Sad to see you go, @Matt, especially since you’ve sparked so much joy.
I must say I understand your rationale and I too believe that, specifically for the guitar folks, proper IR handling is a must. Love it or hate it (I personally don’t care about IR at all), this is where the money is these days. Boss recently released the SY200, a glorified IR loader. Several lesser (and poorly built) similar units are now in the market and indeed they provide a good interface and decent sound results.
I also fully understand the personal workflow issue. Sometimes a piece of gear adds an unnecessary layer of complexity. It also brings to mind a 9-month struggle with a multi-effects unit I once owned. Instead of making music, I spent hours (and more money) trying to make it sound good, only to finally realise it would never deliver. Off it went then.
But there are two things we must consider:
a. Amp Models, no matter how good they might be, are never unanimous.
Even if MOD were to offer 10 super-duper models, chances are half users would scoff at them. Let’s face it, there are videos over videos of people whining about Neural (and a LOT of them lashing at their Quad Cortex, for reasons that are understandable), the Helix, HeadRush, and even the Kemper and Fractal. I myself own full versions of Guitar Rig and Amplitube and don’t like either in the least.
Therefore, if the entire process of porting an existing model (free or paid) to the MOD were either highly streamlined – meaning also that MOD could potentially consider hosting formats other than LV2 – and made economic sense to developers, just bringing whatever plugin solution that already pleases a user to Mod would be a common thing.
(I have to concede that LV2 and a lot of Linux / Free software / Open source stuff carries a bad stigma in some ways. They are nice, mostly free, “community” built and so on, but at times they just have no owners or people actively maintaining them. Developers eventually get jobs elsewhere and no longer put time and effort on them. Worse yet, I don’t know how many whatever killer – like GIMP, which would be a Photoshop killer – never came close to the performance of their supposed victims. Over time a lot of people got worn out and moved on to proprietary solutions, where people and/or businesses are responsible and liable for the results. MOD is in a different league altogether, since they offer a hardware/platform that is complete, as opposed to DIY thingies that promise you a Synclavier and deliver a Casio VL-Tone. Still, the LV2 format constraint is something that may stand in the way of the platform’s success. Not blaming the format, but the culture around it.)
b. MOD is a platform, not a multi-effects or modelling unit, though it does that too.
As a platform – and better yet, a vision – it can succeed or not. We all hope it does. Some may remember the Receptor, an extremely expensive VST host from the 2000s that was essentially a PC running Linux where one could install Windows format VSTs. It was for music was Blackberries were for the mobile phone world, and similarly they did not anticipate a number of things – mainly 64-bit plugins for the former and touchscreens for the latter. It vanished from the market, and people who had paid 3000+ USD for their machines were left in the void. In my opinion the MOD offers more possibilities all things considered, and given it costs 1/6th of what a Receptor used to cost, it is highly likely that it can capture the minds of everyday users.
I don’t necessarily agree that MOD was designed and caters mostly to electronic music makers: it was pretty much a customisable stompbox in its earlier interactions. The fact that it also hosts synths, sequencers and CV tools is more a consequence of its nature – a platform and ecosystem – than a purpose, in my opinion (of course anyone is free to disagree.)
And one thing is just fabulous in the MOD-sphere: you can create a full plugin on Max and port it to MOD, therefore not requiring serious programming skills. Beat that, competition.
Therefore, I think MOD has a lot of work to do – UI, improve key plugins, build others, fix glitches, etc – and that it will take indeed some time until it scares off some big guys in the room. With the right managerial and market decisions, it has everything it needs to succeed. Maybe some of us can’t want until then, but I believe there’s a promising future ahead. MOD needs to clear the way, be delivering all Dwarf units and wrapping up the Expression pedal, then focus on solidifying its platform, user base, and add components to it that will appeal to more and more people.
