MOD Device (Dwarf/Duo/Duo X) owners' club - Tips, Ideas & Patches

[SamIAm]

I've just updated the first post of this thread with a rather cool video of the Dwarf, where "All of the backing instruments and the guitar tones were generated from the MOD Dwarf -at the same time."!

Sam x

 

Edited December 31, 2023 by SamIAm

[tauzero]

I'd like to have a go at building a Pi-Stomp. V2 kits are all gone (and they don't appear to sell just the PCB) but V3 (including Pi5 support for @SamIAm) is coming in a couple of months: https://www.treefallsound.com/2023/11/28/v3-is-coming/

[rwillett]

That looks very interesting. I happen to have a a spare pi 5 at the moment as well. 

[Woodinblack]

Does look interesting. Will keep an eye on that, will see how the repair of my dwarf goes, although at the moment I don't feel positive, and maybe I will have a look myself.

[MrDinsdale]

3 hours ago, Woodinblack said:

Does look interesting. Will keep an eye on that, will see how the repair of my dwarf goes, although at the moment I don't feel positive, and maybe I will have a look myself.

Have you heard back from BassDirect?

[SamIAm]

6 hours ago, tauzero said:

I'd like to have a go at building a Pi-Stomp. V2 kits are all gone (and they don't appear to sell just the PCB) but V3 (including Pi5 support for @SamIAm) is coming in a couple of months: https://www.treefallsound.com/2023/11/28/v3-is-coming/

AWESOME!

Sam x

[Woodinblack]

3 hours ago, MrDinsdale said:

Have you heard back from BassDirect?

 

Yes, today, I will just send it to them and they will send it to Mod in germany, so I guess I won't see it for a while

 

[SamIAm]

5 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

 

Yes, today, I will just send it to them and they will send it to Mod in germany, so I guess I won't see it for a while

 

Hope they can sort it quickly for you!

As you mentioned, I'd definitely sort a similar issue myself, but my Dwarf is no longer under warranty.

Sam x

Edited January 2 by SamIAm

[Woodinblack]

Yes, I would try to sort it out myself if it was out of warranty, but it doesn't make any sense to do it while it is. Turns out we don't have too many gigs at the start of the year anyway, so hopefully will survive without it. And I do have some Zoom pedals I can dig out, just the key effects that are the tricky bit.

[SamIAm]

Some videos I've come across recently to share the power of the Dwarf!  As you may have realised, I'm a huge fan ... are there any other audio processors that support effects, audio playback, synth generation, neural modelling and IRs all with multiple (Unlimited!?)  pathways/chains?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sam x

 

Edited January 11 by SamIAm

[MrDinsdale]

It’s an excellent unit, really need to find more time for a play.

 

Think I’m gonna have to rearrange some pedals to make a slimmed down gig board without all the extra toys. Think I’ll use it as an opportunity to set up the Dwarf with some of the drives and stuff that don’t make the cut to experiment with. Maybe try some more modelling.

 

It’s a great product, just a shame they don’t have more funding to take it to the next level. 

[SamIAm]

51 minutes ago, MrDinsdale said:

It’s an excellent unit, really need to find more time for a play.

 

Think I’m gonna have to rearrange some pedals to make a slimmed down gig board without all the extra toys. Think I’ll use it as an opportunity to set up the Dwarf with some of the drives and stuff that don’t make the cut to experiment with. Maybe try some more modelling.

 

It’s a great product, just a shame they don’t have more funding to take it to the next level. 

Nods!

I'm trading some PMs with the ModFather about OSS efforts ...

 

On a totally different tack, I recently got a MOTU M4 (Partly as a general powerful audio IO unit and partly to see if I can use it as the IO for a Pi5 based MOD based system)

 

I was very interested to see that when I plug it into my Dwarf, it comes up as an aduio device when I run

aplay -l

The MOD forum talks about some issues with getting such a setup working (Tho it works fine on the MOD Desktop App), the jack site describes how to aggregate audio devices ...  I wonder if something like this might give you those F/X send/returns you were playing with back in the day.

 

Haven't had a good try as at present I am banging my head (And it is VERY bruised) trying to build my first LV2 on a M1 Mac ...

 

Sam x

[MrDinsdale]

The big issue with adding send and returns is that latency very rapidly becomes an issue.

 

Using the 2nd channel as an FX loop doubles the latency, adding portal for reduced CPU practically doubles again to the point it’s pretty noticeable. Any more and I’d say it would be unusable, even given my fairly high tolerance for latency.

