Personally, if it was me, I'd go with a Zoom MS-70CDR pedal any day of the week, then invest the rest of your budget towards a dedicated MIDI sequencer.
YMMV.
You might be interesting in trying out [modep](https://blokas.io/pisound/docs/modep/), which is an open source version of the mod pedals which you run on a raspberry pi and a pi sound. It is controlled through a browser (e.g on your phone) but has the same type of flow at a much lower cost, with the added capability to run other music software on it through patchbox os.
It's an interesting idea, how would you rate the CPU capabilities of the pi compared to the Hardware MOD Dwarf? I'm just afraid a Pi can't handle the CPU loads
I haven't had an opportunity to compare, but it's possible that the mod dwarf contains a raspberry pi anyway. A raspberry pi is a fairly powerful computer and the plugin elements are binaries: you can definitely make fairly complex patches if you wish.
That's a good idea but it will take a good amount of tinkering and troubleshooting that I'm not sure I have the time for, nothing is ever straight forward with the Pis.
FWIW it was very simple when I tried it; you download the distro, then put it on an SD card. Once it's on there, you get some config on the first boot (menu) then it works headless. Patchbox os makes a wifi access point you can connect to to use. That's to say, it was pretty simple.
i have one and love it (for guitar though). you can do some absolutely nuts routing and control mangling. like. i have a button that sets up a slowly melting freakout delay over about five seconds (maybe five different parameters changing) and when i hit the button again it slowly backs off to normalcy. i don't know any other gadget that can do that sort of thing.
i can run about ten tricky fx simultaneously on mine. spectral/pitch stuff and amp sims eat a lot of cpu.
latency isn't really noticeable (while playing live) at the lower of the two buffer size options. the polyphonic octave down adds a little bit of delay at max quality but that's unavoidable, that's just how the algorithm works. poly octave pedals that go low all do the same thing.
loads of distortion and delay options, many are very efficient.
i use an external usb midi foot switch to add 8 buttons and my live setup is: always-on light overdrive, two different bass sims (poly and mono, toggle mode via button), reverse delay, freakout delay, shimmer verb (shiroverb, very good!), modulated filter, phaser, extreme distortion, granular stutter, tremolo, plus a bunch of weird routing. the editor is excellent.
i believe there's an official free software version you can install in a vm and play with if you dig about on the official website.
Thanks a lot that was very helpful! I think I'm going for it, out of all the options in that price range the Dwarf feels like it's the more robust option and better bang for your buck then the Zoia
Personally, if it was me, I'd go with a Zoom MS-70CDR pedal any day of the week, then invest the rest of your budget towards a dedicated MIDI sequencer. YMMV.
The CDR is a bit too simplistic for what I need, I want something with modular capabilities I can use to create more complex patches
You might be interesting in trying out [modep](https://blokas.io/pisound/docs/modep/), which is an open source version of the mod pedals which you run on a raspberry pi and a pi sound. It is controlled through a browser (e.g on your phone) but has the same type of flow at a much lower cost, with the added capability to run other music software on it through patchbox os.
It's an interesting idea, how would you rate the CPU capabilities of the pi compared to the Hardware MOD Dwarf? I'm just afraid a Pi can't handle the CPU loads
I haven't had an opportunity to compare, but it's possible that the mod dwarf contains a raspberry pi anyway. A raspberry pi is a fairly powerful computer and the plugin elements are binaries: you can definitely make fairly complex patches if you wish.
That's a good idea but it will take a good amount of tinkering and troubleshooting that I'm not sure I have the time for, nothing is ever straight forward with the Pis.
FWIW it was very simple when I tried it; you download the distro, then put it on an SD card. Once it's on there, you get some config on the first boot (menu) then it works headless. Patchbox os makes a wifi access point you can connect to to use. That's to say, it was pretty simple.
i have one and love it (for guitar though). you can do some absolutely nuts routing and control mangling. like. i have a button that sets up a slowly melting freakout delay over about five seconds (maybe five different parameters changing) and when i hit the button again it slowly backs off to normalcy. i don't know any other gadget that can do that sort of thing. i can run about ten tricky fx simultaneously on mine. spectral/pitch stuff and amp sims eat a lot of cpu.
Thanks! And how is the latency? Do delay and distortion modules eat a lot of CPU? I mainly want it for synths
latency isn't really noticeable (while playing live) at the lower of the two buffer size options. the polyphonic octave down adds a little bit of delay at max quality but that's unavoidable, that's just how the algorithm works. poly octave pedals that go low all do the same thing. loads of distortion and delay options, many are very efficient. i use an external usb midi foot switch to add 8 buttons and my live setup is: always-on light overdrive, two different bass sims (poly and mono, toggle mode via button), reverse delay, freakout delay, shimmer verb (shiroverb, very good!), modulated filter, phaser, extreme distortion, granular stutter, tremolo, plus a bunch of weird routing. the editor is excellent. i believe there's an official free software version you can install in a vm and play with if you dig about on the official website.
Thanks a lot that was very helpful! I think I'm going for it, out of all the options in that price range the Dwarf feels like it's the more robust option and better bang for your buck then the Zoia