What's New in 1.6.2
This guide covers firmware version 1.6.2. A new WAV player. Your presets carry over.
New in 1.6.1: copy files to and from the SD card over USB-C (see Connect to PC), and smoother SD card saves. New in 1.6.0, the facelift: an animated home screen, dials on the effect pages, a new MIC page with a full noise gate, volume and Effects Mix on the home screen knobs, startup animations and finer knobs. Prefer the old look? Settings > System > Interface: CLASSIC brings it back. Coming from 1.4.0? Firmware 1.5 also brought cleaner pitch shifting, samples that load several times faster, big files that play straight from the card, sample volume up to 200%, and on-screen reasons when a file will not load. All of it is covered in this guide.
Getting Started
Powering On
The VMod Pro operates on its built-in rechargeable 4000mAh lithium polymer battery, designed for extended portable use. When the battery needs charging, connect a USB-C cable to any standard USB power source.
Charging Requirements
The device requires a power adapter that provides at least 2A of current. The included 5V 2A USB-C charger is recommended. If you use a charger with less than 2A output, the device may not fully charge.
Charging Status LED
The encoder knob features an LED indicator that shows charging status:
While charging, a lightning bolt replaces the battery percentage in the display header.
SD Card
The VMod Pro stores presets, settings, and WAV samples on a micro SD card. Insert a card before powering on. A new card can be formatted from Settings > SD Card, which also creates the required folder structure. The card icon in the display header shows whether a card is detected. To copy files without taking the card out, see Connect to PC.
Connections
The VMod Pro has 1 input and 2 ⅛" TRS output connections.
| Port | Description |
|---|---|
| MIC | Connect your microphone here |
| PHONE | Headphone output. Use the "Vol" rotary wheel to control volume |
| LINE | Connect to an external amplified speaker |
Basic Controls
The VMod Pro uses an encoder wheel, two control knobs, and two physical buttons to navigate menus and adjust parameters. On the home screen the left knob sets the volume and the right knob sets Effects Mix. On an effect page the knobs set that effect's dials.
Button Controls
Both buttons are customizable. Out of the box they work as follows:
| Gesture | Default Action |
|---|---|
| Button 1 press | Mute or unmute the device (also moves the cursor up in the keyboard) |
| Button 1 hold | Open the MIC page from the home screen or an effect page. Hold again to go back home. Cannot be reassigned |
| Button 2 press | Cycle through saved presets (also moves the cursor down in the keyboard) |
| Button 2 hold | Save current settings to the active preset. Always available, cannot be reassigned |
| Both buttons press | None by default. Assignable |
| Both buttons hold (1 second) | Lock or unlock the controls |
See Custom Button Assignments to change what the short press and both-button gestures do.
Encoder Wheel
Rotate to navigate menus and highlight items. Press to select or confirm.
The Header
The top of every screen carries the same status row: the page title on the left, and on the right the card icon, the padlock when the controls are locked, and the battery level. On the home screen the title is the VMOD logo, and a voice line beside it moves while you talk.
Live Input Meter
On every other page, a live input meter runs directly beneath the status row and follows your microphone, so you can watch your level while you work. Set Mic Gain on the MIC page so the meter moves well across its width on your loudest phrases without pinning to the right.
Display Modes
Effects Overview (Home Screen)
This is your home screen: every effect and menu on a ring of animated icons. The icon in front plays its animation, and effects react to your voice. Rotate the encoder to glide the ring, then press to open the item in front. An effect that is switched off shows / OFF after its name, for example CHORUS / OFF. When you exit any section, the ring returns to that section's icon. The items are: MIC, Pitch Shift, Overdrive, Bitcrush, Ring Modulator, Chorus, Phaser, Flanger, Delay, Compressor, Reverb, EQ, Mixer, Presets, Settings, Visualizer, and WAV Player.
