@LievenDV where in BE are you playing?
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17/2/2022
CC De Ster Willebroek
(Willebroek is situated somewhere between Antwerp and Brussels)
opening for RHEA
we start: 20:15
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@LievenDV if you or anyone else in the Forum are ever playing in Berlin, please let us know! Probably some of us would come and watch. Iām just talking with @jon about potentially creating a category for people to post their upcoming gigs as topics so people in the area could come and watch, see how they use their device and maybe even talk about it after the gig. We were thinking it could be a cool idea, what do you guys think?
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Weāre still a small community so chances would be small but IF the chance occurs, sure why not, Iād love to come and see others and vice versa.
The category could expand in scope and be about ālive performanceā in general?
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You can always save a preset on the plugin.
In standalone (without accessing the WebGUI) you can save snapshots of your pedalboards.
I think this is not supposed to happen. Does it happen with all files and file lengths? I guess it is a bug.
Cantā wait to read the next chapter! As always, pretty nice documentation you are doing here 
Thank you so much!
andā¦perhaps you can get someone to record a few videos (?)
@redcloud exactly!
YES!!
I would say that yes. As long as a MOD device is somehow involved - what may be easier or harder to checkā¦so take it as it is - anything would be welcome 
thanks for responding so quickly!
Pedalboard uploads, recordings, videoāsā¦ all to come in a few weeks when my music room is finally available 
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Chapter V: First live gig & next steps in vocal+guitar setup
Hi guys,
Hope you are here to enjoy a new episode in my Mod Dwarf journey.
Iām becoming more confident in setting up and using the Dwarf and it has already become the centerpiece of my setup. My other pedals are literally gathering dust; Wamplers and Strymons on a shelve. āGive them to meeeeā I hear you say. No! These pedals are great and in about 10 chapters, I want to be recreating those
I did my first live gig with the Dwarf and everything went great.
Boot up, set and forget and rock out!
My rig is getting smaller: Because of the easy of use I still used my TC Electronic polytune in front of the Dwarf. Those 2 with my Senheisser wireless in front and I had zero worries. I could switch to the Dwarf tuner one day but me having to sing, play and tune and provide an occasional bind text, I need absolute comfort. Together with my small Joyo Banta āZombieā amp (the most underestimated small amp for metal) and a lightweight Laney 2x12 cab, I was all set.
The noise cancelling made me ultra quiet between songs and during my binding texts
Next step will be using vocal effects via the Dwarf as well.
I made a recording but you can barely hear the Dwarf in action. it was in the back of the hall and I merely do some rhythm riffage while singing and having a lead guitarist. Iāll probably post it later if I EQād it a bit
Monday, In the rehearsal room, I expanded my āPoint Fiftyā (heavy metal) rig with an amp and cab that I can switch on/off. That way it can evolve to a pedalboard that can be used with a physical amp or go straight into the mixer.
I also set up my prototype pedalboard for Devilās Advocate (the solo gig with guitar and vocals)
Meanwhile, my trusty Lehle passive split with ground lift takes away the noise
I Managed to get my first usable solo pedal board going in our rehearsal room that combines vocal and guitar (clean, slight breakup, delay+light verb or just more verb). I never used compression on my live vocals but now it was easy to throw something in the chain. Had issues figuring out what to use though . āUse your earā yeah yeah I know that one but in a rehearsal and youāre singing yourself, that isnāt always easy to tell.
I recorded my dry signals with some songs so I can āre-ampā them through the Dwarf later.
Use a stereo recorder with guitar left and vocal right, thinking it will be easy to split up at home before putting it back into the Dwarf. Keep it it that way is probably the easiest, as I can route L and R to the separate guitar and vocal track anyway. A multitrack recorder would have been easy here.
++ Dwarf was reliable on my first live gig and itās noise cancelling gave me a lot of comfort on stage
++ Downsizing rig is happening
++ Solo rig came together
++ recorded dry signal when desigining my solo pedalboard. Now wish I recorder the gig dry signal too
Ā°Ā° When putting a compressor in the beginning of my vocal chain, I frankly had no idea what to go for.
ā miss a multitrack recorder plugin (already requested it because itās not the first time I missed it :D)
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@LievenDV Thanks for the report! I found myself in many points. I am also a singer, at the same time I play guitar or mandolin. If this is to succeed, everything has to be as automatic as possible. Even tapping the footswitch can be a challenge, doing three things at once is not easy! With the Dwarf, it works very well for me. I have also already done a small gig and a studio session and have had very good experiences.
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Once again, awesome report!
Super well written, independent and great feedback!
There are two things that make me really happy about this chapter:
1st - the MOD Dwarf had ānice behaviorā in a live situation. At the end that is the most important. In the studio or in the rehearsal room we can always mumble around and have virtually limitless time to fix issues. On a stage that doesnāt happen and our āfacesā are the ones being judgedā¦not the gear.
