achieved but I think MOD needs to gently pass on and we wait for maybe a Merris type move forward.
All I ask is keep dropping in to say hello and let us know how you are getting on and listen listen listen to us if you ask a question. Not all bad news is bad news
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Well I certainly hope something is figured out because if the ecosystem where we deep dive into our MOD Devices is dead…then, that doesn’t fair well for the future of other products that may have a similar ecosystem. It sure caused me to reconsider buying something that can’t survive without a web presence. I do hope MOD finds a partner or a situation that allows them to continue.
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The other day I went to buy a washer/dryer, and it’s becoming really hard to find one that works offline. They use lame features as an excuse like: you can program and monitor your wash from the comfort of your bed. As a consumer, I’m pissed because this is the future that nobody wanted, only stockholders.
I wish I could rebuild my washer firmware using open source tools and tell it to feed the firmware update from a local repository in my network. Our right to fix what we own is being wildly violated. We should all be pissed off about this.
On the other hand, looking at the MOD ecosystem, being OpenSource-ish definitely increases the chance that the cloud can survive the demise of the gatekeepers. Less because of being open and more because there’s already a community around it.
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This taps into my fear around this news: that someday in the future I will no longer be able to build pedal boards on my existing (now defunkt?) mod devices hardware because the board building interface is like the washing machine you described which phones home and is out of user control, in this case gatekeeped by the mod cloud services. Can someone host their own mod devices cloud today?
As someone who never received my tier-3 dwarf but bought a duo x to hold me over - should I stop using my duo x and search for an alternative tool? What is the honest recommendation for a musician who cares about their time and tools? It’s not a good idea to build on a dead platform, right? Like making a website with flash. Is the recommendation “Don’t build any more mod devices pedal boards until we have more news since we can’t guarantee how long they will last.” Is that where we are?
What is the scope of functionality of existing hardware if (when?) the mod servers go offline? Do we lose the ability to edit, does the box become a brick, are we expected to flash custom firmware configured to point to alternative servers? Is there a timeline today for when these servers will be shut off? If I build a board today - can I edit it a year from now? Will it still work a year from now without future cash injections?
I don’t want to sound ungrateful - I’ve enjoyed the box and community - just asking for some clarification on the existing functionality.
Thanks to all involved - sad to hear this news ~
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There’s a common misconception that the UI of your device depends on the cloud. It does not. That UI is hosted 100% on the device itself. There will be a few things that won’t work while the cloud is down (which still is as of now):
- Download new plugins
- Purchase plugins using the Plugin Store
- Share pedalboards
So anything you have already installed on your device will continue to work. Just adding or buying stuff and sharing that won’t work.
I highly encourage you to try it and see for yourself. The device is still very capable and will continue to be for a long time regardless of the cloud.
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I don’t understand this. I’m a guitarist and the Zoia is by far my most used pedal.
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I have 18 guitars so I think that makes me a guitarist too!
I meant stop showing the dwarf as a poor man’s Helix and show it as a sonic explorers tool more.
I bought my Dwarf for the MIDI stuff and the synths more than the amps and drives.
Most fx on Dwarf are average apart from the big muff, k devices and shiro stuff so it isn’t going to set the world alight watching too lads go through phasers. Etc
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I feel this same, Mod is not a competitor to other popular guitar stuff as helix, it has different capabilities.
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Maybe community could rise a fund to make work plugin store? Maybe we could pay a month fee so the shop would work? What is the monthly cost of running plugin shop?
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I wouldn’t say that. In my (subjective) view the Dwarf plays definitely in the same league as the helix! I changed from the helix to the dwarf because I didnt managed to get a nice fender-style clean tone from the helix. Same regarding reverbs and delays, i think the ones of the dwarf beat the helix ones… pitch shifter is much better on the dwarf and I even like distortion effects more on the dwarf!
I think the dwarf is a really good product and perhaps just needs a bit of improvements on the user experience side: filterable pedalboard share, plugin documentation (videos), improvements of the GUI, block-style plugins (containing for example the guitar synth CV plugins in just one dragabable plugin) and all the other points that were mentioned here in the forum several times.