Volume and Effects Mix
On the home screen the left knob sets the volume and the right knob sets Effects Mix, the blend between your dry voice and the effects. Turning either one pops up a dial with its value. Like every knob, it takes over once it reaches the current value, so arriving on the home screen never makes the volume jump. While the device is muted the volume knob does nothing, so unmuting brings back the level you had.
Prefer the look of earlier firmware? Set Settings > System > Interface to CLASSIC.
Editing Effect Parameters
When you select an effect, you enter parameter editing mode. Each effect has one or more pages of settings, shown as dials and controlled by the two knobs, with a page indicator in the footer. On pages with two dials, a picture between them shows what the effect is doing: the compressor shows how much it is turning you down, and auto-tune shows the note you sing and the note it tunes to. Rotate the encoder past the last footer button to move to the next page. The last page of every effect is its Mix (wet/dry) control. The EQ is the exception: it opens onto its own full-screen editor, and its mix is set from the Mixer instead.
Knob Pickup
When you first enter an effect or load a preset, the knobs are inactive. Each dial shows the setting as a solid arc and your knob as a pointer on its edge. Until the knob reaches the setting, a small arrow marks where it needs to go. Turn the knob to it and the knob takes over. This prevents sudden jumps in your audio when switching between effects or presets.
The Bypass/Enable button appears in the footer of each effect's first page. Select BACK from the footer to return to the overview.
Visualizer
The visualizer displays real-time audio levels in a graphical format. Access it from the main screen. Turn the encoder to cycle through its five styles and press the encoder to exit.
The MIC Page
The MIC page holds everything about your input: Mic Gain, the mic type, the noise gate and the notch filter. Open MIC on the home screen, just left of Pitch, or hold Button 1 from the home screen or an effect page and hold it again to go back. It works like an effect: dials on five pages, turned with the encoder past the footer.
Page 1 - Mic
- Mic Gain: Adjusts input sensitivity
- STANDARD / OMNI: The mic type, switched from the footer. Choose OMNI for small omnidirectional mics such as lapel mics: less boom and less hiss
Pages 2 to 4 - Noise Gate
The gate turns your mic down between words, so background noise and speaker spill stay out. The footer on page 2 switches it on or off, and the picture shows your level against the threshold.
- Thresh: How loud your voice must be to open the gate, from -70 dB to -10 dB. Raise it if background noise gets through
- Range: How far a closed gate turns the mic down, from 0 dB to MUTE at the end of the knob. A partial range sounds more natural than a hard cut
- Attack: How fast the gate opens, from 0.1 to 50 ms
- Release: How fast it closes, from 20 ms to 2 seconds
- Hold: How long it stays open after you stop, up to 1 second, so word endings are not cut off
- Ignore Lows: Keeps low rumble from opening the gate, from OFF at the bottom of the knob up to 400 Hz
Presets made on earlier firmware keep the gate they always had.
Page 5 - Notch Filter
- Freq: The frequency to cut, from 20 Hz to 8000 Hz
- Q: The width of the cut, from 0.5 (wide) to 40 (very narrow)
- ON / OFF: Switches the notch on or off, from the footer
Using the Notch Filter
The notch filter removes one problem frequency, such as a feedback tone. When you hear feedback, switch the notch on, set Freq to the feedback tone, then narrow it with Q.
Effects
The VMod Pro features 11 audio effects that can be combined and re-ordered for unique voice characters.
Pitch Shift
Shifts the pitch of your voice up or down without changing speed. The pitch engine was rebuilt in 1.4.0 for lower latency and a cleaner sound, and now carries the tune and harmony features. It has six pages.
Pitch
Character
Movement
Tune
Chords
Mix
Other Effects
Every effect below ends with a Mix page that blends that effect with your dry signal, independent of the global Effects Mix, which the right knob sets on the home screen.
Overdrive
Adds grit and distortion to your voice.
Bitcrush
Creates a digital, lo-fi sound by reducing audio quality.
