MOD is at a crossroads - and needs your input

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#106

Hi,
I’m sorry to hear that @gianfranco , from a fellow Italian I know how difficult it is to create a profitable company in Italy.

My considerations:

  • concentrate on the software side and develop a subscription model/marketplace for the plugins: the base platform maybe should be free but you get money from your plugins and a fee from other developers plugins if they decide to sell them.
  • open source: inventivize people to write plugin, create blog post, YouTube video to expand the number of programmers that can contribute to the project(and sell plugins on the marketplace)
  • develop collaborations with other pedal makers/plugin manufacturer
  • hardware: is too costly for a small company concentrate on some DIY style kits. people that like this project are probably already tech savvy and involved with rpi/similar boards. I suggest you to find an x86 based board (to not recompile stuff) and develop and sell an io card , and a kit with the enclosure. Sell those as a diy kit. And use other kits already supported if there are already.
  • leave Italy and start your business again where you can get more financial support and less taxes
1 Like
#107

And that’s something I’ve yet to achieve. I’m pretty much a “traditionalist” in that regard - looking for that BB King “Live at the Regal” or EC “Crossroads” sound t the click of a footswitch.

1 Like
#108

Well, getting to dial exactly a pure analog classic tone with modern digital equipment will always leave something to be desired, I’m afraid.

But I’m sure that with the right combination of plugins in Mod you can get pretty close.

The problem is trying all and every combination of amp, preamp, tube, cab, ir, reverb… and we get back to the point of my post.

2 Likes
#109

I’ll use this as a mantra :slight_smile:

8 Likes
#110

And market the same thing as eval board, test kit, and barebone set for building a rack-mounting unit.

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#111

MOD Devices GmbH is/was based in Berlin, Germany. This is where the majority of the (old) team still resides afaict.

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#112

Hi @falkTX,

I was expecting your take about this at some point. Thanks for reminding us your priorities in development. After reading some posts suggesting to go proprieritary at the OS level, I thought that beside being unrealistic regarding open source licenses, they hadn’t heard about your story and your contribution to the Linux audio community so I’m glad everybody can, at least, read your position as MOD’s lead software developer.

Furthermore, I think MOD might have missed something in the niche of Linux musicians. Because I’m pretty sure most of them know your name or, at least, some of your work in the KXStudio project like Carla.

9 Likes
#113

Personally, being a KXStudio and Carla user long before I found out about MOD Devices, I confirm that seeing the name “falkTX” in the main developers was a great push in supporting the project.

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#114

100% agreed. Especially the space for MOD endorsed pedalboards.

Also I’ve never really understood the limitation with being able to use the same actuator for more than one parameter. But at least this can be addressed via loopback.

Regarding pulling virtual cables, I once proposed the ability to insert a new plugin between two connected ones by being able to drag/drop it onto the connecting cable. It’s a small thing but would have improved the UX by saving the painful task of disconnecting/reconnecting. A Undo/Redo stack could have beeen nice too. Especially since a given pedalboard’s state is not something big to store. And it can even be diffed/version-controlled somehow.

Regarding wireless connection at reasonable speed, the Wifi dongle is a working approach, but configuration of it should be easy and accessible from the UI when connected via USB. I guess Bluetooth speed should be enough however if there was a dedicated app available. It would have all the skins/graphics etc already available on the phone and the data sent through the BT link would just be the logic description of the pedalboard (a bit of compressed json).

Indeed, a mobile version of the UI is a must.

7 Likes
#115

I’m happy that I made a point that seems to be interesting. I hope it to be considered constructive criticism that can lead to better understanding of the shortcomings of the venture and spark ideas for the future.

I’m still convinced that most of the platform is powerful and impressive as it is. What it needs - really needs - is a “newbie user friendly wrapper layer” for new buyers and less skilled users to get full benefits of the device in short time.

Imagine a new GUI (or more than one), parallel to the one we already have, where you can build simpler pedalboard for specialized use, with lesser (informed) choices, which covers the basis use cases that in the end satisfy the needs of the majority of potential buyers.

For example a “Guitarist Pedalboard Builder Wizard” where you can choose 1 preamp of the many installed, 1 distortion pedal, 1 modulation/chorus, 1 delay/echo, 1 cabinet, with each choice automatically connected under the hood so that you can prototype your rig while you create it.

The pedalboard you create this way, at the end, it’s absolutely no different from any other you would create with the regular GUI. In fact you could create it with that (or open it later for advanced editing). Only that it’s simpler this way.

I don’t think it’s science fiction. After all is more or less how other music apps like DepLike or the “user interfaces”, if we want to call them that way, of '90s rackmount guitar processors like the G-Major.

It does not require to rewrite or reengineer anything of what is already existing, since it’s just another way of piloting the (I guess) existing APIs to manipulate pedalboards and plugins stored in the DB, and could well be an android native or WebApp application if said API could be accessed through Bluetooth.

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#116

Ditto, that’s #2 in my personal list of “unexplainable design mistakes that were detrimental to MOD”. Only beaten by the fact that you can not reassign an actuator unless you remember what is currently assigned and you go to that parameter to clear the assignation before.

In any case a workaround is not a solution.

Agree. Since moving a parameter can happen by mistake, a simple “compare” button to temporarily recall the last saved state to check the progresses against what was before would have been nice.

