Thank you for sharing your experience. I have a simple application.
I am a guitarist and just want to transmit MIDI signals at the beginning of a song during a live performance. Stepdancing to call up a new sound is not very comfortable with the dwarf.
For small gigs, I want to play with the Dwarf instead of the Kemper.
It’s a DUO project where I connect the guitar and a microphone to the Dwarf and cable the signal directly to the PA system.
My fellow musician is an accordion player who also sings.
As it looks now, I only need one pedal port with a few snapshots.
Apart from the PA system, everything fits in the guitar gig bag.(My old spine will thank me).
It just needs the iPad with a setlist app that can send MIDI signals via bluetooth.
No other bluetooth device is needed for my rig.
I have already ordered the WIDI Bud and will report how it goes.
I’ll be honest and say I think you’re in the right track, this device should be able to handle your needs no problem, provided the dwarf reacts accordingly.
Well, tomorrow the WIDI Bud will be delivered.
So far I have not been able to find much about which prg-change I have to send to the Dwarf to call a specific peald board and which command (I assume CC ?) to call a specific snap shot.
I suspect that besides MIDI-channel, I even have to call a chain first to select a bank and then a snapshot?
I find the documentation on this is very poor as far as I have found it so far.
In the WIKI there is only a qualitative answer but no detail of the real commands.
It would already help me if I knew the command for chain call, bank call and snapshot call. CC’s are not completely standardised - many are device-specific.
Is there a chance to get this Information here?
Fair. That’s exactly where I didn’t try it I tried everywhere else (MacOS, iOS, Windows and Android)
It is. Yet a bit cheaper and smaller.
I think this would work perfectly. Basically, the WIDI Bud will allow your MOD Dwarf to send and receive Bluetooth MIDI messages.
You would need a type A TRS to DIN MIDI cable/adapter.
With this one you don’t need the adapter, but the WIDI Jack has 2.5mm TRS ports and not 3.5mm (what seems to be the standard and the MOD Dwarf has), so you need a cable with one side 2.5mm and another 3.5mm. If you go for this solution I can point you a cable By the way…this is another thing that pisses me off with the WIDI Jack. And I guess that this is only for them to sell their cables and adapters.
You do it with Program Change messages and you decide which one. Just make sure that it is the same range as some devices and software count from 0 to 15 and the Dwarf listens on the 1 to 16.
This page is still a work in progress and I hope in the next few days to make it fully available, but you can check how to do it here.
You are absolutely right. We have been a bit behind on the documentation and the updates at some point made the work that was already done outdated. I’m planning to take a day or two to really go over all the wiki and update everything that I can see wrong or innacurate.
The WIDI-BUD has already arrived today.
Well, with trial and error, a preliminary result yet to be verified can be discerned.
Pairing worked immediately.
In the MIDI settings of the Dwarf you have to enter different MIDI channels for bank changes and snapshots changes.
I have set channel 2 for pedalboard prg-changes and channel 3 for snapshot prg-changes.
Snapshot changes via channel 3 can be detected.
Both commands in succession (time interval 50ms) are not yet successful.
Maybe I have to choose a longer time interval.
Is also my experience now. 100ms works sometime - 150ms it works.
For safety reason I’ll choose 200 ms.
Quite enough as I need not change a snapshot during a song via bluetooth.
I will experiment with CC commands later when there is proper documentation, but I assume that the standard commands like CC-7 (Volume) and similar are the same as for other units.
For the moment, I can now live with the system.
I don’t need bank changes at the moment because I have already built up my bread and butter pedal.
I might make a second one for more rocky stuff. (for another playlist)
I’m sure I’ll discover more secrets in the course of time - but there’s no hurry now.
Just testing my newly arrived WIDI Jack with the Mod duo.
WIDI Jack plugged into Duo MIDI in/out ports. It gets power from the Duo itself so no ext power required.
WIDI uHost plugged into Linux PC USB port. Gets power from USB, so also no ext power needed.
The two devices, once paired using the Android app, connect automagically at every power on. Perfect.
I fired up TouchOSC on the PC just to have a MIDI controller, told it to use the uHost MIDI ports and from then piloting the Duo plugins was just a matter of assigning knobs to controllers.
Well, changing a snapshot now works as described above.
I cannot say the same for changing a pedalboard.
First of all, there is no possibility to select a bank in which the pedalboards are collected.
I cannot address a desired pedalboard either.
Yesterday it was probably a random effect that only works with a certain setting, which I can’t reproduce now.
Sending the Channel No and the Prg-change command is obviously not enough.
I’ll have to be satisfied with the snapshot call for the time being, even though it annoys me that I can’t achieve a complete sound change of the DWARF via the setting list.
Yes, from what I know, banks can not be changed by midi messages, so you have to be sure you select the appropriate bank if you want to use MIDI to switch pedalboards.
Then, you need to make sure that the order of the pedalboards in the bank match the PC number you send with the controller.
Snapshots should be pretty much instantly changing. Pedalboards, as @Tarrasque73 said, take longer since all the plugins need to be loaded. So, mostly, the heavier the pedalboard is, the longer it takes to load.
For this, you need to select it going to the Banks view (push the footswitches B and C simultaneously) and you need there to get in the desired bank. The Program Change messages will then move according to the order of pedalboards that you have in that bank.
Actually, I just reied to check this on my Duo, as I detailed above.
In facts it REALLY seems that there’s something strange with pedalboards and MIDI.
I’m able to change snapshots with PC on the according channel, but messages sent to the pedalboard switching channel seem to be discarded, even though they are received (checked with MIDI display).
EDIT: I realized that in order for MIDI pedalboard switching you must disconnect the web interface.
This is intended,I think, even if extremely annoying, and I hope it can be changed in the future.
The worse thing I found out is that it seems that if I change pedalboards too fast, the device goes crazy and it loads pedalboards from another bank altogether!
This I think it’s a bug.
EDIT 2: what seems to happen is that the Duo just “loses” the loaded bank and reverts back to “All pedalboards”.
what may be happening is that the device/software from where you send the messages sends in a 0 to 15 format and MOD interpretes it on a 1 to 16. Isn’t this your case?
Nope, the fact, which is not much evident, is that you have to disconnect the device from the Web UI for MIDI pedalboard switching to work. I’d suggest at least a little text or something in the Web UI header to remind this, if possible.
The real issue is that if you try to change pedalboard too fast via midi it seems to lose the loaded bank and goes out to “all pedalboards”.
Thank you for the answer. So it is true that I cannot select Banks via MIDI.
However, calling up a DWARF pedalboard of the bank that was previously selected does not seem to work.
I have not been able to send a PC command to the set channel for pedal board changes.
Snapshot changes are no problem - even with an upright USB connection to the GUI.
I tried everywhere else (MacOS, iOS, Windows and Android)
By the way…this is another thing that pisses me off with the WIDI Jack. And I guess that this is only for them to sell their cables and adapters.