Expression Pedal - a new update

Hi @Yan … had a long time that I did not use my FCB1010 (Eureka Prom 3.2), with MOD DUO, just because I bought a Meloaudio Midi Commander, and I´v been using it with my MOD with no issues.

But, I will try to connect my FCB1010 again, to check the issues that you are reporting, and helps to find/report new issues and/or success.

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Thank you very much, I hope we get what is causing this problem.

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Is there a more recent update on the mod expression pedal? And for those who ordered one with the original Kickstarter?

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@James have been updating on the expression pedal in this thread

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Wow… this expression pedal was announced in March of '19. It is now January '22 and still no product. Does an expression pedal need to be this complicated? I take it that it connects via that ethernet connector on the Dwarf. My… how proprietary of you. Now I know why there isn’t an expression pedal port on the Dwarf. If there was the Dwarf might actually be a lot more easily usable in a live situation (can’t have that) and it would have prevented you from “reinventing the wheel” by making a needlessly more complicated one that people have to buy from you… if you ever get it released.

There are reasons for the delay, already has been answered elsewhere.

But nothing about it is proprietary, you could say limited to the MOD platform but as others have been hacking around with the protocol that is not strictly true either.
The entire firmware of the footswitch control chain device is even available to the public. https://github.com/moddevices/cc-fw-footswitch/
The same will be true for the expression pedal once it is finalized.

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Uhh that is pretty much the definition of proprietary

What percentage of guitar players do you imagine go around hacking the protocols of their equipment? Less than 5%, I’d bet.

Who cares? Again, what percentage of guitar players do you imagine have any interest in modifying the firmware of their equipment?

News Flash. Most guitar players just want to play guitar not spend their days and quite possibly nights, mucking about in Linux. You guys must think that the overwhelming majority of musicians are also Linux experts. Believe me, that is so far away from reality.

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That’s right—the lead singer of Harvey Danger works at Microsoft, so if he’s messing around on the shell at all he’s probably a DOS guy.

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:joy: Oh my.

Not from where I come from…

You misunderstood me, I didnt mean to imply that anyone needs to go on a hacking adventure just to get things working.

I meant as clarification for open vs closed, standard vs proprietary.
All the things needed to make a control chain cable and device are public, and the cable itself already exists anyway. We do not have hidden or MOD-internal-only information regarding Control Chain, what is out there is what exists, be it in the wiki or in code.

Oh I know, I am reminded of this every day :wink:

The expression pedal is something with a long story, I dont want to comment on that myself since I was not always involved and dont know all the details.
I do know it is on the actual company roadmap, and @Jan has Control Chain as a big task for him next month so we will finalize the firmware in the next couple of weeks.

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Hi Gino,

My dry answer would have been “you knew about the Dwarf specs before you got into this, right?” but that’s not me :smiley: My softer side would say that I don’t think you’re wrong but there is no need to be bitter or even a bit toxic about it. You address interesting topics but … let’s keep it accessible?

You seem like an involved guy but your posts in this thread made my Sunday morning coffee a bit sour.
I could concurr that totally re-inventing the mechanics etc seems a bit over the top but I also see opportunity to offer pedal that fits nicely into the MOD universe, following the team’s vision and probably fillign some gaps they felt other designs miss. I also see a passion project that needs to be just right before it could be released on the public.

I’ve always seen as MOD Devices as a brand for people who like a bit of tinkering and I know quite some people you aren’t really musical prodigies but like “music” as a universe to play in, with nifty tools, cool inventions and strange combinations. Even though, I do try to contribute in making it a “less tech savvy” experience by sharing my journey and thoughts. As said before. AND stories, not OR.

I like my dayjob but it is hard to be really proud of what I deliver because I can barely put enough time in it to even approach the “just right” level. I absolutely give it to these gives that they want to do it this and their way. I’m not here to discuss the business decisions of the specific port and whether a generic expression pedal port would be better; I’m not running their business and I’m only aware of the fraction of their business.

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@Gino, taking my “MOD team member hat” completely out of the way for this answer and just using my “MOD user hat”

No, it’s not. I use a Moog expression pedal connected to the MOD Dwarf in my setup via Control Chain. I don’t use any MOD expression pedal proprietary and quite honestly although I know a bit of how to code, I barely did it to get it working since there’s an example code that is pretty much that.

These type of bets are like playing lotery. Your experience and background is not “the experience” and "the background.
I’m firstly a guitar player and know a bit how to “hack”/code. I kind of started with both worlds as a teen and completely parallel and then learned how to connect them and that was kind of the spark moment for me.
I have a whole bunch of guitar players and musicians friends with pretty similar skill sets and many others that want to get in this DIY experience world. Yet, I don’t dare to assume that they are the majority. I know they are not, but I also know that this number of people is growing. How much? That I don’t really know. But I would say that the MOD platform is perfect for these musicians.

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A lot of emphasis is being put on control chain here which is as Falk said completely open-source but admittedly there currently aren’t any available options to buy some control chain expression pedal or adapter which would be very annoying as someone who does not tinker if that were the only option.

Thankfully the device also has a midi input as well as a USB port for midi over USB. We have another thread here (Expression pedals and adapter options for the Dwarf) where we have suggested many available options for expression pedals on the Dwarf.

I can understand being upset that the device doesn’t have an expression pedal input just as I can understand being upset that it doesn’t have any other kind of additional IO. The reality is that you can only fit so many ports and the other ports took priority because they have a broader range of use compared to a port that can only be used for expression pedals. There are 3 other ports on the device that can support expression pedals as well as many other things. This allows more flexibility to the user than a dedicated expression pedal port. The device already had to be made slightly larger than the original design just to fit the ports it has. People have asked for more inputs, expression pedal ports, full-sized din midi etc. While they would all be nice, the device would end up being huge. So we went for the most versatile IO we could fit on a small device

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Has there been any discussion about a control chain device that specifically acts as an expression pedal converter?

What I mean is basically a 1/4" expression in jack, converting to control chain output, allowing the use of existing expression pedals. Without having to develop the mechanical part of the pedal it seems that would be much simpler to manufacture, while still allowing resolutions >128.

The converter could either have a screen for assignment feedback, or no screen at all to save costs. It could even have standard footswitch inputs as well. Almost like a control chain breakout box, enabling the use of legacy devices that guitarists have been using for 50+ years.

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Yes we have had discussions about that. I can’t make any promises because we are a small team but I would like to see this happen soon after the expression pedal release in the cheapest (for the user) and simplest way possible. We need to finish the expression pedal first though before we can discuss any posibility a new hardware project no matter how small it is.

That being said, there is nothing stopping someone else from designing, building and selling a device like that. The resources needed to do it are all open and free

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Sorry if I’m being intrusive here but, are there any plans on hire more people? I mean, seems like you could benefit from having a couple of people more there since almost in any post the “we’re a small team” is something mentioned

If we could hire more people we absolutely would be we aren’t in a position to do that right now

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Any news on the expression pedal?

Check this thread for regular updates

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