Exactly what I think. Even on a tablet or a PC browser, having all graphic elements completely decoupled from the pedalboard engine backend would wave a much better design choice. The backend should only relay business data through BT to the frontend device, and all graphics and other heavy payload should be in the scope of the frontend control device.

4 Likes
#117

I guess that mobile UI accessibility is quite a good topic to raise.

MDX feels great while I sit at home, but in the rare cases when I go with my MDX somewhere - I have to take laptop with me, as otherwise I would not be able to do any changes if required in mobile.

Like it is not “complete” without an external device to configure pedalboard, not self contained. Luckily, these days everyone has a phone, so phone client/app should solve that. In theory.

Bluetooth dongles mostly do not work (v5 seems do not work at all, probably due to old kernel/bluez stack), and are too slow anyway, because all the graphics are quite huge to load via bluetooth.

Also I’ve tried wifi path.
I probably go into category of “advanced” users from the tech side,
and that allowed me to defeat my wifi dongle issue. But even with a working dongle it is still quite tricky to connect to the web interface from my phone via phone’s wifi AP, and termux console commands to determine the MDX ip address. That’s very far from being user-friendly. Like light years far.

And all of these just to find out that UI is not touch-friendly at all. As result I still would prefer to take laptop with me, even while I do not like additional weight.

I would not expect non-tech users to be able to connect wirelessly from tablets or phones currently, but if even they will manage to do that, it is no way convenient to use.

If goal is targeting to the mass market - it is something to fix, imho.

Simplified lightweight UI suitable for touch control and possibility to buy a reliably working compatible dongle somewhere - will do, I guess.

2 Likes
#118

Discovering the unit’s address on the wifi network can be done via the Service Browser App on Android. the main problem is that when you are out and about with your unit, you need to hook it on your phone integrated wifi server (tethering). And you need to have SSID and Key all set on the unit for that. Or have the local Wifi details far in advance to be able to add them to the unit. It is not practical.

#119

Thank you for all you and the team have done so far. Seriously you should not neglect you family - they grow so fast! Don’t miss out.

Like, you I feel it should be possible to provide a great product based on open source. But no examples come to mind from my limited experience. The tension is clear, for example we cannot load the our own moded version of the core - that would break the commerce store… And Collectives I know of provide services not products, Anyway some thoughts, if not answers.

In general business models need to be kept separate from community management. Or else issues arrive such as one community member taking over.

Previously computer box shippers realised they needed software so supported OSS communities which helped them commoditised the code as a non core business asset. However, Sun seemed to get confused and wanted to be both hardware and software (Solaris) and support OSS. They are no more.

Raspberry do sell hardware and support the OSS software they need. Can you learn from Ebon and team? They do have a foundation but they are not easy to setup and run.

Most OS active projects are by developers for developer users. There are a few software “products” for less technical users- eg MuseScore, Libre Office, Web browsers, Inkscape etc. Projects Like React seem to gain traction due to being initiated by massive companies like Facebook. No help for MOD :frowning:

The common hardware product business use of OSS seems to be to use pre-existing projects as part of their proprietary stack. Eg Routers. how many do more that provide notices of use in and engage in the community.

So two possiblities occur to me, broadly as you mention

1 Become OSS community leaders providing a platform that can be used on a variety of hardware solutions from other manufacturers. The problem being how many hardware platforms are suitable and open enough? And funding an OSS project is not straight forward, even if key developers come from one company.

2 ship boxes as a business that contributes to a separate OSS platform that you are an active member of. Pick a USP like high quality hardware for musicians and that complements homebrew RaspberryPi like solutions for hackers. The risk is of course the community doesn’t get going or decides to go in a direction that doesn’t support the business.

Sorry I’ve no clear concept of a way forward. I love what you are trying and the platform is fantastic . It’s never easy being pioneers!

3 Likes
#120

Another issue is the limitation in number of controls, normally solved by plugging in a midi foot controller. The problem then becomes that it’s not easy to know the state of the controlled parameter. On the mod itself, you have the leds for that. But not on the Midi unit. It would have been great to be able to have that reflected on the MOD unit’s screens.

Also, I don’t know if the MIDI protocol allows to query the MIDI unit for it’s initial states : when I plug in my cheap controller, I need to tickle the rotary buttons to cause a midi message to be sent to the MOD in order for the current value on the know to be reflected by the plugin parameter.

1 Like
#121

I’ve tried multiple apps that where supposed to show connected devices, and every one of them failed for me. I do not recall if I tried this particular one, but to my understanding there is some kind of new security constraint on the newer android versions, that broke all these apps for me. Anyway, I have enough enthusiasm to try dozen of third party apps to find that IP address, and had found my ugly workaround for that, but you cannot suggest these third party crutches for the wide audience. People will just decide that they have more interesting things to do much earlier.

#122

this one is simply using the mDNS protocol to find what services are advertised on the network. And shows the details.

#123

This is also how mobile apps like Bias FX do this. There is not as much flexibility in connecting pedals / components, but maybe a “simple mode” could allow this kind of insertion / modification without too many clicks and using mainly drag and drop.

A mobile application would be great, but given the current state of development resources not really realistic. Still, as the API is kind of open, some industrious indy developer could start building something and publish this as a nice add-on.

3 Likes
#124

I totally agree. As a software developer I’ve picked an acoustic instrument to maximise right brain use and minimise getting all left brained as soon as I touch a mouse :slight_smile:

#125

it’s more though - red hat are system integrators, providing many value-add services based on the OSS software they contribute to.