Tablets and MODs

What’s the current state of using an Android tablet with a MOD device to control the UI? When I get hold of my Dwarf, I’m thinking of getting a modestly powered 10" or so tablet that I can connect (hopefully?) with a USB cable for tweaking, etc? Anything I need to be aware of? Thanks

I’m using my phone to control the MOD via bluetooth.

It works pretty well, despite the inherently slow speed of the bluetooth link.

When version 1.10 is out, I will be able to use wifi instead which should make things way easier.

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For my DUO I use a shield tablet with cyanogen mod. It works when I have to adjust effects on a pedalboard I already created on the pc. I wouldn’t use it to create a new pedalboard because for that it’s too slow and the handling kinda seems to be made for pc use or at least with a mouse. Could also be that it works better with a different browser (i tried firefox and duckduckgo) or the it’s the tablet. I also tried it with my fairphone 3 and there it seems to work a bit better but it’s just too small…

I already tried it out with a Bluetooth dongle and as @roughael said it’s easier to do little tweaks on pedalboards that you created on a computer. Yet is usable and depends a lot on the tablet/smartphone that you are using (not just how fast it is, but also screen dimensions, etc. may make it more or less comfortable).
The MOD team got already working a connection using wifi that is expected to be way faster. Hopefully soon we will have a tutorial for that on the MOD wiki, as we have for the Bluetooth connection

Would it be possible to make something like a mobile version of the GUI?
Would it be hard to get something like that going?
In my mind and from my experiences some small changes (I guess for someone who would have to build this the term small will lead to excessive eyerolling :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: ) would make working with a phone or tablet a lot easier.
My idea would be that no changes on the effects/pedals can be made when zoomed out (overview mode?) When zooming in you can make changes. Also a foreward and a backward button to quickly jump to the next or previous effects/pedal.
For me those two things would make working with a mobile device a lot easier.

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These are indeed some really interesting suggestions.
As you are already pointing out it may sound easier than in fact it is. I can also tell you that it is also something not in the roadmap. Yet we collect and save these suggestions in order to be discussed next time we plan the new features.
Your suggestions are already detailed enough to get a clear picture of it, what is great :slight_smile:

…oh and wiring with tablet or phone was always a very hard task that mostly led to a totally messed up pedalboard :grimacing:
For this I had the idea for a dropdown menu on every output in which every input is listed and you can chuse where to route it. On a big pedalboard that would be a very long list, but i think it still would make it easier.

Btw.: I really appreciate you guys for listening to the ideas from the community, also if they come from someone who, unfortunately, knows very little about programing. I just know so much that “simple” solutions are mostly not so simple to implement :wink:
Anyways, thanks for caring!

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I’m also very interested in using the web gui on an Android phone. I absolutely realize how difficult it would be to use on the tiny screen, but it would be a great option to have as a safety net to check usb midi routing when playing a gig. I’ve tried simply connecting my Duo to the phone via USB host but the phone doesn’t seem to see it when I enter http://modduo.local/ in Chrome’s address bar. Any tips or am I attempting the impossible?

I think you have to turn off all other connections like wifi etc and onely leave bluetooth on

Then connect to:
http://192.168.50.1/

Thanks for the reply, but I was asking if using USB was possible!

All suggestions are valid.
From my personal perspective, the MOD devices are for musicians and not for programmers/developers. So you have nothing to be “ashamed” about.

Regarding your suggestion, indeed that would be cool, but maybe messy if you have a lot of plugins. If you allow me to put (again) my personal perspective on the subject, I would say that perhaps an optimized system for this type of usage with tablets/smartphones. Perhaps a double finger click to “grab” the cable and another double click to release it connecting it to the input that you wish. This would make sense if this tablet/smartphone version has the typical zoom in using two fingers.

You need to make sure that your Android OS supports class compliant USB ethernet ports. If yes it should work pretty much like in a computer, or you may need to set some configurations.
Have you tried what @roughael suggested? Still didn’t work?
Could you share your Android version and your device?

Ohhhhhh I got it! I checked my IP address when plugging the Mod Duo into my phone and saw that it was 192.168.51.142! Tried 192.168.51.1 in Chrome and VOILA! I should have double checked that IP! Forgot that the bluetooth and wired addresses are different!

And for the record, I’m using a moto z4 running Android 10.

So to sum it up for future users:

  • Turn on airplane mode
  • connect Mod Duo to phone
  • enter 192.168.51.1 as the URL
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I’m using Android Tablet(via WiFi). And some features having really weird behavior. Like I’m not able to scroll names of effect groups in the bottom. In the bank editing menu scroll line is so tiny that I’m able to pick it only with stylus. Pinch zoom works like I’m zooming text but not the interface. So GUI not so smooth for touch devices.

Perfect :slight_smile: and thanks for sharing the method that worked

The WebGUI is not really optimised for mobile devices. Not sure about the dimensions of your tablet, but for what you are describing, the screen may be not that large.

I want to do music in a DAWless setup, and don’t really want to use a computer for music. I have found though that pedalboard creation really requires a computer to add and connect pedals… it’s so much more time-consuming to do the same with a tablet.
However, I found that the tablet, and even the phone, is quite convenient to view and change settings on the fly, but that my big fingers have trouble selecting the right thing.
A very nice improvement would be to be able to “(un)lock” a pedalboard easily, that would prevent messing with the cabling or moving the pedals around, and would just allow to interact with the pedals’ switches and knobs and open their settings tab.
Then, I could create my pedalboard on a computer, with all pedals and cabling, without testing the sound, then go to my music setup and tune the values and create snapshots with the tablet or phone, without running the risk to ruin the pedalboard and having to reload it (and lose all the settings already configured but not saved).

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Thanks a lot for the suggestion. This type of feedback may really help when the dev team at MOD jumps into something like this. I will make sure to save these inputs the best way possible and pull them in the talk at the right time :slight_smile:

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Do you have any advice on which Bluetooth dongle to use? I tried two on my Dwarf, both were not compatible. One of them explicitly supports Linux, I’m not sure about the other one. Both are on USB 4.0. Unfortunately, you can’t buy many Linux-compatible dongles in Germany. Is Linux compatibility enough or what do I have to look out for? Or was I just unlucky?

if you are able to tell me the usb id of that device, I can see if something custom is needed in order to support it.

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