I really hope that the reboot happens, I’m really convinced that the dwarf is a competetive and well assembled product!
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I am truly sorry for this news.
I think the project has great potential and should not be abandoned.
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before buying the dwarf i tried the helix stomp. as a bass player i am very sensitive to dynamic response. in this respect the helix is far inferior to the dwarf. moreover, as you said, the helix pitch shifter was weak (practically unusable on bass). the dwarf allows me to play live and is the first digital device that satisfies me on dynamics. i hope that everything will work out and the project can continue because the technological content is absolutely first class.
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Bad news indeed, I hope you guys get the reboot sorted.
I just managed to buy a dwarf online so hoping everything gets sorted!
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Thank you all for the huge amount of feedback. Be it frustration or empathy, excitement about the potential of the platform or harsh criticism about unmatched expectations: It’s all valid and understandable. In this very special moment we are grateful to see the future of MOD is a concern for most of you.
To reboot, we need to look at the foundations which have been achieved, the learnings we paid a high price for, and what the MOD platform can become. As of now, we are aware of many shortcomings. We could be scared by it, leave the market to the big players and accept there is no space for our approach.
I’m not quite there yet.
Please take into account that MOD has been in survival mode since the end of 2020. We had to let go basically half of our staff since then, including a full time plugin developer, a software QA engineer and a hardware QC specialist in the products team. The tasks were covered by the rest of the team including management. Everybody remaining worked part time for certain periods, in order to get some other income from freelancing or government support in Corona time (called Kurzarbeit in Germany). On top a way too high amount of the engineering capacity was occupied with alternative parts or supplier qualification, including even @falktx making an alternative system-on-module work for the Duo X. While I’m not claiming that everything you desire would be in place in an alternative well funded history, I think it’s safe to say the impact would be huge.
Some of you lost confidence MOD has capability to produce the remaining crowdfunded units. I would like to give a different perspective. Most crowdfunded hardware projects which fail to deliver don’t get a prototype to a mass producible state, engineering wise. Including the retail units we shipped more than 1k Dwarfs, so we are beyond this challenge. There are still improvements for sure but our peak production output in brief moments of proper cash and with all components in place was already >150 Dwarfs per week. So it’s funding and sourcing parts that will be decisive for delivery.
Now, we would not ask investors to fund the reboot if we would not have any idea how to sort out production within the projected runway. We had some sourcing success which could not make it to shipped devices due to the financial situation. Plus we made the decision to focus. Let me give some more details:
As of today, production of the MOD Duo X is blocked, and there is no cheap way to overcome that.
For the MOD Dwarf the situation is quite different. It had priority already before and there are 1600 sets of custom long lead time parts left at the contract manufacturer in Germany, including the enclosures of the already fancy coated Founders Edition. Our contractor has more than 1200 sets of the full custom electronic BOM in stock and sees currently a relief in certain scarce components. Unlike with the Duo X where we faced a dry spot market for hard to replace components, spot buying of certain Dwarf components was also possible with multiples of 2-10 only. The system-on-module for the Dwarf, which we purchase just-in-time as it’s the most expensive single component, is the only major part not yet at the factory. But the supplier procured key parts based on our forecasts some time ago and confirmed the availability for the projected runway. So the preconditions to deliver all the Dwarfs we owe are pretty much there. Since we have the special coating for the tier 3 backers, we can’t even be tempted to ship this inventory to retail.
The thing is, nothing of that is of any help for the backers at this very moment. The inventory from the insolvent MOD Devices GmbH is not under our control any more and needs to be bought from the insolvency estate as well as all the non-GPL immaterial assets.
I believe a MOD reboot would be the best outcome for basically everybody here, be it Dwarf-, Duo X- or Duo-users or backers who did not receive their Dwarf or Expression pedal. Please acknowledge that we are not asking backers for investment to finally get their pledge, as it was stated several times here. We opened an investment option for those in the community who have the free cash and wish to participate in this opportunity, but this is not related to unfulfilled backers. The focus is professional investors who are able to bring enough funding to do it right.
Until proven otherwise I’m staying optimistic that we can close that in time.
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