IMHO this is the way to go for level metering. There should be a button in the UI that creates a metering overlay for every plugin on the pedalboard. That also solves the problem of not knowing which plugin causes the clipping. And when you are done playing, you can just hit the button again and the overlays will go away. I agree that metering control would be even better but doubt that it can be elegantly/cleanly integrated into the overal architecture.
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I like this idea. It kind of reminds me of the way that Cycling 74 guys do on Max MSP.
I understand what you mean here. But if you can see that at some place you have an issue, you can act to solve it only on that place. In other words and grabbing this example, you see that between some points the levels are not ok, you can add a gain plugin and fix it.
This would avoid getting the screen crowded with stuff that you just need to use in a specific place.
Not necessarily. You could have some similar way to do it optimized for touch screens.
For example, this could be a great solution.
@redcloud is totally right here @Gino. That’s another of the reasons why I believe that only a meter would help you see the problem and act only where it is necessary.
More than the amount of work, it would something that the plugin developers need to be willing to do. As I told you before, most of the plugins are not created by us. On another end, I believe that the more requirements and restrictions we ask for external developers, the less they are willing to support the MOD platform on their releases.
I wouldn’t say the CPU is the biggest problem. The gain plugins require really little CPU. It concerns me more about the UI space here.
Couldn’t agree more. I would say even more educational content in general about the platform is a must.
If you have some sort of “quick level metering” between plugins as @plutek suggested you can also see that this is happening and then drop a gain plugin in between both effects to tackle the issue.
I feel that any doable implementation here should be something that replaces this part of the process.
Ok. Indeed this sounds a bit more doable and somehow clean (if you can hide it). Personally (maybe biased by Max MSP) I still think that the most elegant solution would be to have a meter popping up when you put your mouse over one input or output. But I will also map this one.
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It’s hard to mouse over/hold an icon, especially on a touch device, when you’re playing an instrument though 
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That’s why I suggested, maybe as an alternative to this, of a new “bubble” besides the ones already existing over a plugin to toggle on/off this feature.
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That is correct and something that I didn’t consider at the time (my bad). Maybe some mixed solution. Anyway, admittedly our WebGUI is yet to be optimized to touch devices and a lot of things that are currently in place also don’t work that well. So either it gets kind of two versions or either one that makes it work on both seamlessly - although the second option requires compromises and the first more work.
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Since you raised the question, in my opinion the optimal solution would be having a second touch screen optimized GUI, instead of trying to force the current GUI to perform equally well in both cases.
The current GUI works pretty well in “design mode”. It’s easy to drag and drop plugins, connect wires, and all stuff usually done in a desktop approach, with keyboard and mouse.
Where it’s IMHO still lacking is it’s UX in “performance mode”. With that I mean in all situations where you don’t need to recable plugins, but just turn knobs, adjust volumes, and such. This kind of usage is what I personally expect to be done mostly with tablets or touch devices during rehearsals, or on stage.
So, why instead of trying to force the current GUI to a fit all solution, not start to implement a complementar GUI that focus on those easier “non topological” aspects and build it from the ground up to be small device / touch optimized? One could technically swap from one to the other depending on the needs and both could evolve separately.
I know this means more work than maintaining just one GUI but since the focus of the two “modes” is separate and in some ways antithetical I think they could both excel in their respective focuses instead of be a compromise.
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You mean that the “performance” GUI actually looks and feels like a controller?
I know the devices are meant to be standalone but I like the idea!
Not so obvious for stringed instrument players but very cool for those who play and produce electronic music etc. Your tablet turns into the conroller you build yourself while the power is in the Dwarf.
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Your suggestion would be space-saving and elegant, @jon. Yet, to find the source of distortion one would have to hover over all pedals in an iterative fashion and this is becomes tedious quickly. Also, you’d have to keep strumming (if on guitar) while hovering the mouse or devise some other tool to generate input for the pedal board. So yeah… form follows function for me.
Am I crazy in thinking that the connection “cables” themselves could have a meter and level control if they were given a little (i) that you could click on like all the plugins have?
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interesting path. thinking out loud: turn on “cable level” mode for cable colors lighting up …red/yellow/green?
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Personally, I agree. Other than that would always be fixing here to break it there.
Not sure if I necessarily agree with this one, but I can understand the point. The why I’m not sure if I agree is because conceptually that mode is using the device standalone, so not accessing at all the WebGUI. Otherwise, the device loses a bit of its value over an app running on a tablet or a software on a computer.