Ring Modulator
Creates metallic, robotic tones.
Chorus
Adds thickness and width to your voice.
Phaser
Creates a sweeping, whooshing sound.
Flanger
Produces a jet-like sweeping effect.
Delay
Creates echo effects.
Compressor
Evens out your level so quiet and loud words sit together. New in this firmware series.
Reverb
Adds room and space around your voice. New in 1.4.0.
EQ
A four-band parametric equalizer for shaping your voice, with the response curve drawn live on screen. New in 1.4.0.
The EQ has its own full-screen editor rather than the usual parameter pages. The upper half shows the curve you are creating; the lower half shows the four bands, each with its frequency, gain, and Q.
- Choose a band: rotate the encoder. The selected band's column is highlighted.
- Move a band: press the encoder to arm it, and small arrows appear either side of its frequency. Rotate to sweep that band anywhere from 20 Hz to 20 kHz, and press again to release it and go back to choosing bands. Turning faster sweeps faster.
- Knob 1, Gain: boosts or cuts the selected band by up to 15 dB either way.
- Knob 2, Q: sets how wide the band is, from 0.3 (broad and gentle) to 8 (narrow and surgical). Use a high Q to notch out a single problem frequency, a low Q for general tone shaping.
- ON/OFF and BACK are in the footer, as on every effect page.
EQ Mix
The EQ's wet/dry mix is set from the Mixer rather than from this screen.
Mixer and Effect Routing
Select Mixer from the home screen to balance and organize your effects.
- Each page shows two effects with their individual wet/dry mix level. Adjust levels with the two knobs.
- Each effect row has an EDIT button that jumps straight into that effect's parameter pages. The EQ row's EDIT opens its mix page; to shape the bands, open EQ from the home screen.
- The final page is Routing, the order your voice passes through the effects. Highlight an effect, press to grab it, rotate to move it through the chain, and press again to drop it.
The effect chain order is stored with each preset.
WAV Player
The WAV player plays sound files from the SD card alongside your voice. Place 16-bit WAV files, mono or stereo, in the /VMOD/samples/ folder on the card, then select WAV Player from the home screen to browse and preview them. Files in other bit depths, such as 24-bit or 32-bit float, are not supported. A file that will not load tells you why on screen, for example "Need 16-bit WAV" or "Rate must be 8-96kHz", so you can fix it rather than guess.
Sample rates from 8 to 96 kHz all play. 48 kHz plays untouched; anything else is converted as it plays. Names may be up to 31 characters including the .wav ending, and the player lists the first 32 files it finds in the folder.
Firmware 1.5
On-screen load reasons and playing large files straight from the card arrived in firmware 1.5.0. On earlier firmware an unsupported file fails without saying why, and a file too large for sample memory does not play at all. If your VMod Pro is on an older version, see Firmware Updates.
File Size
A preset holds 32 MB of samples in memory, which is about six minutes of mono audio at 48 kHz, or three minutes of stereo. That is shared by every sound that is ON in the preset.
A file too large to hold in memory is not refused. It streams from the SD card while it plays, loops seamlessly, and keeps going while you browse other screens or save a preset. Up to two files can stream at once, alongside your normal samples. Streaming needs the card running at full speed, so a card that has fallen back to the slow bus reports "SD bus too slow" instead.
The File List
The list shows every file in the folder, without the .wav ending. Files that are ON in the current preset show their trigger on the right. Each preset keeps its own sound setup, and a preset holds up to 8 sounds.
A File's Page
Press a file to open its page. It works like an effect page: the two knobs turn the dials, and the footer holds the buttons.
