Introducing the MOD Desktop - Beta release

pilal · July 30, 2025, 7:04pm

After you started the “engine” dit you clic on the « open web GUI » button? If it didn’t work just open your regular browser and enter http://127.0.0.1:18181

Austin73 · July 30, 2025, 7:42pm

Just tried and that isn’t working either. I think it’s crashing for some reason. But it is showing in the task manager.

Horisonten · August 16, 2025, 8:25pm

Just finished a test session with MOD Desktop on Windows 11. It felt incredible and I didn’t run into any issues at all. Everything ran smooth as butter.
I’m really impressed with this so far and I keep my fingers crossed that this can be released one day and with the plugin store.

I will keep testing it and report back if I find any bugs or other quirks.

eggsperde · August 18, 2025, 11:33am

Same for me. Tried it quite some time ago on an aging Lenovo Thinkpad running Windows 11, and it worked perfectly out-of-the-box.

Horisonten · August 18, 2025, 7:35pm

Regarding bug reports. Is Github the correct channel for adding our findings?

jon · August 21, 2025, 10:52am

There or here, both ways should reach the right people

Horisonten · August 21, 2025, 5:47pm

I’ve only had two small inconsistencies so far when testing on Windows 11.

The zoom in/out functionality is a bit inconsistent for me. Sometimes I cannot zoom in the first 3-5 times. The zoom in animation starts, but then snaps back to unzoomed state with a short glitch of the graphics.
The drag to replace a plugin is a bit inconsistent. I’m sometimes unable to replace a plugin no matter where on the plugin I try to release the new plugin. The replace symbol appears, but doesn’t replace the plugin once releasing it.

Horisonten · August 23, 2025, 9:55am

Another issue I have is that I cannot start the Mod desktop service again after Stopping it (without restarting the PC). I see that Jack is still running in the Task manager after stopping and trying to start again. But I’m not able to close the task from Task manager, it stays active. So by the looks of it this could perhaps be part of the issue.

Update: The issue indeed seems to be related to jackd.exe service which is not terminated when stopping Mod Desktop. It stays on as a service. And it is impossible to close it even with PID delete/shutdown commands from the terminal. If I try to start the Mod Desktop again it doesn’t work, but another jackd.exe service is still started. This can also not be terminated.

Here is the jackd + host log when trying to start the Mod Desktop the second time:

Starting jackd using:
-R -S -n mod-desktop -X winmme -C .\jack\jack-session.conf -d portaudio -r 48000 -p 128 -d ASIO::X-AIR ASIO Driver
jackdmp 1.9.22
Copyright 2001-2005 Paul Davis and others.
Copyright 2004-2016 Grame.
Copyright 2016-2023 Filipe Coelho.
jackdmp comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY
This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
under certain conditions; see the file COPYING for details
Drivers/internals found in : C:\Program Files\MOD Desktop
Drivers/internals found in : C:\Program Files\MOD Desktop
JACK server starting in realtime mode with priority 10
self-connect-mode is "Don't restrict self connect requests"
Allocate: named semaphore already exist name = jack_pipe.mod-desktop_system_midi
Internal client mod-midi-merger successfully loaded
Internal client mod-midi-broadcaster successfully loaded
Allocate: named semaphore already exist name = jack_pipe.mod-desktop_mod-host
Allocate: named semaphore already exist name = jack_pipe.mod-desktop_mod-monitor
bind error: No error
Cannot load client mod-host from internal session file line 2. Ignoring the line!
JackWinSemaphore::TimedWait name = jack_pipe.mod-desktop_freewheel time_out
JackFreewheelDriver::ProcessSync: SuspendRefNum error
JackAudioDriver::ProcessGraphSync: ProcessWriteSlaves error, engine may now behave abnormally!!
JackWinSemaphore::TimedWait name = jack_pipe.mod-desktop_system time_out
JackAudioDriver::ProcessGraphSync: SuspendRefNum error, engine may now behave abnormally!!

Windows 11.

Davide_P · September 5, 2025, 9:38pm

How?

Inqb8tr-jp · September 5, 2025, 11:42pm

You can bootstrap and build plugins for generic-x86_64 for Linux.

$ ./bootstrap.sh generic-x86_64 
$ ./build generic-x86_64 <plugin-package>

Here, <plugin-package> refers to the name of a directory in ./plugins/package/:

The build plugins are generated under $HOME/mod-workdir/generic-x86_64/plugins/.

Davide_P · September 14, 2025, 9:02am

Another question is it possible to “easily” build plugins for windows?

