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:
- Github Milestones: https://docs.github.com/en/free-pro-team@latest/github/managing-your-work-on-github/about-milestones
- A simple list, like Gitlab informs https://about.gitlab.com/upcoming-releases/
- Trello.
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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 
, 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 
This has been an experience 
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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Thank you so much @unbracketed for sharing your in-depth thoughts. I highly appreciate it! A lot of the issues you mentioned here were bugging me as well but I never had the time and energy to address them here. And of course, a huge thanks to the MOD team for the great responses.
To be honst, the combination of many if these issues kinda drove me away from the Duo X as my preferred platform and once again I’m working with the iPad as my central “multi send-effect rack”.
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Hey, does this mean you could load the Poly Effects Digit/Beebo modules into the Mod as LV2 plugins? Currently thinking of selling my entire pedalboard to get one of them (More inclined to the Mod, tbh, but I really like Poly Effects modules). I read the entire topic but I’m not really sure about that specific thing!
We are working with a couple forum-members to bring the Lenticular (Mutable Instruments) plugins to MOD.
Will need some DSP tweaks and a nice UI, but hopefully we have something for beta in the near future.
(still needs some coordination of the effort. most talk about it is happening on the IRC Channel for Chatting)
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Many of the Digit modules are already available on the MOD platform 
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Where to find them?
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@Klaustrophil - Where can one find these ports? 
Edit: Guessing these are homebuilt from the LV2 repos here…?
yeah, polyeffects started the lv2 ports.
they are not usable for our platform without some work done on them first, at least adjusting the CV ports ranges and creating modguis.