2nd - I can see that the negative our dubious points are starting to be super reduced. This is a bit more proudness that a good or bad thing, but I personally like to see that happening
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yeah I noticed I had little drawbacks or disappointments at this stage when I wrote this report.
The only noticeble things that slowed me down for a few seconds are little things in the GUI that are already being discussed. I think the Dwarf and I are on the same wavelength and I know exactly what to expect. Iām startig to notice where my own knowledge ends and where I need to expand. (like the compressors for live vocals etc).
The most joyous moments are the aha erlebnisses: things you can do with the Dwarf that you couldnāt before (at least, not with that ease). Like now it was recording in any stage of the chain. Otherwise you need to phisically split or worseā¦mic up the whole bunch 
. recording stuff that ācomes out of a speakerā (virtually) wiouth the fuss of mics, interfaces etc is bliss
@brummer I just learned that recorder is one of yours. love it!
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Chapter VI: Acoustic guitar and vocal
I never needed any attention or effort to get my vocal+acoustic sound right. My trusty Roland Street Cube has a usuable reverb for vocal and guitar and even though it has no real options, its parameters voicing are on point for what I want (and I am used to)
Of course, this use case needs to be tested on the Dwarf.
The first iteration is my pedalboard āAcoustic Singerā
discussed in this Pedalbord topic
Getting the guitar sound right was a easy.
The piezo pickup on my Fender Hellcat is an obvious piezo sound but I didnāt focus on shaping the sound for now. Setting the reverbs is playing with 2 verbs in parallel
I struggled for the vocal though. This is the moment I was confronted with the fact that there are no reverbs aimed at vocalists yet. I see an opportunity to contribute there. (as discussed in the pedalboard topic as well)
So, while playing I was still thinking the vocal reverb isnāt off but I kept playing because I had fun with the guitar. I NEED reverb, I can not stand the dry sound of my voice without reverb but getting it right is a challenge.
I noticed the built in noise supression kicks is too fast now.
For the high gain heavy metal sounds, itās perfect but itās not so convenient that I have to go into the deeper settings of the dwarf to alter the noise supression settings. Being able to switch that in pedal board level would be a win for me. I know I could use a plugin for noise supression but the handy thing is to have it off the board in a set and forget fashion
As a proof of concept the Dwarf passed the test again though.
If I see what amount of time I needed trying this for the first time, I can conclude that it is realistic to use the Dwarf for the acoustic guitar+vocal use case.
++ Guitar sound was achieved quickly
++ Had fun playing with a parallel reverb on guitar sound
++ Iām curious now to use all the in-house tools to start shaping the sound of that piezo sound
Ā° noticed the built in noise supression kicks is too fast now. control on pedal board lvl would help
ā no plugins aimed at vocalist with real USABLE settings that arenāt OTT
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Once again this is awesome stuff @LievenDV. Thank you so much for all the effort!
I honestly never really tried this on the MOD Dwarf (did it on the Duo and DuoX) and also didnāt try it since the system noise gate and compressors are available (so Iām basing my statement in a belief), but you can do this by saving different User Profiles on the settings of the device. So you can save one for your metal band and another for this project. Check here for more info.
Would this be what you are searching for?
All noted
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Chapter VII: Heavy metal vocal and guitar, all over PA
Last week I did my first rehearsal without an actual amp;
- Guitar through a chain of Metal tone and IR loaded in cab sim (no amp plugin )
- Basic vocal setup
- volume controles on both ends and then both signals to output 1 ā into the PA console.
Although it wasnāt an 100% optimal sound for guitars, it was very usable AND I had more definition in combo with our lead guitarist. I had a decent vocal sound with reverb thanks to my previous experience in Chapter VI.
This experience was a confirmation to continue persuing the vocal+guitar+PA (without physical amp) setup for the heavy metal band. Now itās tweaking time with amp settings etc.
++ I had a Hi-Fi experience with definition
++ the Dwarf is now one box where I managed both volumes (vocal and guitar). Where it is a gig with a sound engineer or not, I could choose to go from a āmergedā to a āseparatedā setup via a switch in the end of the chain.
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This one is a really short one, but straight to the point and still useful.
Iām curios to check and listen this pedalboard thou
Thank you once again @LievenDV for sharing your journey with all of us and publicly document it!
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Chapter VIII: The solo live gig and the rehearsal that followed
Sentiment of this chapter: I love this unit!
The Dwarf became my primary solo rig! (milestone!)
Iāve tweaked my board for solo gigs, vocal and acoustic/electric guitar
It is ābetaā since it has @brummer 's audio recorders on them
I routed my dry guitar and vocal to respectively L and R on the stereo recorder.
Then I did the same with a second recorder for the wet signal.
Next time, I need to construct something where I record on both with just one push of the button, so I donāt need to synch them
The gig went great, being able to control gains for both channels on the mod, I had all control.