I think my GT1000 with both fx loops used still comes in at around 4-6ms, the Dwarf with a single fx loop and portals was hitting around 30+ I think.

[SamIAm]

19 minutes ago, MrDinsdale said:

The big issue with adding send and returns is that latency very rapidly becomes an issue.

 

Using the 2nd channel as an FX loop doubles the latency, adding portal for reduced CPU practically doubles again to the point it’s pretty noticeable. Any more and I’d say it would be unusable, even given my fairly high tolerance for latency.

I think my GT1000 with both fx loops used still comes in at around 4-6ms, the Dwarf with a single fx loop and portals was hitting around 30+ I think.

Oh my, that IS a huge latency!

I'm keen to see how latency is on a Pi5 MOD system, as the Pi5 is a lot more powerful than the Dwarf CPU and the RTL latency reports I can see for the MOTU M4 are v.low.

Sam x

[MrDinsdale]

I think the CPU would reduce the need for Portals which would help, I’d be curious how much of the latency comes from the software vs hardware for sure! Keep us posted!!!

[SamIAm]

Well, I've only gone and done it!

 

I've managed to build my very first LV2 plugin 

Done on my MacBook M1 running Sonoma 14.2.1

Built as an Apple Universal Image.

Runs a treat (Not that it does much!) in the MOD Desktop App for MacOS (Well worth a butchers if you've any interest in the MOD system https://github.com/moddevices/mod-app/releases/tag/0.0.5 can run on Linux/Win/MacOS).

 

I endured many of the videos by https://github.com/sjaehn/lv2tutorial#programming-lv2-plugins-from-scratch-i---getting-started

The backing music (And the audio effects) are ... painful, but he is very thorough (Apart from how to build, makefiles were birthed in Hell and are documented by the Illuminati!).

 

For any interested parties, details of how I did it can be found at https://forum.mod.audio/t/building-lv2-plugins-for-mod-desktop-app/10926/16?u=samiam

 

I've actually built two, the first in C, the second in C++.  Next to look at is one at a couple of MIDI based examples and then I might jump into building the plugin I really want to build for my Dwarf, a Drummer in a box plugin in the same space as the Beat Buddy.

 

Sam x

[MrDinsdale]

16 minutes ago, SamIAm said:

Well, I've only gone and done it!

 

I've managed to build my very first LV2 plugin 

Done on my MacBook M1 running Sonoma 14.2.1

Built as an Apple Universal Image.

Runs a treat (Not that it does much!) in the MOD Desktop App for MacOS (Well worth a butchers if you've any interest in the MOD system https://github.com/moddevices/mod-app/releases/tag/0.0.5 can run on Linux/Win/MacOS).

 

I endured many of the videos by https://github.com/sjaehn/lv2tutorial#programming-lv2-plugins-from-scratch-i---getting-started

The backing music (And the audio effects) are ... painful, but he is very thorough (Apart from how to build, makefiles were birthed in Hell and are documented by the Illuminati!).

 

For any interested parties, details of how I did it can be found at https://forum.mod.audio/t/building-lv2-plugins-for-mod-desktop-app/10926/16?u=samiam

 

I've actually built two, the first in C, the second in C++.  Next to look at is one at a couple of MIDI based examples and then I might jump into building the plugin I really want to build for my Dwarf, a Drummer in a box plugin in the same space as the Beat Buddy.

 

Sam x

Amazing work dude!!! 🙌🙌🙌

Edited January 13 by MrDinsdale

[rwillett]

21 minutes ago, SamIAm said:

Well, I've only gone and done it!

 

I've managed to build my very first LV2 plugin 

Done on my MacBook M1 running Sonoma 14.2.1

Built as an Apple Universal Image.

Runs a treat (Not that it does much!) in the MOD Desktop App for MacOS (Well worth a butchers if you've any interest in the MOD system https://github.com/moddevices/mod-app/releases/tag/0.0.5 can run on Linux/Win/MacOS).

 

I endured many of the videos by https://github.com/sjaehn/lv2tutorial#programming-lv2-plugins-from-scratch-i---getting-started

The backing music (And the audio effects) are ... painful, but he is very thorough (Apart from how to build, makefiles were birthed in Hell and are documented by the Illuminati!).

