MOD Insolvency and Reboot

Thanks for the input and support @daniel

It has been a long road since you joined us :slight_smile:

Your evaluation matches very precisely what we have thought for the reboot.

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Iā€™m as sad (or angry, or whatever the next stage is ā€¦ acceptance?) as everyone else here. I chose Tier3 on the basis that it would help MOD Devices to deliver even though I was always aware of the risk and possibility. And Iā€™ve backed more than my fair share of ā€œfailedā€ crowdfunded projects (and a small number of successful ones).
So, despite not actually having a Dwarf, I am excited to understand more about the reboot, and to participate/help where possible, because I believe in a product like Dwarf. And if I can help with any community-powered services or open-source tools, Iā€™d be be happy to assist.

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I guess you would have a different view on the case, if you didnt already receive your deviceā€¦

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Hi,

Even being shocked and sad yesterday after reading (too fast) your post, Iā€™ve thought of what kind of amount I could invest in the MOD so this wonderful project stays on. Iā€™m quite not an investment guy, and I clearly canā€™t invest more than 1000ā‚¬, but I think itā€™s worth it !
So Iā€™ve filled the form for investment !

In any case the the mod clearly wonā€™t die, there is already some forks out there to run the software on raspberryPI, and seams quite functional !!!


How is the team ?
Surely it altered the mood, but I hope everyone is fine.


I think this could be quite interesting !!! Like the Framwork laptops sells DIY Edition where you just have to put parts together or Anasound sells some of their pedals as kits.
Not sure it is time saving for them to prepare these not assembled products, but itā€™s at least a way to show you can repair it yourself if needed !

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If I remember correctly and not only thought up the term myself, itā€™s called ā€œspinā€. Or in more common startup terminology, itā€™s a ā€œpivotā€ when some idea didnā€™t quite work out as initially envisioned, though this kind of refinement isnā€™t quite the same thing perhaps. Feels very familiar with some similar experiences working in a long-running startup company myself. We also had to shut down after many years.

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Iā€˜m very sad about these news, and I really hope you find a way to continueā€¦ I really think it is a great product and it has still a lot of potential.

All the open source stuff I think it is the biggest advantage, but I suppose it also makes getting finance much more difficultā€¦

From my point of view, as an amateur and a former Modep user and now with a kickstarter mod dwarf already in my hands, I will try to help as much as possible. Probably 1000 Eur is too much now, but something less I could invest. Before I tried to buy all the plugins I couldā€¦

About the future, I think it would be less risky to concentrate in software, and try to use other mature options for the cpu like a raspberryā€¦

About online experience, I m not sure what you meanā€¦

Good luck mod team!! You already did a lot and I m sure you will keep doing it!

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for everyone here who backed the project but missed out on a device (rightly) complaining about that, please keep in mind that the developers (and their investors) have together probably put in 1000x to 10000x of that trying to keep the project alive - i see here that the project leadership have been working without salary.

this is an awful situation for everyone. i wish everyone involved all the best. thanks for the hard work, devs.

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What a sadness to read this ! Iā€™m a quite often user of the MOD DUO and a backer for the Dwarf. I have obviously the sweet wish to obtain my tier 3 Dwarf. The choice of the tier 3 was not only as a personnal interest but also a kind of support to the team as I suppose this sort of enterprise is not an everyday easy job to reach.
I hope with all my heart that things will turn out for the better for the team and for all those who have invested their money in Dwarf and waited for the grail. If it doesnā€™t happen, I hope at least that my modest contribution as a backer will help to salvage something from this adventure and find a new development model for MOD. I hope to read some good news very soonā€¦
All the best to you :slight_smile: !

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Wishing you all the best as you navigate this ridiculously difficult time. Iā€™ve never found anything that comes close to serving my musical vision the way the DuoX does, so I really, really hope you manage to salvage the project and move forward. Also for you all and the jobs that are on the line. Itā€™s tough to see friends go through this :cry:

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Due to the current situation of the company bills payments cant be done. Thatā€™s why they went down ā€œso fastā€.

Iā€™m not exactly sure of what exact post you are talking about, but we donā€™t delete any posts or did it in the past. So if you posted something on Kickstarter it should be there.

I will give you a bit of a personal perspective here and how this may be a misunderstanding on your sideā€”taking my MOD hat for this.
Iā€™ve been interested in the new Korg Volca FM 2. A relatively simple and affordable FM synth.
Because of this interest of mine, I added it to my wish list on Thomann. This allowed me to notice how many times the expected delivery time had changed without never really being in stock. What makes me believe that actually they are having exactly the same problems as MOD. Exactly the same story that I have with a Yamaha Reface CS and CP, plus a few other microphones and pieces of gear. I noticed it recently even with an Ebow plus, and the price increased quite significantly.
Korg and Yamaha are quite bigger and more resourceful companies than MOD. I doubt that this situation will take them into insolvency and I believe that they are supported with a pillow that allows them to take this situation a while longer. But even they are facing issues. Even them with this bigger pillowā€¦even them with this bigger structureā€¦even them with these extra resources.