I could turn off the vocal reverb in between songs
I did forget to press record though
ā¦So I did a rehearsal with this board a few days later
The long recorded file was 2.4GB long but man do I love this recorder plugin! No hassle with interfaces, just clean recordings in any stage of your chain you like.
I still need to tweak my second input to get the best vocal signal without having to amplify too much noise. Others prefer to use a seperate preamp but I want to keep this as simple as possible. Perhaps some presets in the config menu of the inputs could be an idea (low output guitar, high output guitar, dynamic vocal mic, amp micā¦) Just thinking out loud.
Thanks to this board and its recorder plugins, I could deliver some recordings to somebody who couldnāt make it to the event and it made her day (Her husband is a high risk patent after a lung transplant and she canāt come out much :/). No recording setup with a mic and position and that BS. just.press.record.
The tracks I re-recorded on the rehearsal to send to my colleague:
http://www.devilsadvocate.be/radio/
@brummer Iām still up for that multitrack recorder thing, this oculd be a cool project to try the graphical ideas James was pitching in the āplugin artworkā thread?
- 4 or 6 tracks,
- input gain per input,
- mappable button to arm (switch between play/record/off mode?)
- mappable button to record all armed tracks and play the ones in play mode (and loop perhaps)
once again thinking out loud ^^
I had my first bug with saving a preset though some other day. The pc it was attached to went to sleep a few times and after a while I wanted to save and I couldnāt. error in top right "bug, canāt saveā or something like that. lukily I only made small changes, no big deal.
the x42 parametric EQ has become my main EQ tool. It does just what I need and I map bass, mid and treble to the frequency, freq range and button that I like and presto. I would really like to save the settings of this EQ and have it deployed by default!
++ Brummers recorder is great! (clean sound, no hassle, long files, choose where to patch)
++ I now have an acoustic+sing board I like
++ The x42 Parametric EQ is a mighty workhorse
++ The Dwarf became my primary solo rig! (milestone!)
Ā°Ā° Need to figure out how to fire multiple recorders at once
Ā°Ā° I would still benefit from a multitrack recorder, for this use case but also to write 2 guitar tracks for the heavy metal band or to record vocal and guitar seperately as I did them synchronously now
Ā°Ā° plugin presets or ādefault settingsā would be handy for my EQ
Ā°Ā° the recorders should get out of beta!
ā Had one bug once and couldnāt save a preset, probably my fault
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Once again, thank you so much @LievenDV for such a in depth feedback.
It really made me happy to read this sentence immediately. I really feel it is honest and not biased by anything. You are really making all the work and checking every single detail to develop your opinion and feedback. You donāt hold yourself to point the weak points or things that you donāt personally like, but you also give emphasis to the good ones and I donāt feel you get into an unhealthy spiral either into the good or the bad point. You also try to understand the things and clearly understand that the device is not developed only to please your needs and likings, but the ones of a lot of people and a lot of use cases, so you understand that this turns certain things a bit harder than others.
And thatās exactly why it really made me happy to read that sentence and in bold
Into the real feedbackā¦
This is rather easy using CV plugins. But I guess at this point you already know how to do it (let me know if you donāt and if Iām clearly making a wrong assumption!)
This is also really nice to read! Regardless of the tools, the gigs should always go really nice and make us happy. If the Dwarf had a contributing behaviour on that, in the scope of this talk, thatās even better
On gigs, this kind of thing always happens. Better this way than something going wrong with the recording and bugging the Dwarf during your gig.
Maybe itās worth for us to consider moving it to stable soon Your and othersā feedback about the plugin will help us a lot on that!
Thatās a rather nice outcome. Itās always nice when technology can help us in this type of situation! I hope that he improves his condition soon and they can both go enjoy your concerts pretty soon! Maybe I would suggest they start with the acoustic gig and not the metal band 
just to keep things smooth
Thank you so much for sharing it with the community!
I like it
Were you still able to use the WebGUI at this stage? Wasnāt it just in cache? Most likely when the PC went to sleep, the USB ports also turned off and the device got disconnected. This is somehow a bug/feature of the OS from the computer, more than MOD (If that was the case).
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I could still use the GUI, just not the saving part. reconnected usb once again but to no avail. reset power to solve the issue
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ok. So that is weirder. Did happen multiple times?
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Only once, wasnāt able to reproduce so not alarming
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@LievenDV Have you tried running an IR cab loader at the beginning of your guitar signal chain? Iām primarily an electric guitar player, but in my experience, using an acoustic IR can add a lot of life to an otherwise sterile and quacky piezo sound. Provided that youāre able to find a good one, because some of them may sound bad with your specific guitar/pickup, but fortunately, thereās a good free resource out there: IR database - Acoustic IR
If the CPU allows, you can even add a relatively neutral sounding preamp (Alembic should do the trick) right after IR and youāll get an equivalent of something like Fishman Aura or NUX Optima Air that way, right inside your Dwarf patch.
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