Well, all I can imagine is that something else is causing those pops. I have never had a situation where I could hear something like a pop or click repeatably and could not see it in a waveform. Normalization isn’t going to affect something like that. If you want something that will show up “missing sample” (e.g. XRUN) clicks really well, just use a 220 Hz sine wave. It doesn’t have much in the way of harmonics so any discontinuity really leaps out. It’s also super easy for other people to do the exact same test (more or less).
I must admit it freaks me out a little bit that the other guy says his unit has these exact same types of pops.
I removed any ‘gain’ type plug-ins from my pedalboards, unplugged the USB, and was 100% successful in eliminating the pops. I still rarely get very faint noises that sound like a flame being doused out with water (kind of like a ‘phhhsssssst’ noise) when playing my guitar hard. My bass has no issues now, which is great. Still would like a limiter at some point at the end of the chain, but very very happy with the Dwarf now.
I suppose the mixer is classed as a “visual plugin” so maybe that has something to do with it. When I made the recording of those pops, I had only unplugged the USB from the PC side, not the Dwarf side… that seems like such a small thing, but maybe it contributed. It would suck to have to remove gain plugins or not be able to use the mixer (or not be able to really use the Dwarf while the web GUI is active).
Agree with you completely, and I hope the Mod team fixes this issue. For me, it’s not terrible to stop using the GUI while recording or just playing around, but I still want to tinker anytime, all the time! So hopefully we’ll see a fix at some point, as well as a restoration of the gain plugins.
Ok. The sequencers can be the source of the problem.
Do you have the issue with pedalboards without them?
No worries, even if that is required for a while, the developers are trying to find a way to solve that issue.
There’s a sort of workaround on the GUI side of things. That is to connect using bluetooth. Not the best in terms of speed etc. (although it depends on your Bluetooth dongle…I must say that I use it a lot and it’s not a huge deal the speed), but it helps you out especially for smaller tweaks on a pedalboard.
Dear all. I thought I would update you all on my experiences with mod devices noise. My problem was I was using the mod duo and them mod dwarf with the kemper stage, which resulted in a lot of background hum. As previously mentioned in my posts, I tried everything. Ultimately it turned out to be the issue with Kemper. I believe the reason is that Kemper does not have a true external effect stereo path. I tried hum busters, isolators, and also plugging into a plug with no ground pin. None of that worked.
If I plugged the mod dwarf directly into my audio interface (Antelope audio synergy core) - the noise stopped.
At that point I decided since I’ve been meaning to do this anyway (I really really wanted that stereo signal path) I purchased an AxeFxIII from Fractal Audio. I can attest that there is no noise with either the dwarf or the Duo going thru the AxeFxIII mark II - everything is quite. I am very happy with this - I really love the idea of virtual effect chains!
I’ve used my DuoX in quite a few countries and not had any trouble. The only significant noise issues I’ve had were about USB interference when connected to a Dell laptop. On my Mac there’s very slight interference, which disappears if I run the Mac on battery.
Perhaps worth having a couple of different power supplies with you in case one is susceptible to noise?
Cheers Steve. I actually ran the Dwarf through its paces at Ronnies last night. I had a great time with it, although without the isolator it was worse than useless. I guess I’ll just strap a couple on to the chassis so they never get seperated.
The Axe has one of the cleanest power supplies I’ve ever seen in an Audio device (thinking of the Axe FX I, but I assume it must have improved since.) It rivals Rivera on the tube arena and DV Mark on the solid state one.
Ditto.
Let’s face it, Axe is the mother ship. It’s what we want to be when we grow up. That being said, if you look at their long and impressive list of artist endorsers, you will see not that many non-rock+ players. I good friend of mine got one to play jazz with, and he likes very much (Axe II). But the other day I played for him on my Duo X with clean sounds, and he was “whaaaaaaaat???”
@QuestionMarc I will definitely be experimenting with using Duo as the Amp / Cab sim instead of the one in AxeFx III. I have not done that yet, but I am very curious.
FWIW having tried most things that are currently on the market in this field, I found nothing that currently comes close to the signal path possibilities of the Duo/DuoX/Dwarf. You could do something similar in Ableton if you REALLY took your time, and the Eventide H9000 is in the same ball-park if you’ve got $$$$$$ and the rack space for it, but even with all the acknowledged fiddly-ness of the current Web GUI for patching pedals, the Duo environment is SO much faster than any other interface that I’ve tried for building complex signal paths and handling the switching and gain structuring between them. I found nothing in the Axe FX or Axe FX II that came close to what I needed them to do, and that’s without even factoring in the keys/samples/midi aspect of the DuoX or its portability (this level of control in a box this small???) - The fidelity of the Axe stuff was amazing, but in terms of the invitation to build original, bizarre, complex and beautiful sounds that took it away from really obvious sounds, it had nothing that I found useful.
So no, if you offered to swap my DuoX for an Axe FX… actually I’d say yes, sell the Axe FX and buy a couple of extra DuoXs for spare with the money
And in Logic’s environment (albeit cumbersome), Max, and others.
With Plogue Bidule I get many more audio and midi routing/patching possibilities plus all processing power and RAM available in my computer, which can be many times more than the Duo. (But that’s not the point, read on.)
100% agreed. I picked the MOD over other units because it’s also a synth and offers midi processing. Not to mention the very handy S/PDIF out into my RME that saves me 2 input channels.
More to the point, my comment on the Axe being the dream machine is more related to how good it sounds, how consistent their models are, how incredibly powerful and versatile it is since version 1, and also how roadworthy it is – the latter being an imperative for the mid- to high-stakes performing musician. It is a solid machine, very quiet and highly customisable.
That being said, I think you’re right when you say
That, coupled with the price tag, comes down to whether or not users can actually benefit form 300 models + 1000 effects + 6 outputs + whatever. Having those is certainly no evil, but I agree with you and @Digital_Larry that the appeal of most multi-effect units sort of fades if in the end you use very few of them and/or the lack of routing options limits what you can do with it.
The MOD is in different league: it is a portable computer that combines synths and effects that also allows you to build your own (via ~gen or coding them yourself). It may also become an audio interface and – who knows? – with file handling it can become a micro-DAW, whereby you can record loops and perform.
To me personally, set up a MOD at home/studio then go out to play with it alone instead of a pedalboard, and have also synths/drums to drive via midi is just priceless.
Also, what is to me the most underrated features of the MOD is that you can sum up two or more audio/midi lines by just dropping two cables into the same input. No need to add a “mixer” or some other patching object!!
That being said, the Axe FX is a monumental piece of hardware (I assume the Eventide too, but have not ever used one). It’s like our older brother – but older brothers can always learn from the younger ones!
I agree with you for the most part. The one place I see where Duo/Dwarf is not quite in the same league as the Axe Fx (iii in my case) is that there is a bit of latency introduced. Not a ton, I am going to guess somewhere around 2ms range, but this is enough where the amp / cab sim isn’t going to work for me. AxeFx iii has NO latency, even less then Kemper I would say.
Yes, you are right @dreamer. In that case it’s probably that Mod Dwarf has a much more perceptable latency, much more so then the AxeFx III. Maybe 5-8ms?
At the default 128 frames it should be ~2.6ms processing time
If you set the DSP to 256 frames this will double the latency (but more complex DSP will possibly run smoother)