Using your exact words, even them (Korg or Yamahaā€¦bigger companies) are being mismanaged and having problems giving accurate timelines for deliveries.

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Oh dearā€¦ I feel for you. I also had a dramatic insolvency with my company, which had 400 employees at the time. That was a huge cut in my life, because the company could no longer be saved. The worst thing about insolvency is that the team is torn apart and you are thrown into the unknown without any money. Hard timesā€¦
However, I made the best of it and gradually reunited the team in a new entity. I wish you that you will also succeed. Letā€™s see what happens nextā€¦
:disappointed_relieved: :cry:

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Love it!

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So, the hosting provider, failing to receive payment, disabled the sites without providing any advance warning that you could have passed on to us, the community? That is difficult to believe.

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Really sorry to hear this Gianfranco, you have been hit with a bad lot of circumstances, Covid, not enough chips, world recession etc etc.

The Dwarf I have is a tremendous piece of kit - perfect for a techie bass playing nerd who likes to experiment - it has meant I can produce many more pleasing sounds now, without the aid of other musicians!

I hope that this finance drive works, you guys seem to have worked hard, and to have cared about the users. I know that there are some investors who have not yet received units, and I feel for them, but that is always a danger with investments like these.

Iā€™ll keep following the story, and Iā€™ll keep playing with my Dwarf, and I hope that I can invest in your future.

Good luck

Simon

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I am and would be more than game to help build an open spruce OS and plugins for the device. I fell in love with MOD as i too hd the idea to build a multiple plugin pedal box.

I currently make max msp plugins and have started working in super collider. This could be a good route or we could decide on something easier for the community to become a part off.

I am sorry for anyone that didnā€™t get their device as I feel lucky I have.

Really believed in MOD as a company and I will be working on keeping my device alive.

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but we were funding the product, not investing in the company - who were already established. Iā€™d have boutght Ā£300 of bitcoing if i was taking a total risk! There are devices stil lfor sale at retailers & thatā€™s my personal issue with this. The crowdfinding was successful & devices were produced & existā€¦ I doknow that nothing is entirely that simple, but it pi$$es me off a bit.

that said, now that theres no web interface & if i got muy dwarf tomorrow, it woud be pretty uselessā€¦

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@sodonnell

It is not that simple and we are not making a fool of you.

The insolvency process is a bit chaotic, as the power to decide on payments is removed from the management, but many things happen automatically and others do not. Sum to that the fact that some companies, like Paypal, are indifferent to such legal powers while the insolvency administration can disable Soldo or Wise accounts without your knowledge.

There are numerous SAAS that we run and many payments, especially automatic ones, were wrongly processed in the transition.

The reason I am saying this is because it is not all very clear from the start which services are authorized to remain online, in which we should act in person, and to which the law acts independently.

The production cloud should have stayed online and other services, that are still live, should have been put down. But that unfortunately was not something we could fully articulate. The main website had also been wrongly put down but I managed to fix it soon enough.

This is the first time I go through an insolvency proceeding and I am not German, so Iā€™ve got to say that the amount of ā€œnoveltiesā€ can be quite overwhelming.

As I wrote previously, we are trying to find a way to patch the incapacity to download plugins.
We are really sorry for the hassle.

Best

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Why the hell would I want to receive my obsolete fx unit now. The supporters have been burnt every step of the way ever since the ā€˜founding membersā€™ were tossed to the side while Moddevices sold the product we helped fund to everyone else except us. Thatā€™s just gross.

I chose tier 3 to help out and I thought hell, Iā€™d already waited this long, whatā€™s a little longerā€¦. Plus had bought a multitude of other new cool and creative products that came to successful fruition in that time. So yes, Iā€™ve given this ā€˜companyā€™ more than enough chances and itā€™s very hard to believe much of what is said due to the way your supporters have been treated.

So whereā€™s the ā€˜Iā€™d like my money backā€™ option?

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The WebGUI is still pretty much working and will keep working while the device is working. Regardless of what happens to the company.
This is a common misunderstanding of the way that devices work. The WebGUI is a sort of ā€œwindowā€ into the device, but that doesnā€™t require any internet connection, just a browser. You use the browser to get to the IP address that allows you to get and edit the device setup. Similar to what you do with a lot of printers and/or routers.

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Yes, this is exactly how I feel about it.

I didnā€™t really need the unit for inmediate work so I decided to keep waiting and let others enjoy it first who might need it. Even in the last update e-mail (#36) it textually reads ā€œ2 - no matter which of the multiple possible routes we select, there is not a scenario where we do not fulfill the entire Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns.ā€ ā€¦

The backers weā€™ve been continuously lied about the whole state of things, even to the last minute.

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