CharlyRebell · September 22, 2025, 8:15pm

Hi everyone!
I’m currently trying to setup a laptop with Ubuntu 24.04 with Carla and Mod-Desktop.
I got most of it running, but Mod-Desktop gives me trouble with it’s default Jack-Connections in Carla Patchbay.
So I would like to try the Mod-Desktop VST or LV2 version and add it directly via Carla.
The problems is, I can’t find how to build it or where it’s available. Could you help me here?
Thanks and I hope you have a good evening.

I read through:

github.com/mod-audio/mod-desktop

Discussion and Issues around MOD Desktop as Plugin

opened 02:09PM - 16 Mar 24 UTC

falkTX

This is a meta-ticket to discuss all things around MOD Desktop as an audio plugi…n, currently supporting AU, CLAP, LV2, VST2 and VST3. NOTE: If you come here from an external link please notice this is still very early days and mostly looking for initial testers, it far from production-ready state! That said, if you are technically-minded and want to help out to get the plugin version into shape, read on. Things you should know before continuing: - how to get the latest builds from github (in the actions tab) - how to start things from the command-line if needed So with that in mind, go get the latest build and install them. Some notes - For Linux you need to have the standalone be available on some location on disk, and run it at least once (this last used location is saved on disk and used for next time the plugin is run) - The win64 zip does not include the plugins, only the installer (the plugin requires knowing where the MOD Desktop standalone tools are, so needs installation) - If the UI does not work for some reason, you can click the "open web browser" button to open the web gui externally Items still do be done: - [x] windows build is broken, either crashes or is unusable (loads under linux+wine though, somehow) - [x] handle dynamic buffer size (right now it only works if host provides fixed-size buffers) - [ ] check if TCP ports for mod-host and mod-ui are available before use - [x] implement web view on windows (the "open web browser" button still works though) - [ ] trigger pedalboard save when host saves - [ ] map host state to active pedalboard - [x] add missing dialogs on macOS (this blocks using mod-ui in a proper way for now) - [ ] implement time position sync - [x] report latency to host - [ ] fix jackd shutdown on windows (crashes when trying to close) - [ ] linux xdg-user-dirs is not respected on the plugin variant for now Testing in general is useful, if you do so please provide information regarding: - OS you use, and which version it is - The build/version of mod-desktop that you tried - Which host you used for testing - Overall experience and any oddities If you can, also provide a screenshot of the embed web view, some browser implementations will show slightly different things, it is handy to try to spot any oddities with specific engines so we know what to watch out for and try to work around.

But couldn’t find how to obtain the MOD-Desktop LV2 or VST version.

hmollercl · September 23, 2025, 12:55am

Mod desktop is amazing and the plugins superb. But I believe the use case for mod-desktop is more to test and develop plugins that for continous use. And now I think the team is more focused in the top notch anagram.
For linux for my use case (use it like pedalboard), I moved to pipedal from rerdavies. It connects directly to alsa (no jack no pipewire) so I could get much better latency and I found it more stable.

Mister_GothFvck · October 3, 2025, 5:32pm

I’m pretty sure MOD is not a plugin, itself but, uses plugins. Hence, there is no MOD-VST.

CharlyRebell · October 3, 2025, 6:30pm

There is one, as you can see if you follow that link. But it‘s not official and you need to build it yourself. Still i would like to try it for my current setup if someone is willing to guide me.

Mister_GothFvck · October 3, 2025, 6:52pm

oh, I see now. woops
good luck!

CharlyRebell · October 3, 2025, 7:24pm

Pipedal looks quite interesting, but I’m not sure if it’s the correct tool for my case.
I’m currently using Carla with Jack, since I’m also using Wine for some Windows VSTs and that allows me to route everything in the correct order.

hmollercl · October 4, 2025, 10:05pm

As far as I know mod-desktop only runs lv2 plugins, so no windows vst either. But you can use the lv2 plugins from mod-desktop in carla

CharlyRebell · October 4, 2025, 10:58pm

Exactly, but Carla supports Windows VSTs ( but i switched to yabridge for performance reasons ) and with Jack i can then route my audio inside the carla-patchbay through these VSTs and then through the Mod-Desktop block. Most of the things i want to do can be done with Carla alone, but MOD-Desktop has the CV modules included which I like a lot for automation.

On the other hand, does pipedal also work with jack or purely with alsa?

zalupakonya · October 6, 2025, 2:29pm

Hi there couple days ago i found this great software. So i figure out most of things, but also i have some newbie question. Maybe somebody will help me.
I am on Windows.

-How to record or capture WET signal from Mod Desktop in standalone mode by the OBS for example. I dont have loopback on my audio interface. What is the best way?