- VOLUME (left knob): playback level from 0 to 200%, adjustable live even while the sound plays. Above 100% it boosts a quiet recording over your voice
- DELAY (right knob, Audio Head and Audio Tail): how long after the trigger the sound plays, from 0 to 10 seconds in tenths of a second
- TIMING (right knob, Timer and Random): how long to wait between plays, from 1 to 60 seconds. Manual files have no right dial
- ON / OFF: ON adds the file to this preset and loads it, OFF takes it out and stops it. Opening a file's page does not add it
- Trigger: press to step through MANUAL, AUDIO HEAD, AUDIO TAIL, TIMER and RANDOM
- ONCE / LOOP: play once, or restart at the end
- BREAK / CLOCK (Timer and Random only): BREAK waits for a pause in your talking, CLOCK plays right on time. New files start on BREAK
- PLAY: hear the file, even one that is OFF. It reads STOP while the file plays
Between the dials the page shows what the trigger is doing: WAIT, the time left before the sound plays, or a bar while it plays.
Trigger Modes
Manual
Plays from a button gesture assigned to WAV PLAY or WAV NEXT, or from PLAY on the file's page.
Audio Head
Plays when you start talking, after its DELAY.
Audio Tail
Plays when you stop talking, after its DELAY. Stopping means about a second of quiet.
Timer
Plays again and again, waiting its TIMING between plays. Useful for ambient sounds.
Random
Like Timer, with a different wait each time: up to half the TIMING shorter or longer.
How Sounds Play Together
- Every file that is ON plays on every screen, not only in the WAV player.
- Every sound plays over the others. A file that fires again while it is still playing restarts only itself.
- When several files share a trigger, one is picked at random each time, and never the same one twice in a row.
- Audio Head and Audio Tail play as a pair. Put a radio click-in on Audio Head and a click-out on Audio Tail and you hear both every time, each after its own DELAY, even if they overlap. A tail only plays after a head that played, so you never hear the end of a transmission without its start. With no Audio Head files, tails play on their own.
- After an audio-triggered sound, that trigger rests for a few seconds so a burst of words does not fire it again and again.
- Files on Timer take turns, so only one plays at a time, and so do files on Random. The wait after a file is that file's TIMING. A looping file waits its own TIMING instead.
- After a preset loads, timed sounds wait their TIMING before they play the first time.
- Talking never cuts a sound off.
Soundboard on a Button
The WAV PLAY button action plays one of your manual samples, picked at random, and stops them if they are playing. WAV NEXT steps through your manual samples, playing each one in turn.
Preset Integration
Each preset saves its own sounds: which files are ON, and each one's volume, trigger, delay or timing, looping and BREAK or CLOCK. Loading a preset restores them and loads the files into memory, with a progress screen shown while they are read from the SD card.
Presets
The VMod Pro can store up to 20 custom presets on the SD card containing all of your effect settings, the effect chain order, tune and chord setup, and your WAV sample configuration.
Quick Preset Access
- Press Button 2 to cycle through your saved presets
- Hold Button 2 to save your current settings to the active preset
Preset Browser
From the main screen, select Presets. Rotate the encoder to browse, then press to open the options for a preset: Load, Save, Rename, Del, and Back. On an empty slot the options are New and Back.
Renaming a Preset
Select a preset and choose "Rename". Use the encoder to navigate the keyboard:
- Rotate the encoder to move between characters horizontally
- Press the encoder to select a character
- Use Button 1 and Button 2 to move the cursor up and down between rows
- ABC toggles uppercase and lowercase
- Del deletes the last character
- Exit finishes and saves
Presets from Earlier Firmware
Presets carry over between firmware versions. Presets made on earlier firmware load on 1.6 and sound the same, with any settings added since then set to match how they sounded. Each one is saved in the 1.6 format the next time you save it. A preset saved on 1.6 cannot be opened by earlier firmware.
Control Lock
The control lock freezes the entire control surface, knobs, encoder, and buttons, so nothing can be changed by accident on stage or in a bag.
- Engage the lock with the LOCK action, by default holding both buttons for one second. A closed-padlock screen confirms, and a padlock icon then stays in the header alongside the card and battery icons.
- While locked, touching any control briefly wakes the screen so you can see the padlock. Nothing else happens.