This is more than justified and we are already aware of the need to run some planning for WebGUI improvements. Not a lot is set already, but a lot is already being considered - including touch screen optimization.
I can see the apetite for this, but what would be the difference of this and having a TouchOSC patch (for example) running in a tablet and controlling the device?
I see. So maybe, what could happen is: adding on top of this hover meter, when something is peaking the meter pops up by itself as a sort of warning signal. How does that look for you?
I was wondering also about that on the guitar case, but for example, with this meter popping up as a sort of warning, it would stay there until you disconnect from the WebGUI, or until it is a certain (long) amount of time without peaking - kind of assuming that you fixed the issue.
I don’t dislike that idea either @Gino
The problem is that the devices are not able to be used stand alone and never will be.
You already need a computer or tablet to make or download pedalboards.
I play guitar, live, with a band. All pedalboards are decided or at least adjusted together. In the rehearsal room usually, where you try to match volumes, tones and effects to the other instruments you’re playing with.
Even when you’re good with it, I don’t recall one time when once you got to the final rehearsals in the playing venue the mixer guy didn’t ask me to lower the reverb or tweak some equalization in order to fit the acoustics of the place.
With every effect module or amp, you can access any parameter at any given time. It could be difficult, it could be buried in dozens of sub-menus, button clicks or knobs. But You could do it. And I had to do it a lot of time.
With the Mod Duo you can’t even modify the output volume of your pedalboard if you forgot to assign it to one of the knowbs when you designed the pedalboard. Not to even start talking about all the other parameters of even a simple pedalboard. You should theoretically have to map each and every one of them to the 2 onboard knobs. Unfeasable.
So, until the Mod onboard interface allows you to recall and edit any random parameter of a pedalboard in some way, you must carry your PC or tablet on stage, which is my greatest disappointment with the platform, and that’s why I’m not currently using it live like I wanted to, and why I’m not suggesting anyone I know that has my same user case to buy it, even if it’s a very good piece of hardware.
The good other option would be the simpler interface we are talking of. Something I could use by just popping out my phone and tweak knobs as the situation requires. That would be a good and satisfying workaround.
That would be good, if I knew exactly how to do it, and in any case would require additional work on my part to create that patch and maintain it for every pedalboard I create. Something so vital to the usage of the device should be “bundled” with it.
Thinking about it, an official app that allows you to quickily make control patches like this, or in absence of a dedicated “gui” expressely made for a pedalboard “automagically” just exposes all controls in an OSC patch would be incredible.
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Hmm pretty bold and lightly looked affirmation. It is completely possible to use the device standalone. I’m doing it in rehearsals, gigs, etc. for a while (for a while my computer or anything that I can connect stays at home). So I would say that it can’t be used standalone, but I understand it if you say that it can’t be fully configured standalone. What I feel is a really important difference.
Also, saying “never” is pretty bold. That is not the case and you can see it in the moves that are being done towards that direction. Some of them reported here and some others already implemented like saving snapshots from the device, pedalboards, etc.
I do exactly the same. But after all, adjustments are done, my “configuration device” (meaning computer) stays at home.
I understand this, but you can always take that into consideration when you are creating the pedalboard and especially on the assignments.
Exactly. I mean…it happens the same if you are using any other piece of gear. You also could change the tubes of your amp before the gig, but that’s not practical (yet sometimes you need it). The same with the guitar strings. If you have 50 pedals you also need to go to the right one to adjust the right parameter on the right song. Actually, on the MOD platform, you can get rid of that by using snapshots, for example.
Well…I understand the handicap here. But that is the bad side of the versatility of the platform. If you look at it from another perspective you can also map any parameter to that knob. If you use a pedal setup, you also need to make sure that all your cables are connected and working before going to the gig. That is simply the preparation.
Once, in another project (not MOD) I got to talk with a musician in a feedback session and was asking him what he felt about the battery and charging system of that device (the device is battery powered). So I asked him if it would make sense to have a charging dock where he could just throw the device in case he runs out of battery during a gig (instead of using a USB cable to charge it). His answer was simply “I don’t think that is necessary. A professional musician should be sure to prepare and check all his/her gear before jumping into the stage”.
My point here is: a tool like this (as any other) requires attention from the user, so while on other cases is charging or connecting cables or changing strings, on this is making the mappings.
When I mentioned this I meant “such as”, not necessarily that. It could be even a shared ToucOSC interface.
Exactly that what I meant as well I will map that request - And I agree that would be super cool! Something for the “fine tunning” tweaks.
