MOD Device (Dwarf/Duo/Duo X) owners' club - Tips, Ideas & Patches

[SamIAm]

3 hours ago, nige1968 said:

Just butting in but I finally got my Dwarf and OMFG it's fuuuuuun.

 

As you were.

Nice one!  How are you using it in your pedalboard?

Worth checking out the MOD forum (If you haven't already)

S'manth x

Edited May 18, 2023 by Smanth

[nige1968]

16 hours ago, Smanth said:

Nice one!  How are you using it in your pedalboard?

Worth checking out the MOD forum (If you haven't already)

S'manth x

 

Still experimenting and have taken non-virtual pedalboards out of the equation for now. Some of the bundled effects are pretty great, just working out which ones I like. But so far it beats the pants off any multi-effects board I've tried up to now (disclaimer: I haven't tried Helix or Kemper). And I have an electronic noise issue to work on that is probably to do with gain staging, whatever that is.

[MrDinsdale]

So it's pay day...

 

Two paths lay before me. I could get the Boss again, super flexible in terms of integration with existing pedals. Lots of benefits like saving instrument profiles so I can normalise levels going into my drives etc as I have one very hot bass. I know the ecosystem, not as flexible as Mod and unlikely to see any real software updates.

 

Then on the other side is Mod, never played it and don't know how it'll stack up sonically but demos are good. Pretty limitless routing and open source which I love, even if the company went under again it'd probably receive more quality of life improvements from the community than Boss are going to deliver. It doesn't however integrate as nicely with my analog pedals and introduces a lot of latency, especially when using the channels as an fx loop instead of stereo. Cant make meaningful changes directly without another device. 

 

Still can't decide, can get both for around £400, new for the dwarf or 2nd hand for the Core.

 

Still leaning towards the Mod Dwarf, so much potential to do really cool stuff with it. Still it's a lot of money, especially considering the volatility of the company. Even though it could be supported by the community, if their plugin store goes down it adds a significant amount of faff. 

[Woodinblack]

18 hours ago, MrDinsdale said:

Still leaning towards the Mod Dwarf, so much potential to do really cool stuff with it. Still it's a lot of money, especially considering the volatility of the company. Even though it could be supported by the community, if their plugin store goes down it adds a significant amount of faff. 

 

Cant help, other than to say you have summed up the arguments perfectly!

[rwillett]

18 hours ago, MrDinsdale said:

So it's pay day...

 

 

 

Very dangerous day is pay day .... Thats normally the day when I get a tax refund from HMRC.

 

Decisions, decisions, decisions, personally speaking I'd go Mod Dwarf as it looks so much fun. if they do go under, it wouldn't be that difficult to get either that plugin store or another one setup relatively quickly. There's enough of a ground swell on them that somebody would pick this up. The only thing that I can think of that would throw a spanner in the works would be if they digitally sign their plugins, similar to how Apple signs the IOS upgrades. I didn't see that when I looked at how to write a plugin for professional curiosity, however I didn't look too hard in that area. I will look agin though

Rob

[MrDinsdale]

Yeah I've been sat thinking about it for a month solid so pretty much nailed the pros/cons list 😂

 

I'd like to think if they did go down for good, they'd at least work with the community to provide ongoing access to the ecosystem and the store etc.

[SamIAm]

A large amount of the codebase for the MOD ecosystem is open source, there are several other projects that use it on other hardware to provide a very similar capability for those who like to tinker, I have no doubt this would be very well supported in the community as it has been for some time now.

Part of the MOD system is closed source, this is the low level firmware for the Dwarf (and their other products). If MOD Audio were to go under it is unclear what would happen to this, I presume it's intellectual property value would form a part of any financial stuff that would need to be sorted.  Were it to never be released I'd be quite surprised if a group of folks did not produce an alternative that was OSS (And I'd most certainly join this effort)

S'manth x

[rwillett]

Just perusing the MOD github and I'm guessing that this is all Linux on a small PC board (RockChip PX30) with a tiny bootstrap (U-Boot) to load it in on power on. 