 

For any interested parties, details of how I did it can be found at https://forum.mod.audio/t/building-lv2-plugins-for-mod-desktop-app/10926/16?u=samiam

 

I've actually built two, the first in C, the second in C++.  Next to look at is one at a couple of MIDI based examples and then I might jump into building the plugin I really want to build for my Dwarf, a Drummer in a box plugin in the same space as the Beat Buddy.

 

Sam x

Well done. More than I managed. Be very interested in your drummer in a box. 
 

Makefiles are simple, this is how we used to build everything in Unix. They have a few small idiosyncrasies and the syntax is a teensy bit awkward, but it's easy to read and trivial to debug stuff (for some value of "easy" and "trivial"). 

 

Rob

 

 

[SamIAm]

On 13/01/2024 at 22:06, rwillett said:

Well done. More than I managed. Be very interested in your drummer in a box. 
 

Makefiles are simple, this is how we used to build everything in Unix. They have a few small idiosyncrasies and the syntax is a teensy bit awkward, but it's easy to read and trivial to debug stuff (for some value of "easy" and "trivial"). 

 

Rob

 

 

Cmake is what I'm trying and it is messing with my head!

Examples on the web are OK for a simple project, but trying to incoporate external libs (such as LV2) is tripping me up big time!

I'm sure it will 'give in' to my efforts, but at present it is like wading through treacle in the wintertime!

 

BTW the LV2 Drummer in a Box I am calling 'Animal!'

Sam x

[rwillett]

Love the name, "Animal".

 

So cmake is for generating makefiles. It's the preprocessor that generates the most god awful makefiles as it's all automatic. You want a Makefile thats 20,000 lines long, will compile every version of GCC on every version of processor the world has ever seen, in 97 differennt languages, have I got the system for you!

 

To be honest, cmake can be a massive PITA, actually cmake is a massive pain in the ars3. I am assuming that the build system for mod_dwarf uses cmake and so it's mandatory as it automatically brings in all the libraries you may ever want, apart from LV2, which is the one library you actually need.

 

is this your problem https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8774593/cmake-link-to-external-library?

 

This is a decent (but heavy duty) ref https://cmake.org/cmake/help/book/mastering-cmake/ As with most stuff in Unix, it assumes you know it all anyway and simply need to occassionally check something out.

 

Since I know you're not stupid, I would have thought you would have seen and discounted this https://forum.mod.audio/t/plugin-dev-writing-a-sequencer/6679

 

I can also see that people are now putting package managers on top of cmake to manage library dependencies because cmake isn't complicated and difficult enough, so lets put another layer of abstraction on top of this and try and abstract the whole build process away. We tried that in the 80's, learnt the lesson that it was mad and produced systems that were impossible for mere mortals to build and maintain without combining Feynmann and Einstein with a hint of Bohrs. Anyway back to the problem in hand.

 

Happy to help, not looked at cmake recently but could fire up a Linux VM to see if I can help that way. If you do need a Linux VM (for free, just to be clear) to try stuff out, let me know. I have a VMWare server sitting here with a load of disk and memory doing sweet FA. You can connect it and play to your hearts content. All Gb in and out as well so no messing around with paltry 100Mb connections.

 

I would hope that between us and the more recently technical aware here, we can get this fixed. Let me know.

Rob

[SamIAm]

Thanks Rob.

In a recent MOD forum thread about LV2 plugins templating, FalkTX suggested using CMake for it's cross platform support; I've an M1 system as well as a Pi5 and also a Intel Mac Mini and I thought this was a good way to go, but bugger me ... it is a steeper learning curve than LV2 itself!

Undaunted, I'm working my way through it following https://cgold.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

I'm able to make a simple HelloWorld style thing; it's the integration of using external libs, of course LV2 being key, that is giving me pain

 

Thank you for the VM offer, at present I've more CPU power than I need ... it is brain power/understanding that I need ... but IME the penny will eventually drop! lol

Sam x

[Woodinblack]

Cmake is made to remind people why they shouldn't use projects that use CMake! Hideous thing. Its a way of getting a lot of complication, and changing it so it is a different type of complication. 

 

[rwillett]

11 hours ago, SamIAm said:

Thanks Rob.

In a recent MOD forum thread about LV2 plugins templating, FalkTX suggested using CMake for it's cross platform support; I've an M1 system as well as a Pi5 and also a Intel Mac Mini and I thought this was a good way to go, but bugger me ... it is a steeper learning curve than LV2 itself!

