Can I also “branch” the input to the plugins, so that i can both pass the midi events thru to the next device in the chain and control the plugins in the Duo?
Of course.
The plugins are loaded in a modular environment, you can connect anything anywhere as long as the connection matches (audio to audio, midi to midi).
Using MOD as a MIDI arpeggiator, strummer, etc is something that already works today.
That’s quite cool!!! 
On a side note, is there a plugin in the Duo that would allow me to replicate the typical '80 random arpeggiator, a la Neverending Story, or Hungry Like The Wolf?
Reading this discussion about MIDI I came up with a question: is it possible to use a controller like the Line6 FBV Express MKii or any other controller that uses the same Control Chain cable of the MOD? The peripheral are open to this options?
Thanks.
I’m also interested in using my Line6 FBV Express MKii with the MOD Duo. Some time ago I changed the FBV’s settings to work as a “normal” MIDI device and for Guitar Rig (Windows) it worked fine.
I connected it via USB to the MOD Duo, all LEDs lit, but “MIDI learn” seems not to work… anyhow nothing happened when I chose this option.
I did some hacks for Music Tech Fest this weekend - PS3, PS4 and Guitar Hero joysticks were working as MIDI devices (notes & cc).
Very soon I’ll incorporate the hacks into the official MOD system.
I guess adding support for those special devices in MOD can happen trough that project.
Not sure if you know how to code or not, but if you do you can try it yourself.
The code I made is at https://github.com/falkTX/nooice
After the main MOD stuff is complete, I’ll see if I can make more special devices work.
2 Likes
Note that is NOT a “Control Chain” port on that device. They use the same jack (RJ45) but its speaking an entirely different language that only line6 amps speak. Many many devices use that same kind of connector. None of them speak MOD’s Control Chain protocol.
To use it with mod you’ll have to use a USB connection. The FBV might not be class compliant, but I’d be surprised if it’s not. Not sure why 120dBRockNRoll had issues, but that’s one possibility. I’m not sure how midi learn is supposed to work on mod.
Did you add it using “Add MIDI device” option on the GUI ?
Thanks, gianfranco! I failed to see the “Add MIDI device” option, now “MIDI learn” with the FBV connected via USB works fine
2 Likes
Joining the discussion a little late and I will try not to repeat what has already been said. In short, I am a current MOD Duo owner a the single thing that prevents the MOD for being truly useful for me: the pedalboard switching lag is unacceptable for live performance, board-wide presets do not yet exist, and having >10 parallel audio paths just to change a single parameter in an effect quickly explodes CPU-wise.
I recently bought a standard MIDI foot controller (FCB1010) which has 10 footswitches and two expression pedals. It seemed like it should give me a lot of flexibility as far as reconfiguring a single pedal-board using a single button press. However, if I have a pedalboard with ~10 effects, I cannot assign a single button to send a control message for each and every parameter on the board (limitation of this controller).
I see two simple (relatively-speaking) ways of getting out of this situation:
- Implementing the board-wide presets feature and allowing immediate switching between presets using control-change / program change messages. One critical thing to remember is to include the bypass switch of pedals in these presets - they seem to not be included in the per-pedal presets.
- Implementing some MIDI plugin that allows translating a single program/control change message into an arbitrary sequence of control change messages. I filed a bug requesting this: https://github.com/moddevices/mod-duo-issues/issues/54.
As far as visual feedback, if one of the MOD screens displayed the value of the currently selected preset, it would help, but as others have pointed out, we’re not going to do any paging during playing, and switching pedalboards within a bank between songs using the on-board buttons is perfectly acceptable.
Another problem I encountered is that I couldn’t figure out a way to explicitly assign a controller number to a parameter. “MIDI learn” sort of breaks when you have a single footswitch sending multiple control messages in sequence.
Last, some people might prefer individual footswitches on their controller to control the bypass of individual pedals on the board. This should be made possible too, again by having an ability to map a single control / program change into a “toggle”.
I cannot emphasize enough how much more valuable it would make the MOD for me. In fact, while there are definitely other things that can be improved, if I was given only one thing to request changing in the MOD it would be this. All the rest is nice-to-have at this point, simply because you’ve already done a pretty great job in all the other areas.
