Hey imtheslime - agreed that there are no guarantees with crowdfunding projects…but to be consistent with your username, Frank Zappa would have labelled this effort “Flakes”.
As a backer who has waited this long, I feel angry, dissapointed and sad.
For me putting the money for backing the project was difficult, I saved the money and backed the project expecting to get my hands on a promising open source unit with an open source community, even I had thought about buying an arduino kit to play with the platform (nowadays glad I didn’t do)
I have been patient and tried to believe in this project, also I kept telling me that units would come out, that it was a matter of time…
You have been selling units before all the funded units were rolled out and at the same time, you asked us for patience.
Now it seems that after all of this time, it won’t be possible.
Also by reading that the related sites are down doesn’t feel any good
How do you want us to feel about?
We the backers feel dissapointed about this and what we need is more than an apology or a promise.
Aswell I am not in position to put any kind of money, do not ask us for investing, some of us cannot afford that, some of us just believed in this project.
I feel discouraged.
5 Likes
So sorry to hear about the failure of this very promising project.
When I pledged I knew about the risks and was happy about the seemingly open updates about what was going on.
Today, five minutes past twelve I read parts of the story that were not revealed.
While I understand the reasons behind not talking about certain difficulties, this really is what leaves a bitter taste.
But then again this is inherent in the capitalistic market economy.
5 Likes
I would just like to point out to everyone that the Dwarf Kickstarter launched in February 2020. At that point, no one knew what the landscape of this planet would look like in 2.5 years. I had very intelligent people telling me that this covid-19 thing that was coming would blow over in a few weeks.
I would also like to point out that as disappointed as you may be, piling on the Mod team here isn’t productive or helpful to anyone. You’re pissed? I truly get that. Send a message to a friend to vent. You may not be getting your precious Kickstarter reward, but the people you are throwing all this negativity at are losing their jobs. No one is as gutted as them right now.
This totally sucks for everyone but let’s all try to get through this together with kindness.
28 Likes
Hi Gianfranco,
I’m sorry to read this. I’d like to be supportive but I can’t refrain from being bitter after remembering this delivery update (21st of June) :
https://forum.moddevices.com/t/dwarf-crowdfunding-delivery-update/7961
Well, there actually is a scenario where you do not fulfill the crowdfunding campaigns. It’s the one that is likely to happen. We can’t blame you for the problems of the world. I can even feel sorry for the employees of your company. But after seeing so much going wrong, why would we believe in some kind of miracle bringing you 500k€ ? You probably won’t get much from the people in this forum.
I just feel like we are given false hopes again. I’m pretty sure that it’s as hard for you to say as it is for us to swallow that the most patient and supportive backers are the ones who will be punished. But I really want to believe that this reboot story is not some communication bullshit delaying the inevitable truth.
Sorry for the hate you are getting. I don’t want to take part in this. Just bitter though.
12 Likes
Is it a possibility to turn closed source code open in the worst case? I’m referring to Dwarf’s firmware and plugins store.
8 Likes
I have to say that I am right there with the other Tier 3 backers. I was perfectly fine to wait, and wait, and wait, because I was assured that I would receive my unit. I didn’t want to be a burden, I wanted to help MOD by waiting- let them get higher profit from the retail units. But to literally scuttle the people that gave the most in patience and faith- screw the “founders edition”: just send me a damn Dwarf and pre load it with every pedal you have.
Here’s what irks me the most- that we were told that tier3 was SOOO important to you….yet here we are. I want my dwarf, send the box of parts and assembly instructions, I’ll build it myself. Keep your gray box.
5 Likes
This is very sad news!
I’ve always believed in the combination of the mod ecosystem. in particular the mixture of open source, audio and hardware represents a special unique selling point that should definitely be preserved!
I am happy to offer you my support in the area of data protection and compliance.
Thank you for your support so far.
Greetings from Heinsberg/Germany
Detlef
5 Likes
This guy here said it all days ago:
Very sad, indeed. Hope you guys find a way out. Probably by selling the technology altogether, because as you post @gianfranco, perhaps the main objection is the “open source” thing.
4 Likes
Thank you for your detailed, and surprisingly transparent, account of what went wrong. Thank you also for trying to fulfil the remaining Dwarf orders through the insolvency process. That is both the right thing to do and the most sensible thing to do, since the guitar pedal market works largely by word-of-mouth and it’s difficult to imagine a future for such a potentially interesting product that falls under the shadow of non-fulfillment.
Your investment partners have been short-sighted: Covid has been a golden era for pedal companies, with many products selling as many as they could manufacture, but supply chain shortages have admittedly been a factor in that. The success of the Poly Beebo shows that your approach was one that the market was interested in. More money at the right time would have seen MOD Devices now emerging with full order books and greater economies of scale. Timing is everything.