 

I've also found https://github.com/moddevices/mod-organizational-kernel/blob/master/organizational-kernel.md which is difficult to read, especially when it talks about "heroic acts" and similar. I think I need to rotate my brain by 90 degrees to understand it

 

I can see an awful lot of forked Linux kernel stuff (which is fine), also some Arduino stuff (not sure how that fits in), but can't (yet) find a component model or something that shows how it all links together.

 

I could imagine this is a custom Linux kernel with a load of real time optimisations. I can't see all the repositories so there may be something thats lower level still but it looks a lot like a custom Linux build. The secret sauce may be something like Apple does with Mac OS X, its actually Darwin under the covers and that is freely published code, the secret sauce is OS X on top of it.

 

I did find the release folder (https://wiki.mod.audio/wiki/Releases) and downloaded the latest mod_dwarf release. It is GPG signed so not sure if thats to guarantee that its not been tampered with OR it can only be loaded by the mod_dwarf hardware. I'm a bit hazy on GPG and signing.

[MrDinsdale]

1 hour ago, Smanth said:

A large amount of the codebase for the MOD ecosystem is open source, there are several other projects that use it on other hardware to provide a very similar capability for those who like to tinker, I have no doubt this would be very well supported in the community as it has been for some time now.

Part of the MOD system is closed source, this is the low level firmware for the Dwarf (and their other products). If MOD Audio were to go under it is unclear what would happen to this, I presume it's intellectual property value would form a part of any financial stuff that would need to be sorted.  Were it to never be released I'd be quite surprised if a group of folks did not produce an alternative that was OSS (And I'd most certainly join this effort)

S'manth x

Yeah I'm sure the Dwarf could be flashed with a Community version of the lower level stuff should the worst happen.

 

It's funny because I keep thinking "what if they go under and there are no more updates" but it already has an obscene number of plugins available. Equally I don't think the GT1000core is likely to see as much as a quality of life update now, nevermind any new content.

[Woodinblack]

6 hours ago, rwillett said:

JI can see an awful lot of forked Linux kernel stuff (which is fine), also some Arduino stuff (not sure how that fits in), but can't (yet) find a component model or something that shows how it all links together.

 

The arduino stuff is for their original external interfaces and pedalboards.

 

I have no real worries about the company going down as not only would there be a community takeover but they have gone down once. Even if MOD did nothing else ever on this device, the plugins and community are the ones making the plugins, so that wouldn't stop. Also I don't think you could really ever get to use a small fraction of the devices as it was, everything I have wanted I have found a number of and part of the problem is deciding which one you like more and how to connect it!

[MrDinsdale]

Can you browse the plugin store/beta store without the device?

[Woodinblack]

26 minutes ago, MrDinsdale said:

Can you browse the plugin store/beta store without the device?

 

Well, you can see them all on the demo:

https://try.mod.audio/

 

[pslh]

22 hours ago, Woodinblack said:

 

Well, you can see them all on the demo:

https://try.mod.audio/

 

 

I have been trying to use try.mod.audio for a while but I cannot make it make any noise at all - tried with Firefox, Chrome and even Edge on Windows 10, and also Firefox and Chromium on Linux.  I also tried using my phone 5G data connection just in case the problem was related to my land-line/router/provider.  Have I missed something macroscopic?

 

Notwithstanding this issue, I have just ordered a Dwarf from Thomann, and would like to say thanks in particular to @Smanth and the other contributors to this and related topics; your posts have been very helpful. 

 

Paul

[SamIAm]

23 hours ago, MrDinsdale said:

Can you browse the plugin store/beta store without the device?

The plugins can be seen here, but sadly not the beta ones ... and there are more than a few that are excellent!

I'm diggin into how to see these without a MOD device.

S'manth x

Edited May 27, 2023 by Smanth

[SamIAm]

28 minutes ago, pslh said:

 

I have been trying to use try.mod.audio for a while but I cannot make it make any noise at all - tried with Firefox, Chrome and even Edge on Windows 10, and also Firefox and Chromium on Linux.  I also tried using my phone 5G data connection just in case the problem was related to my land-line/router/provider.  Have I missed something macroscopic?

 

Notwithstanding this issue, I have just ordered a Dwarf from Thomann, and would like to say thanks in particular to @Smanth and the other contributors to this and related topics; your posts have been very helpful. 

 

Paul

I look forward to you sharing how you use your Dwarf!

