Control legacy Fender Mustang amps from the browser via WebHID

I created ReFUSE to bring my old Fender Mustang (from 2013) modelling amplifier back to life.

The amplifier itself still sounds great, especially for home practise, but the official Fender FUSE control software was discontinued years ago. The software let you configure the amp models and effects, their parameters etc, which aren't not accessible from the physical knobs on the amplifier itself. And because it was originally built on Microsoft Silverlight, it became completely unusable on modern operating systems.

So, instead of letting this amp slowly turn into e-waste, I built an Angular web client using the browser's WebHID API. To start, I relied heavily on prior reverse engineering work and documentation from similar FUSE projects GitHub. Further debugging of the protocol was done in collaboration with Gemini, helping to understand the packet structure and quirks. Me twisting knobs on the amp, and AI analyzing the data stream and finding patterns was fascinating.

I had lots of fun building this, and because of the close collab with AI, I was able to write this complicated application, and fancy illustrations, in only a couple of evenings and those moments when while my 2yo daughter was taking the naps.

If you have a Fender Mustang amplifier lying around, please give it a try and share your thoughts!

https://jorik.dev/refuse https://github.com/jtangelder/refuse