To those of us remorseful or resentful that was the most “faithful”, who agreed to wait until the third group, who are likely to suffer most from the collapse, I would just say that we’re also the people who gambled that we could get the nice limited edition livery: our patience wasn’t entirely altruistic. Before people get too angry with MOD here it’s worth remembering that we just lost the product; they lost a mature company that had already brought significant products to the marketplace.
Best wishes on salvaging something from insolvency and I will keep my fingers crossed that - however unlikely it currently seems - there will be a MOD Dwarf coming to me in the future.
15 Likes
This is a very sad news indeed, but I’ll hope for the best, and I’ll stand with the MOD’s open source community, 'cos I’m a great believer in the idea and I’m a big fan of Dwarf.
If I find a way to back you guys up financially, I will (due to sanctions we Russians have no apparent ways to make payments abroad, or the foreign banks would not accept the transfers - this is why I couldn’t buy the Dwarf from Thomann in the first place).
Thank you for what you’ve done so far!
You hang in there, this is not a good bye!
10 Likes
I totally agree with this. I think all of us software developers here and people who are interested should create a repository of open source plugins. Any takers?
12 Likes
I’m very disappointed that I may never see the Dwarf, having picked tier three delivery mainly because I hadn’t been playing gigs lately.
But the most disappointing thing to me is that what was the most promising form of the future of guitar pedals is possibly going to die out. A community-run ecosystem of open-source effects and schematics would be great, but I don’t see it gaining momentum without a commercial venture producing the hardware at a large scale.
It definitely felt like the company was too ambitious with its breadth of projects since the early days — instead of iteratively improving the Mod Duo and adding useful accessories (cough expression pedal cough), they switched gears to the Mod X, which itself had delays getting CV working. Coming up with a totally new Control Chain protocol for peripherals also seemed like maybe not the best use of resources. After shows I’d always get asked about the mysterious stomp box, and though I’d try to evangelize, the Mod Duo never felt like a product that was ready for or could appeal to a wider audience of musicians. Maybe focusing on the Duo and improving its user-friendliness could’ve propelled it further — if the reboot is successful, I’d encourage the team to stick to the plan of focusing on the Dwarf.
7 Likes
No. Accessing the UI via the browser works independently of anything.
The authentication to the cloud is currently failing, so no plugin downloads are possible at this moment, but we will patch this soon.
18 Likes
There are risks, granted. If the product failed, fair enough, but it’s tough to take when there are units being sold through retailers & some of us haven’t got anything.
2 Likes
I knew it from the beginning…it’s not right and fair anyway…I’m tier 3 you said things were going better, we trusted…
Nothing else to expect from Italian job…
There must be assurance on these businesses
This is good to hear Gianfranco - that was my main concern - the speed at which this functionality was taken down. Even though it is clear that the pedal will of course still function with whatever plugins have already been downloaded.
I’m really sorry to hear about this - it’s clear that you guys are very passionate about the project, and whilst I understand the upset by some on here who didn’t receive their unit (I was lucky to receive mine) people must understand about crowdfunding, you’re funding a startup company, you’re not directly purchasing a device - so there is a risk, you’re basically investing in their future.
I appreciate also that if the company was in administration, the shop would have to cease so that no transactions could take place - if the site comes back up could you please notify us on here so that we can grab any plugins that we might need?
I hope that you secure ongoing funding, I’m not in a financial position to support you much from here, but if it’s a case of a small fee to keep the website functionality running then I could consider helping with this.
I wish your team all the best, and hope that you can continue doing what you love. You have my support.
6 Likes
This is very sad news, not only for us backers, but also for all at MOD. 
I was aware of the risk when I backed the project, but was confident it would come together - nobody could foresee the pandemic and all it brought with it.
I sincerely hope that you can continue in some way, but I won’t be able to contibute financially.
I’m wishing you all the best!
Johannes
5 Likes
Good morning community
Thank you for the messages. Be it love or hate, I am glad we’re supporting each other or, at least, venting out our frustrations. I relate to both.
Some general comments and clarifications on what I can get from your feedback:
1 - We are not asking you for money.
As I wrote in the update, I have previously received messages from users who were interested to participate in our previous fundraisers. As this is an interesting moment for those with the appetite, I wanted to make sure there is a door for them to participate. If you are not the investor type, you can ignore that part of the update.
2 - MOD is not dead. It just smells funny.
(with apologies to @imtheslime and @midi.experiment for the Zappa-esque pun)
It is reassuring to see so many users stepping up to participate in a possible community undertaking of the platform.
Although I enjoy the idea and admire the attitude, I kindly ask you to hold on some more days. Until the very last chance is discarded, we are not going to throw out the towel. Furthermore, there is the legal status of insolvency that even prevent us from taking any decision on this right now.
That said, we will come up with solutions to release the system to the community once we have exhausted our chances to reboot.
Until there, we are focusing on the success of the reboot.
3 - The access to the plugins
The cut of the cloud server took us a bit by surprise. I will discuss with the team how we can patch this and follow up here in the forum.
Best wishes
Gianfranco, aka The MODFather
24 Likes