Woodinblack

In a strange twist of irony, I just ordered something off the website and got a reciept straight away!

I have always wondered why people who don't have never had an issue with a company are really quick to deny the experience of people who did

I have a pi 3b, and an audio interface that is currently a synth player, and also a couple of other things that make synth stuff. What appeals about this is the pre-built hardware with most of the rough edges already taken out. I have loads of boards and homebrew stuff, but I don't want to gig those, I want something robust.

I think midi is doing ok I would also hazard a guess that most synths spend their lives in one room and never go on a stage.

True - I just missed out on the last one Juno had at £417, there don't appear to be any reasonable second hand ones around at the moment so I will sit on it for a bit and see if I forget about it in time (maybe will have a go at making an LDV2 plugin to see what it is about).

Yes, hence the conversations about the 3.5mm sockets not being great for midi above! I watched a few videos, most of them didn't have the leads but one of them did, so maybe at the start they came with them but they don't seem to now. Since then I have found out on midi.org that the 3.5mm socket *is* a midi standard these days.

Absolutely doesn't. I don't do the bookings, the singer and guitarist do that. I do all the PA and stuff. We talk on whatsapp mostly although not so bad ringing them as I know them. At home my wife does all phone related things. So no, it doesn't generally make anything difficult.

Because I absolutely can't stand talking on the phone and will do anything to avoid it. Which is why the internet is such a fantastic thing. I am sure you will find it is a lot more common than you realise. Its not really an issue, I don't expect anyone to cater to my problems, but if they don't I am happy to go elsewhere.

I have spares of pretty well everything anyway, but I haven't had any failures of any leads apart from mains and XLR leads in the last 300 gigs, so until I do they aren't going to cause me any worry.

If they can't do the deal online, get rid of the online part. Unless my life depends on it, I am not ringing anyone. I am still amazed that companies in the 21st century can't function online.

Yeh, I just bought a MVave pedal as I saw it (mine was £20, but same thing), as I have a use for it anyway, so that either works or I will stick one of the feathers I have around here (or pi 2080?) and use that. Just got to either pluck up the justifcation to get one, or find a used one cheap!

Was specifically refering to the midi ports here

Nope, if it dissapeared like that, it was almost certainly a scam. If it was sold elsewhere it would show as sold or removed.

I wouldn't even do that - I would just get a little jump adapter like this https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/195703379563, tie it to the pedalboard and connect the original to it

Honestly, I know it might seem odd, but there are some people in the audience who don't even care if the bass player is not standing up

So, Mod dwarf, I am interested in it at the moment. I see the reviews on youtube, some useful, some less so, I see the position of the company etc, but also see if the company go bad, I can run open source effects on it so I could write my own. What is the processing like on it, as in, how often do people get to 100% processing? I know it is hard to quantify these things, but if for instance I was running a stick through it, two channels independantly, one with a guitar amp, compressor, reverb, echo, eq - would I be pushing it or not? If I then added a synth or something? Just looking at what is the realistic level of work it could do - I did see on one of the videos they got to 100% Obviously I need to spend time justifying it to myself, they are pretty expensive, and even assuming I sold the HXFX, I would need a couple of hundred more for this and then have to source some more midi pedals too (unless I used the footpedals...)

Well, there is a 'standard' way of wiring a 3.5mm stereo jack for midi, but certainly all the devices I had that had mini jacks (such as the yamaha reface DX and widi interface) for midi came with an adapter. I doubt anyone cares that much about midi certifcation any more, especially with a lot of devices not bothering with midi, and using USB instead, which I am not a fan of, even though it is a handy 'as well'. Do the mod devices not come with one now - I watched a few videos on them yesterday and one of them certainly had the adapter in the box from new (although it seemed only one) Edit - now I have gone back and looked several of them dont, so not sure if it is a pre/post company collapse thing! edit 2 - looking through my leads I realise that the reface has a old mac serial type socket with midi leads that came with it, and the 3.5mm jacks came with the widi interace, the Novation circuit and the midi plus box.

Indeed, and in that case the Helix LT I had was perfect. However, the LT wasn't a replacement for everything I needed, and at that point it became too big. If it is a replacement for everything you need, that is good, but I needed a sample player, a vocal effect and a keyboard pedalboard, so it was too big and I got rid of it. Was it? It specifies the 5 pin DIN plug / sockets in the original MIDI specification 1.0, which I paid for a copy of in 1983. It said other sockets could be used.

Sit down. I did a gig after a knee replacement, just sat on a stool, stuff was carried to me and I had no problem with the gig.

I have never had any of that with pedalboard stuff, but certainly I have when they are loose. If they are bolted and cabletied to a pedalboard then i have never had any problem with the plug end - I really hate the wallwart power supplies, I think they have no place gigging, so I took mine apart and put in a metal box with an IEC lead. I have no problem with mini jacks if the cables are tied down but then i was never a really a fan of 5 pin dins (not that I have had problems with that). My synths run from my iPad from a 3.5mm jack (via an extension that is tied to my microphone stand. I have never had a lead issue on a gig apart from failing XLRs which are the ones that go across the floor. Normally singer related damage. I would agree, that power connector on Smanths box would give me anxiety - I would break that even without the crowd!

I spent a bit of time looking at it. It can and does take (and agrigate if required) midi sources in, and enables you to use full midi (it appears you could actually make a synth with it). WHether there is a compressor that uses the note on / off is probably doubtful as I doubt that many people have ever wanted to do that, but there are several open source plugins which would be easy enough to modify if you could do that, or find someone else to do it. I think for me it would be the ability to run things like that, off the beaten track, and also to make routings that weren't possible on any other multi-fx. Really it is an audio effects processor with jack sockets. The Mod Duo X has proper midi sockets if you need those (and CV and Gate, so more audio processing style) I got mine on ebay, I can't have leads coming out of the back of something straight, as that is where the people are at a gig, and some of them insist on getting pretty close.

Its coming with the new website!

Thats interesting - I didn't know about that, similar to some older projects but all in a box. Basically an audio processor with 2 channels in and out and you can do what you want in the middle. and its not too big (sadly not too many buttons either!). If I could also use that for sample playing (which it seems I could), that could be more useful to me than my current stomp, and also you can make your own pedals

The Spark 40. Did think of getting one of the small ones for moving around.

the original case is pretty good (assuming I had that one - it has the logo on it), or at least it does the job, holds everything and works. I am going to get rid of mine just basically because it is not something I get round to using very often. When I am practicing I tend to use my spark with headphones as it is by my chair, I already have a wireless that I use there anyway, so all it gives me is some (heavy) headphones, that doesn't have the same effects or software of the spark. If I traveled a lot, it would be great, but I really don't much so its not really worth it for me, I think I have only used them a couple of times in the last month or so.