- To unlock, hold both buttons for one second. Unlocking always works this way no matter how your buttons are assigned. An open-padlock screen confirms.
- Restarting the device always unlocks it.
Settings
Settings holds the device itself: Display, System, Update and SD Card. Volume and Effects Mix are on the home screen knobs, and Mic Gain, the gate and the notch are on the MIC page.
Display Settings
- Display Brightness: Adjusts the brightness of the OLED screen
- LEDs Brightness: Adjusts the brightness of the RGB LEDs
- Auto Sleep: When enabled, the screen dims after 45 seconds of inactivity and turns off completely after 60 seconds
- LED Color: Cycle through White, Red, Green, Blue, Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Amber
- Voice React: Makes the LED pulse with your voice
- Startup: The animation that plays when you turn the VMod Pro on: Tuning in, Space run, Fortress run, Night drive, or Off. Press PLAY to preview it
System Settings
- Auto Sleep: Turn the auto sleep feature on or off
- Encoder: Reverse the encoder direction
- Interface: ANIMATED for the 1.6 home screen and Settings menu, or CLASSIC for the look of earlier firmware
- SYSTEM - BTNS (page 2): The four button gesture assignments
SD Card
The SD Card page shows the current status of the card: not detected, detected but not mounted, or mounted. From here you can mount an inserted card or format it. Formatting erases all data on the card and creates the required directory structure for presets and samples.
The page also shows the speed the card negotiated, for example 12.5MHz 4b w0 n0. The two counters stay at zero on a healthy card and count the recoveries a marginal card has needed. A card that cannot keep up is stepped down automatically rather than stalling, so a slow or worn card is worth replacing if those counters climb.
Connect to PC
Page 2 of the SD Card page, CONNECT TO PC, lets your computer use the card as a drive over USB-C, so you can add samples or back up presets without taking the card out. It needs a mounted card.
- Connect the VMod Pro to your computer with a USB-C data cable. A charge-only cable will not work.
- Go to Settings > SD Card, turn to page 2 and press Connect. The screen shows "Connected to PC" and the card appears on your computer.
- Copy your files. WAV samples go in the /VMOD/samples/ folder.
- Eject the drive on your computer, then press Disconnect. Your presets and samples reload straight away.
Sound is muted while connected, and the VMod Pro stays on this page until you press Disconnect. If the screen says "Waiting for PC", check the cable. If you press Disconnect before ejecting, the VMod Pro asks "Disconnect anyway?" first: eject on your computer before you say YES, so a copy is never cut off halfway.
Update Mode
Prepares the device for firmware updates. Connect via USB-C and visit tceffect.com/firmware to access the web-based updater.
Battery & Power
The VMod Pro is equipped with a 4000mAh lithium polymer battery for extended use. The device comes with a 5V 2A USB charger. For proper charging, use a power adapter that provides at least 2A. The battery level appears in the display header.
Low Battery Warnings
- At 10% the display shows LOW BATTERY once and the device sounds a short chirp through the output. This is your cue to finish the song and connect the charger.
- Below 5% the display shows BATTERY CRITICAL and a triple beep repeats every 30 seconds until you charge.
- Both warnings are silenced while the device is charging.
- When the battery is genuinely exhausted the device saves its state and powers down on its own rather than cutting out mid-word.
Tips for Best Results
Quick Mute
The Mute action silences the device instantly. By default it is on Button 1.
Quick MIC Access
Hold Button 1 from the home screen or an effect page to jump straight to the MIC page for gain, gate and notch. Volume and Effects Mix are always on the two knobs on the home screen.
Combining Effects
Multiple effects can be active simultaneously. Use the Mixer to balance them and Routing to set their order.
Auto-Tune
Set the key and a major or minor scale for the strongest correction. Chromatic gives the subtlest touch-up.
Harmonies
Set the key and scale first. The chord voices follow them.
