Say hello to the MOD Dwarf

mark_melvin · February 25, 2020, 2:38pm

Congratulations! The Kickstarter is on fire!

broupe · February 25, 2020, 4:30pm

€83,114 !! …after just a couple of hours; that´s great!
Goal clearly in sight…

the_unlord · February 26, 2020, 9:21am

100k is in!

bleo · February 26, 2020, 4:37pm

Congrats on reaching the goal already! I initially got one of the super earlybird slots but then switched to beta so I could get my hands on this a little sooner and also of course offer my beta testing experience! That being said, I also have much experience obnoxiously requesting features. Oh what’s that? You’d like an example? Well, Elektron just announced their new FM box, model:cycles, and the most exciting feature for me is…

OUT POL OUT Output polarity sets the polarity of the MIDI OUT port to accommodate the two different versions of 3.5 mm (Tip/Ring/Sleeve) to female 5 pin DIN cable wiring. The MIDI IN port accepts any polarity and does not need to be configured.
• STD Standard (“Type A”, Tip: current sink, Ring: current source, Sleeve: shield)
• INV Inverted (“Type B”, Tip: current source, Ring: current sink, Sleeve: shield)

Super handy for those of us who love to use trs cables to connect our Arturia/Novation gear that doesn’t follow the new standard (Korg) spec). This would be a great feature for the Dwarf!

lunardigs · February 26, 2020, 8:09pm

Hey, I don’t mean to be a buzzkill, but what about China? Where is the Dwarf going to be manufactured?
Thanks.

gianfranco · February 26, 2020, 8:35pm

Enclosure and metallic components in China

Electronics, assembly and QA in Germany.

shikawkee · February 26, 2020, 8:55pm

I switched to a BETA pledge so I guess that means one early bird open now…

gianfranco · February 26, 2020, 9:05pm

shikawkee · February 26, 2020, 10:03pm

I have some experience BETA’ing ARM devices so it should be fun.

lunardigs · February 26, 2020, 11:13pm

Thanks, Gianfranco. That makes sense.
Will you be able to acquire the parts needed in the short term?

Jacob_Singer · February 27, 2020, 1:17am

What an exciting launch on Kickstarter?!? Way to go MOD team. I currently use a Line 6 HX Effect as the hub of my pedalboard and am looking to connect that with the Dwarf. Will I have the ability to use the knobs on the HX Effect to adjust the parameters on the plugins on the Dwarf? Many of the modulation effects on the HX unit have multiple parameters that can be tweaked on the HXFX, but I’m new to MIDI and how controllers talk to multi-effect pedals. Thanks.

Sordel · February 27, 2020, 8:22am

I don’t have an HX Effects and can’t speak to the Dwarf Midi implementation, but the problem here is probably not how the Dwarf implements Midi In but the way the HXFX implements Midi Out. I’ve checked the HX FX manual (pp. 42-43) and the example that they give of “Parameter Control Via MIDI” is of changing parameters on the HX FX from an external controller. This makes me suspect that the HX FX is not well set up to use its own pots to control an external unit and you would be better off using some sort of dedicated Midi controller.

So it may be possible to do what you want but you may be going the long way round if all you want is more external controllers for the Dwarf.

gianfranco · February 27, 2020, 10:05am

Yes.

The Chinese factories are highly driven my momentum.

We’re now doing it in a way the way make the best out of the momentum.

The company doing the compute module - Firefly - is very friendly to Kickstarter because they funded one of their SBCs already there- and is already onboard with our development.

danimourinho · February 27, 2020, 11:49am

Thats a great concept!

csi · February 27, 2020, 12:05pm

I think this would extend the mod team’s workload about 400% (and also the predicted delivery date). So, perhaps for the next evolution?

eggsperde · March 2, 2020, 9:34pm

Congrats on the furious kickstarter! With the campaign doing so well, I was wondering whether you have some ideas for stretch goals already, @gianfranco ?

aspiers · March 2, 2020, 9:49pm

The two stretch goals are already listed on https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/modduo/mod-dwarf and the first one was already hit

gianfranco · March 2, 2020, 9:55pm

Yes, I do

As @aspiers already mentioned, two of them are already published and the first one is already reached.

I am using the same strategy for all of them: bringing plugins to the platform. This is actually a great opportunity for all of us.

The biggest hurdle for the commercial developers to come into the MOD platform is the risk that their hours invested on the porting effort will need to be recouped back very slowly as the plugin sales happen.

With the Kickstarter campaign I am managing to arrange deals where I can offer them an initial lump sum that pays off the porting effort and their sales after the campaign are basically profit.

Tomorrow we’ll announce the 175k€ stretch goal.

I am sure this one is going to drive you guys nuts

aspiers · March 2, 2020, 10:00pm

So exciting! @gianfranco I’m sure we’d all love to see more commercial developers come to the platform. After this Kickstarter is over, why not run more campaigns purely for crowd-funding more development?

In fact, you could even somewhat democratise the whole process by picking a platform on which users could propose and vote for new plugins they want to crowd-fund. Ditto for improvements to existing plugins, or even improvements to the core platform. For example, check out https://gitcoin.co/

gianfranco · March 2, 2020, 10:03pm

Thanks @aspiers

The idea is surely interesting. Let’s see how we can operationalise this. I believe that the biggest bonus that the Dwarf will bring is the major growth of the platform.

Once we have a bigger population, such ideas will be more and more feasible.