The reason I bodly said never is that unless there’s a way where you can edit/tweak pedalboards using the onboard controls only, it will always rely on a second device.
It’s true that a professional player goes to the concert as prepared as possible, but it’s also true that every professional guitarist has a backup string package and an allen wrench in his bag. Because inconvenients happen. And your example about having to cable your physical pedals before the gig does not work quite well, either. The fact is that I can do it before packing my pedalboard, true, but unlike with Mod devices I can also do it right on stage, and fix it anytime, and that is my complaint.
My musician career has been 90% “on demand”. Playlists at the last minute. Tempo and key changes. Audience requests. Additional musicians on stage not announced before. I must have full control of my gear. I thought the Mod Duo could replace a physical pedalboard in live unprepared situations. It does not. It might be perfect for studio recording but it requires way too much preparation to be useful in my use case. My gear lives in the rehearsal room and almost never comes home.
It’s true that the Mods are among the most versatile pieces of gear ever, but all that versatility is seriously crippled IMHO by the fact that once you are away from the PC screen you have near to zero ways to exploit it. Snapshots are way cool but not so useful if I have to prepare them beforehand.
What is currently missing, and still baffles me that nobody has ever taken this in consideration, is a menu on the devices where you can just cycle through all parameters in the pedalboard so that, no matter how long it takes or how many clicks you have to do to get here, you can in dire straits edit any parameter.
That said, a simple control app “TouchOSC like”, would be so better, cool and useful that IMHO would be a killer app to sell the devices.
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I’ve been reading lots of posts in this forum about users wanting to have the Mod devices be as “Standalone” as possible but I think trying to do so with a few buttons and rotary knobs will only lead to a user interface too difficult to use (and to maintain by the mod team) that it will defeat the purpose. Having to scroll through a list of 100+ parameters in a menu (with many having the exact same name) will only add to frustration in using these devices.
I fail to see how such an app running on a tablet (iPad or Android) would be better than using the actual ModWebUI since you would require such a tablet in any case to run that app.
Furthermore, a “TouchOSC” app would not allow you to edit your pedalboard (add/remove plugins, make connections etc) as some requested in other discussion threads.
And also, the Mod Devices team barely keep up with software updates and requests as it is, adding an app for them to maintain on several platforms would not serve the Mod community well at this stage in my opinion.
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Simple. The app would run un a small form pactor touch based device. Such a 7’/10’ tablet that could sit on a score holder on stage or a phone that could fit in a pocket. The current GUI works bad in a touch only environment, plus it’s alseady pain in 12’’ and less screens, and laptops do not fit well on stages.
That’s why it was proposed as a secondary GUI devoted to modify parameters and not change the “topology” of the pedalboard (it could well look like Guitarix or other “stack based” plugin hosts).
Don’t know you, but I find having to keep zooming in and out in the regular interface and opening and closing the parameter view of plugins to edit them to be fairly tedious. There are some tasks that work better in a pedalboard like view, such as patching up plugins with cables, while other work much better on a rack like view, such as parameter adjust, midi learn and control/parameter pairing.
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To be honest, I am not sure if we defined the problem closely enough to be solved. Do we want to show where the clipping is generated or where it is received? Imagine a pedalboard with three pedals: 1 source, 2 receivers and only one of the two receiving ones clips? Each pedal would need to define when the clipping begins, which is not only subjective but would also require adaptations in the plugins themselvs. For these reasons, I think that @Gino is on the right track, we need meters for each cable.
Automatic on/off for loud input signals is not really my cup of tea. I’d like to be able to turn it off and for that a button would be needed anyway. But what about calling it a “debug” button and showing even more information usually not necessary? Wouln’t that help everybody?
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Thanks. One advantage to this idea is that it completely circumvents the need for the plugin developers to do anything. The Dwarf itself will deal with it. However, I must stress the need for level controls as well as meters. Everyone here seems intensely focused on meters. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, it would be infuriating to know where and what the problem is if you don’t have the tools to do anything about it. Meters are completely POINTLESS without level controls. I’m not angry. I just feel like I really need to stress this.
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Well, but it’s a definite step forward nonetheless. At least you know where you must do something.
Let’s assume that connection X between plugin A and B warns you that there’s clipping. If plugin A has an output volume control you just need to adjust it and you do not need to insert a volume plugin. If it does not then you’ll insert a TinyGain there, or lower the gain of plugin A, or output from plugins before A, or whaterver you think it’s better.
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