Live Safety
Assign BYP ALL or REVERT to a button gesture as an instant escape hatch, and lock the controls between songs.
Microphone Technique
Maintain consistent distance from the microphone. Set Mic Gain on the MIC page to optimize input levels. If you hear background noise between words, raise the gate's Thresh. Using a small omnidirectional mic? Set the mic type to OMNI.
Preventing Feedback
If you experience audio feedback with external speakers:
- Raise the gate's Thresh on the MIC page to cut off low-level signals
- Switch on the notch filter (MIC page 5) and set Freq to the feedback tone
- Turn the volume down with the left knob on the home screen
- Move the device farther from speakers
- Lower Mic Gain if feedback persists
- With a small omnidirectional mic, set the mic type to OMNI
Troubleshooting
- Check the volume: turn the left knob on the home screen
- If using headphone output, ensure the volume wheel is turned at least halfway up
- Verify Mic Gain is not set too low
- Ensure effects are not all bypassed and the device is not muted
- Check that the gate's Thresh on the MIC page is not set too high
- Check for the padlock icon in the header. Hold both buttons for one second to unlock
- Knob pickup is active. Turn the knob to the small arrow on its dial to take control
- On the home screen the knobs set volume and Effects Mix. Open an effect to control its dials
- Reduce Mic Gain
- Lower the volume with the left knob on the home screen
- Decrease effect intensity parameters
- Raise the gate's Thresh on the MIC page to cut off low-level signals
- Switch on the notch filter (MIC page 5) and set Freq to the feedback tone
- Turn the volume down with the left knob on the home screen
- Move the device farther from speakers
- Lower Mic Gain if feedback persists
- With a small omnidirectional mic, set the mic type to OMNI
- Verify the SD card is inserted and mounted (Settings > SD Card)
- Presets from earlier firmware load and convert automatically
- A preset saved on 1.6 cannot be opened on earlier firmware. Update the device to the latest firmware
- Presets saved on test firmware versions must be re-saved
- Files must be 16-bit PCM WAV in the /VMOD/samples/ folder. Press PLAY on the file's page in the WAV player: if it will not load, the screen names the reason
- The player lists the first 32 files in the folder, and skips names longer than 31 characters including .wav
- Check that the file is ON in this preset and its Volume is up
- Audio Head and Audio Tail listen for your voice at the mic. If they do not fire, speak up or bring the mic closer
- If the screen says "SD bus too slow", the card is running at its slowest speed. Take it out and put it back in to try again
- Try reformatting the SD card from Settings and re-copying your files
- Battery may be depleted. Connect the charger
- Press the encoder or any control to wake from sleep mode
Firmware Updates
Chrome Browser Required
The web-based firmware updater uses WebUSB, which is only supported in Google Chrome (version 61 or newer) and other Chromium-based browsers such as Microsoft Edge. Safari and Firefox are not supported.
To update your VMod Pro firmware:
- Open Google Chrome on your computer
- From the Settings menu on your VMod Pro, select Update Mode
- Connect the device to your computer using a USB-C cable
- Navigate to tceffect.com/firmware
- Follow the on-screen instructions to upload the latest firmware
Community
The TCFX Discord is where VMod Pro users trade presets and sample packs, ask questions, and get help directly from the person who builds it. It is also the fastest way to hear about firmware releases and to shape what goes into them.
Join the TCFX Discord
- Share and download presets and WAV sample packs
- Get setup help and troubleshooting from other users
- Early word on firmware releases and beta builds
- Request features and report bugs directly
- Post clips of what you have made with your VMod Pro
For order questions, warranty, or anything you would rather not post publicly, use the support contact at tceffect.com.
Care & Maintenance
- Keep the device away from moisture
- Store in a cool, dry place when not in use
- Charge regularly to maintain battery health
- Clean the display with a soft, dry cloth
Battery Information
See Battery & Power for charging requirements and the low battery warnings.