MOD Audio has launched new a collection of Convolution Reverb plugins and pedalboards for its MOD Dwarf platform, including a convolution engine capable of processing Impulse Response files up to 15 seconds.
The release includes two plugins free for all MOD device users: the MOD Convolution Loader, which allows musicians to use their own IR files, and the MOD Convolution Reverb, containing 33 high-quality IRs from different places and equipment. MOD Audio has also partnered with DoGood Sound, a premium IR and unique audio samples supplier, to release 12 new paid Reverb plugins with over 300 IRs sampled from different locations and iconic equipment.
MOD Audio has also released a collection of reverb pedalboards, featuring the new Convolution Reverb plugins as well as classic reverb sounds from the MOD platform, including Shiroverb and the DragonFly reverb suite. The boards are fully self-contained, designed for out-of-the-box playability, and make full use of the power of the MOD platform to add features ranging from Trails and Gated Verb to dynamic controls over the reverbs.
The new reverb boards are available for free for all MOD device owners.
“We’re thrilled to offer music creators a new level of control and creativity with our Convolution Reverb pedalboards,” said Gianfranco Ceccolini, CEO of MOD Audio. “Our partnership with DoGood Sound, combined with our powerful convolution engine, has allowed us to bring a new level of sound design to the market, and we’re excited to see what users will create with these tools.”
Pricing and Availability
The new plugins are priced between 15€ and 25€ each and can be purchased by device users via the remote web interface. See the MOD site for more information.
There are plenty of cab IR loaders (which deal with very short impulse responses– which amount to little more than imposing a high resolution EQ response curve onto a signal. However, long IR convolution (reverb, sound design, etc) in a pedal is much more rare. Poly effects sells a modular synth/FX pedal called Beebo ($450). Logidy used to sell a convolution pedal, but it is no longer in production. As far as I know, that is it.
I remember searching MOD fx “store” for convolution in the past, and coming up empty. It’s nice to see that they’ve included it. I think it is a very useful function to have, and it is kind of surprising to me how rare it is in the pedal world. Looks like the MOD Dwarf is retailing for between $400-500 (not including the extra you pay for each module). At that price, it is probably worth our while to compare the features with the Beebo– to see if that is a better choice.
If the beebo had a desktop GUI then it would be a bit more comparable, becaue it doesnt and everything is in that touchscrene, its more comparable to the Zoia. I’ve owned one and the only reason it didnt get much love is the touch intrface was horrible. Such a small screen, wonky touch and just wires and connection dont mix. I wanted to love it but just used an incredible amount of patience to set up a few presets and just stuck with those. But if i wanted to go deep, id either give up with my sausage fingers or the CPU would give out and glitch/crash which happened a few times needing a reboot. I think the Beebo could use some real stability work and less Mutable instruments and looper work, albeit, the MI addition is pretty great, but again, its modular but gets pretty cumbersome to work in its modular environment. I actually enjoyed patching the Mod Duo X.
Just spent some time on their website and will definitely be giving this more exploration… but from the initial info there this checks a lot of my boxes and at a good price point. Definitely intrigued.
Cool, I was original backer of this project on Kickstarter and I have still not received my unit after 2+ years, today I received a mail where they want additional payments else they could not guarantee that they will ever deliver it.
It’s kind of funny
20 years later the guitar world discovers convolution.
In fairness, guitar world has used short-format convolution (IR loaders) for part of those 2 decades. But yea. I had assumed it was because long-format (reverb) convolution requires more CPU muscle than can be gotten with a smaller, battery powered processor, but that can’t be right, after all, we’ve had reverb convolution on iOS for quite a while now. That EPSi seemed to work ok, I wonder why they abandoned it? Perhaps it’s file length limitation caused grumblings & support overload?
My dream rig would be a smallish pedal that runs TWO instances of AudioThing’s Fog Convolver 2- with maybe up to 30 seconds of stereo per instance. I’d also like it if the fade in & fade out curves were S curves by default (S curves aren’t available, but I do think they are best– that topic for another time). I suppose if Source Audio was to pull something like that off, it would be an insta-buy. They already have their reverb pedal, but I’m pretty picky.
Fractal has the best sounding reverbs for guitar, but as far as I know, their IR loaders are all short-format (cab IR).
Not quite 20 years ago there was this box…
https://www.premierguitar.com/logidy-unveils-the-epsi-convolution-reverb-stompbox
There is/was also a version of it that instead of longer reverb-IRs could load Cab-IRs.
So…not quite 20 years! 😉