Undaunted, I'm working my way through it following https://cgold.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

I'm able to make a simple HelloWorld style thing; it's the integration of using external libs, of course LV2 being key, that is giving me pain

 

Thank you for the VM offer, at present I've more CPU power than I need ... it is brain power/understanding that I need ... but IME the penny will eventually drop! lol

Sam x

 

I think cmake is more trouble than it's worth. Perhaps drop back to Make and makefiles and see if that works. Sometimes the extra effort of stuff like cmake to reduce effort for cross platform support is more than the additional effort of doing it manually. I used to build code for large, complex systems in the 80's and 90's that had to run on lots of different platforms, and we had less tools than we do today, but we understood how they worked then. Make is a bit awkward and basic, but it does work, we modified and built Unix kernals with it, so we know it can handle complexity.

 

I suspect there's enough brainpower in this thread to help if and when you want it.

Rob

[rwillett]

Have now found the time to look at my Mod Dwarf in a bit more detail. Have been rather distracted for the last few months. Had a hum that came from nowhere and it turns out I'd used a 5V 4A PSU rather than the right 12V 4A PSU. They looked the same and the plugs fitted. Yes I am an idiot.

 

Also downloaded Aida-X to have a play, I plugged a guitar in first, an 89 Korean Squier Telecaster, which I have to say I love as it plays a like a dream.Heresy I know but I ony have one life....

 

Worked out that you have to refresh the browser after uploading an IR <doh> and had a play. The patches sound great. The AMP Blues Deluxe is fantastic on my Tele.

 

So I thought I'd download some bass amps and have struggled to find many at all, any suggestions as I can't really find any. Perhaps they're hidden in a secret location known only to proper bass players, hence I'm excluded.

 

I also made the simple change to put the mod dwarf on my desk, and run a long USB cable to my Mac Mini to keep it permanently live. No more leaning over to try and fiddle with things. on the floor. Simple change, big impact.

 

Also has anybody tried driving it from a Raspberry Pi? If the USB to Ethernet works then it should work. I'll try that out later. Might be an interesting option or yet another rabbit hole to dive down. The reason fpr the Pi is that I'll move the guitar winder development to a Pi 5 and it's slightly easier cable management and its not much slower than my elderly Macbook Pro 2013 I still use. My kids have 2021 Macbook Air's for school, I have an 11 year old Macbook for sentimental reasons.

[MrDinsdale]

23 hours ago, rwillett said:

Have now found the time to look at my Mod Dwarf in a bit more detail. Have been rather distracted for the last few months. Had a hum that came from nowhere and it turns out I'd used a 5V 4A PSU rather than the right 12V 4A PSU. They looked the same and the plugs fitted. Yes I am an idiot.

 

Also downloaded Aida-X to have a play, I plugged a guitar in first, an 89 Korean Squier Telecaster, which I have to say I love as it plays a like a dream.Heresy I know but I ony have one life....

 

Worked out that you have to refresh the browser after uploading an IR <doh> and had a play. The patches sound great. The AMP Blues Deluxe is fantastic on my Tele.

 

So I thought I'd download some bass amps and have struggled to find many at all, any suggestions as I can't really find any. Perhaps they're hidden in a secret location known only to proper bass players, hence I'm excluded.

 

I also made the simple change to put the mod dwarf on my desk, and run a long USB cable to my Mac Mini to keep it permanently live. No more leaning over to try and fiddle with things. on the floor. Simple change, big impact.

 

Also has anybody tried driving it from a Raspberry Pi? If the USB to Ethernet works then it should work. I'll try that out later. Might be an interesting option or yet another rabbit hole to dive down. The reason fpr the Pi is that I'll move the guitar winder development to a Pi 5 and it's slightly easier cable management and its not much slower than my elderly Macbook Pro 2013 I still use. My kids have 2021 Macbook Air's for school, I have an 11 year old Macbook for sentimental reasons.

There’s a really nice GK700rb, I think I added a Capo model too.

 

I’ll see if I can do a capture of my new Shift Line Olympic preamp at some point.

 

I got some good results combining stuff like the Alembic preamp, a valve simulator and I’m sure a power amp emulator. It was far lighter on CPU than the AIDA models too.
 

I need to give the MOD Dwarf another play. I’m pretty good for drives and preamps etc so I don’t really need an all in one unit. It interests me more for reverb, delays and some slightly more experimental fx.