Thanks for being open to feedback!
1 Like
Hi there, welcome to the forum!
Let’s see…
-
‘Pedalboard presets’ is something we have in the plans.
It’s definitely coming. Probably not for v1.0, but shortly after. -
Although a MIDI plugin that transforms messages is already possible today, we cannot use it for MIDI learn/CC handling. The hw MIDI inputs are connected directly to the mod-host without going through any plugins.
Regarding pedalboard switching, very soon you’ll be able to use MIDI program messages.
It will navigate through the pedalboards within a bank, like we have in the hw controller right now, just using midi instead.
The 0.15.0 update allows to use MIDI CC to control toggle/bypass and trigger type parameters.
So you can set bypass/processing for a plugin now.
Thanks for the response.
(1) will likely solve the problem as long as:
- Presets can be selected via MIDI (currently doesn’t seem to be
supported for pedal presets). - We add an option to treat messages (e.g. note on/off or control
change) as drivers for binary / trigger parameters so that MIDI
footswitches can be mapped to control things like bypass, looper
start/stop/reset, etc.
However, (2) opens the door for pretty much anything, including supporting
different MIDI controllers, sequencing parameter changes, etc. By a very
cursory look at the code (forgive me if this is a stupid suggestion), it
seems like it should be possible (at the mod-host level) to connect plugins
between the “ttymidi:MIDI_in” and the “client:midi_in” ports for any sort
of MIDI pre-processing.
At the GUI level, there can be an additional MIDI-out jack, which is where
the MIDI messages that control parameters go.
Do it make sense? Do you see the merit? If this end up being supported, I
would be happy to take a stab at writing a plugin that manages MIDI-driven
presets.
I like the idea in general, but not sure if simply showing an extra port would be a good idea…
The input of mod-host (which is used for midi learn/cc) is automatically connected to any midi devices you add.
Exposing that port will expose the midi-hw connection too, which I think might confuse users.
I’ll ask what the other team members think about this…
Hi Gianfranco.
I´v been using the Mod Duo for a week, and I have a lot of things to ask/discuss/learn, but from now, the most important thing is: Control !! How to change effects, or pedalboards in live performances (as you mentioned above as “Pedalboard” and “Preset”). I´ll start from here, about A/B Switch box. The Switch itself, (A or B) cannot be mapped/controlled by “MIDI learn…” (MIDI CC), and that´s a huge limitation to make diffrent ways inside a Pedalboard. I know, a lot of plugins in a pedalboard, cause some CPU overload, but until now, at least for me, it´s the best way to change effects during live performances. As I mentioned, one option is change pedalboard from bank, but it´s complicated in live performances (at least for now, because the lag), but i´v been reading that the Mod Duo team is working on it. In diffrent solutions and ways to do that. Let´s wait, and of course, contribute with ideas and options.
Hi Mariva,
Currently I am working on a loop-switcher plugin (similar to the carl martin octaswitch), I feel like this could be the solution that you are looking for.
Keep an eye out on the forum for the release, working on the GUI as we speak. (might take a while since it requires a non-standard layout).
//Jesse
3 Likes
Hi @jesse.
That’s great news!
Yesterday I was working on a pedalboard and thinking exactly about that.
How nice would it be organizing groups of plugins into a switcher.
Rogerio
It’s great that you are excited about this plugin, would you mind checking out the forum post I just made, and making some suggestions for the features that it should include?
//Jesse
1 Like
Hi jesseverhage !!
Really good news !! Thank you !!!
I saw your post about it, and asap I will give my answers and sugestions !!
Really thank´s for the great news !!
Hi all !
Juist wondering if the ‘load pedalboard using midi’ was ever implemented?
I’m using forscore on my iPad for my scores, and it is able to send à configurable midi (typically PC) Message to any device (in this case my MOD) when i open a specific score.
Since i typically only use 1 or 2 fx pedals per song i’m ok with the 2 built-in switches. However, i do have 1 pedalboard per song so if i could use my iPad to load the correct pedalboard that would be fantastic!
Grtz
Thijs
1 Like