S'manth x

[Woodinblack]

4 hours ago, pslh said:

 

I have been trying to use try.mod.audio for a while but I cannot make it make any noise at all - tried with Firefox, Chrome and even Edge on Windows 10, and also Firefox and Chromium on Linux.  I also tried using my phone 5G data connection just in case the problem was related to my land-line/router/provider.  Have I missed something macroscopic?

 

Did you click the 'enable streaming' button on the top?

[Woodinblack]

First gig back from holiday with the dwarf, still works really well, in fact better, as I am more familiar with it. Sometimes it is a pain that you can't adjust on the fly, and to be honest, I could have adjusted on the fly but for some reason my gigging iPad stopped working while I was away and now wont boot, so I had to use my home one and the network on that is too complicated to allow the dwarf!

I think I need to remember on all patches that I make to have an output volume routed to one of the knobs, at least until I am happy with the relative gigging volumes of various patches, as one of them is much louder than the others live (doesn't seem it at home), so I need to work out what the volume should be.

 

I certainly know what I want from a switching system now so I can rejig my chocolate controller into something useful soon.

[pslh]

7 hours ago, Woodinblack said:

 

Did you click the 'enable streaming' button on the top?

Yes, I should have said in my previous post.

 

Using the Firefox (Windows 10) "Inspect" function I can see that the JavaScript log contains the following error when the page loads:

WebRTC: ICE failed, add a TURN server and see about:webrtc for more details

 

When I click "Enable Streaming" I see "Audio playback start" in the log, but can hear no sound.

 

Using Chrome (Windows 10) I do not see the WebRTC error, and the log complains only about a favicon manifest.

 

I note that I use Google Meet every workday and know that this also uses WebRTC, so I don't think I have a specific block on the protocol but I also am not aware of my having a TURN or STUN server or having done any other "magic" to make Meet work.

[MrDinsdale]

1 hour ago, pslh said:

Yes, I should have said in my previous post.

 

Using the Firefox (Windows 10) "Inspect" function I can see that the JavaScript log contains the following error when the page loads:

WebRTC: ICE failed, add a TURN server and see about:webrtc for more details

 

When I click "Enable Streaming" I see "Audio playback start" in the log, but can hear no sound.

 

Using Chrome (Windows 10) I do not see the WebRTC error, and the log complains only about a favicon manifest.

 

I note that I use Google Meet every workday and know that this also uses WebRTC, so I don't think I have a specific block on the protocol but I also am not aware of my having a TURN or STUN server or having done any other "magic" to make Meet work.

I found this, it was really intermittent. I wonder if it's due to someone else using it at the same time or something. 

[Woodinblack]

 

1 hour ago, pslh said:

I note that I use Google Meet every workday and know that this also uses WebRTC, so I don't think I have a specific block on the protocol but I also am not aware of my having a TURN or STUN server or having done any other "magic" to make Meet work.

hmm dntknow, I didn't have to do anything although I remember the first time I tried it in my pc it didn't work (that would have been Firefox) although I am sure I used it on Firefox later - still on holiday (time not location) so the pc hasn't been turned on yet to check

[rwillett]

It's not working for me either, Firefox/Chrome/Safari on Mac M1 Mini.  Will look further, and might even power up a Windows laptop as a last resourt

 

I am getting different errors and wonder if my firewall is getting in the way. I'll look over the day.

Rob

[Woodinblack]

It worked fine on mine last night when I posted about it on an m1 MacBook on safari

[rwillett]

2 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

It worked fine on mine last night when I posted about it on an m1 MacBook on safari

Thanks, thats reassuring. I do have a far too complicated sound setup using sound control for different speakers and for different meeting systemsand for <ahem> Battlefield 4 </ahem>. Now I know it works, I'll make more of an effort.

 

Rob

[tauzero]

I saw something on the forum about not being able to use it when someone else was in it. Ah, this is it - https://forum.mod.audio/t/try-mod-two-users-at-this-same-pedalboard/9815

[SamIAm]

New to the MOD platform, the Neural Amp Modeler plugin

https://pedalboards.moddevices.com/plugins/aHR0cDovL2dpdGh1Yi5jb20vbWlrZW9saXBoYW50L25ldXJhbC1hbXAtbW9kZWxlci1sdjI=