Duo X - worth buying in 2023?

I’ve used a midi expression pedal with a Morningstarfx MC-3 into the dwarf. I haven’t tried just an expression pedal attached directly to the dwarf.

Hi all i came here with this exact question in mind . i can get a mod duo x LE in mint condition for the same price on cheaper than the dwarf !! i don’t know that to do haha!!! i have a pretty complex signal chain on my quad cortex; but i’m nowhere near the limit because i am using mostly captures !!!
is there a big difference between the limited edition duo x and the dwarf?

Thank you in advance

The Dwarf is the better unit between the choices.

The LE MDX was already lower power than the regular producion MDX. As far as its been discussed, the Dwarf is the focus for future development.

If you buy the LE MDX, you will be buying “unsupported” hardware that is almost 2 generations old.

For longevity, support, and future updates, I’d buy the dwarf and consider that to be the only choice.

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@Elk_wrath Thank you for your answer!! Helps a lot ! going to pull the trigger soon! i’m pretty confident that i can get the sound i want ! probably not as easily as a quad cortex or a helix ! but ae this is a geek machine!!

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No problem!

For what its worth, I own both a dwarf and the production MDX.

As a synth player that has both MIDI and CV based instruments, the MDX is amazing for my personal needs, but its super powerful and I rarely use its full potential.

The dwarf is amazing if CV isnt a need. I have run into some processessing limits before, but I make boards to break stuff lol. Now that portal has been released, the CPU limitations are negligible

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The Mod Duo X-LE has 4 x 1.4 GHz IMHO.

https://forum.mod.audio/uploads/default/original/2X/a/ab960c9d556288327fd7a37eb45c7a342683b3db.jpeg

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I maybe disagree with you, CV is the only argument to buy a MDX.
I {will} need both inputs with Amp-Sims and Cab-Sims, aside from 2Gates, 4 Filters, 2 EQ’s, 1Chorus, 2 Reverb, 2 Compressors, 1Enhancer, 2 Delays, some parallel chaining, etc…
so - calculus power is more there too

That is why I said my personal needs.

I’ve moved to the dwarf for future work, the lack of power is definite, as I have to drop a lot off my MDX boards to meet the CPU limits of the dwarf. I am very good at hitting those limits on the dwarf, which I why I bought the MDX shortly after the dwarf.

Moot point anyway, as I’ve begun re-installing my dedicated hardware pedals back into my mix. The dwarf is my experimental box and use my OXI one and CV.OCD (good partner for Dwarf) for all midi-CV/sequencing.

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True, only MDX has CV, and actually only the production model has the full 10V range. I too thought inputting CV directly to Duo X was a good idea, but due to its very unreliable midi sync I ended up using CV only in the external modules and doing basic processing with the Dwarf. I think @Elk_wrath is precisely trying to say that if you don’t need CV you can go with a Dwarf. Now, the MDX is a better product overall and well worth the money. It’s been going up in price lately. Mod has been good at maintaining it, but there are issues lingering for a long time and some improvements will not be developed for the Duo X, so it’s a choice between a more current product with less power and no CV and a more powerful product with CV that may not see any meaningful improvements.

If a Duo X (production, with on/off switch) is good for you know, then go for it.

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I would be wary of buying a ModDuoX because of support honestly.

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I guess that depends on the use case.
MDX seems to have much less support, it is not produced anymore, and you cannot expect new features coming to it - to my understanding only updates which can be easily ported to MDX are added.

However, for my chapman stick I really need dual-mono processing, and that doubles the need for processing power. My CPU usage for my current pedalboard is already sitting around 70%, so most probably it would not fit Dwarf at all, so I cannot just replace MDX with MDW without compromises.

From one side my pedalboard looks like this - so probably it is overengineered edge case, and for most practical cases MDW is enough, especially if it is a single-mono processing.

From another side - freedom to do whatever crazy stuff you want is the main point of MOD platform for me.

If my MDX would die I would search for the used MDX to replace, but that’s me.

More conventional guitar player probably should go for MDW.

In any case I see a lot of troubles with updating firmwares with MDX LE (limited edition) devices, and LE is less powerful, and I expect it to lag in features even more than production MDX so if going for MDX - I would buy production, non-LE version.

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your point makes sense indeed.
The support issues so far seem to be linked to the LE version.

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I would say you both have good points, @ignis32 and @leDamien.
On one hand, I don’t want to replace my Duo X with a Dwarf, cause I use encoders and keys quite a lot. Footswitches are useless for me, I already have a midi pedalboard. The X is much better for my use case.
On the other hand, support has been poor for all Xs, production or LE. There are tons of issues (crosstalk, noise, etc) lingering over the Duo X since early 2021. Many threads and complaints. And the worst for me is the clock, though that affects Dwarf as well. And not a word of how and when those will be addressed. Threads are open and not a meaningful reply is ever posted.
I hope my saying this here doesn’t go down as pure whining, it’s a legitimate demand from users who watched this ad not too long ago and thought they were acquiring the most modern effects processor there was.
Therefore, if you want a Duo X, go for it. Choose production, never LE. But be prepared for waiting long for answers and support.
My 2 pence.

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thanks a lot, all.
to @ignis32 :
We both play Chapman Stick - that’s very rare, I must admit. Though, won’t make it easier for us…:rofl:

I tend to get myself a MDX (production model with on-off switch) - could you tell me your experience with building presets and using them over a pedalboard?

thx

oh!.. thanks for your reveals, @miss_demeanor :.
a bad/no support for a faulty sync
is indeed something to take into consideration before buying…

crosstalk - could be a hardware thing and therefore, not fixable via firmware-soft.

overall, @ignis32, as you maybe know I was willing to invest in
2 Dwarfs same-time simultaneously,
setting them up side-aside for each mono channel…
on paper it seems great running 2 totally discrete mono-channels, each channel on one Dwarf, for Chapman Stick -

BUT, AS Mod Support already answered me regarding this issue - there is no easy nor approved
work-flow for using more then one Dwarfs side-aside via the editor
.

that said, getting this as a Feature near-future would be bonkers. Customers could invest in more than one Dwarf - putting them side aside on a board, audio chaining them if needed, or run it parallel, whatever… So the Dwarf gets sorta scalable though having a rather weak processor unit for us Sound Designers.
Sounds nifty to me.
Even the footprint would make 2 or 3 Dwarfs a great floorboard!
IMHO -
I see great potential here for MOD DEVICES to get unlocked for us customers and the Dwarfs Community

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It should be an easy enough hack, as easy as changing the USB network default netmask on the dwarf or connecting both with wifi dongles and finding their ip addresses or setting customized hostnames

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There is a procedure documented in Custom IP Address - MOD Wiki
A bit experimental, and of course very technical.
If things go wrong a reinstall of the OS image will get things back to normal.

PS: if picking 192.168.52. as the base IP address, cloud authentication and pedalboard sharing should all still work. we recently added 192.168.52.1 to list of valid IPs on the cloud side, eventually to be used for WiFi stuff.

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Great

It may be useful to have the option to change the hostname to be able to use .local suffixes on both

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thanks, @Zavorra & @falkTX
I ordered a first Dwarf some mins ago
:pizza:

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