Blokas Midihub

I keep forgetting that I backed this, and so when it finally turns up it’s going to be a nice surprise!

@Jukka, not sure what I will use it for yet, really – initially, more experimental stuff to warp the MIDI coming from my Digitakt to synths, most likely. But having a general purpose MIDI box will be useful for lots of things.

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I have that problem too – and it’s not like i have a stack of things in the queue. I actually keep a list – it’s happy thoughts of anticipation when i look at the list. (There’s an Osmose for me after this.)

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Exactly the same here, forgot about that one and then the Osmose … Thanks for the reminder :wink:

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What’s an Osmose?

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What is the Expresssive E -- Osmose?

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The Osmose is an expressive synthesizer and keyboard. It is a complete stand-alone polyphonic synthesizer with a sophisticated synth engine based on the Haken EaganMatrix that is used in the Haken Continuum. The 49 note keybed can be used like a standard keyboard, but it also has extra dimensions of response, responding polyphonically to pressure, aftertouch and note bend. It is currently in development, and with any luck will be available later in the summer or early fall of 2020. Look for more information on it shortly, at shows like Superbooth 2020 towards the end of April.

Actually thinking about the Osmose brings to mind some other thoughts relative the Midihub.

One of the things the Osmose does (and my ASM Hydrasynth too) is output MIDI that’s more sophisticated (looking for the right word, picked that one though it’s not the word i want), and lots of it. So they both output and receive MPE and Poly-aftertouch, and the HS can output a particular kind of CC message called NRPN, which allows for 14 bit data, as opposed to standard 7 bit. These are all newer ways of using standard MIDI, and they are more or less just bolted on to it.

I need to think about this more, and probably separate each of these out and consider them each by itself.

Well obviously with the Midihub you can ignore doing anything with these and just direct the raw data and pass it through. Or you can filter various part of this out of the MIDI stream.

I also recall that the Midihub can do things with poly-aftertouch, i need to refresh my memory some on this, and consider what can be done with MPE messages and other things.

The “lots of it” part brings up the question of how well the Midihub will do with high volumes of data, particular if it is coming down the USB channels from a Host.

And this is not mentioning MIDI 2.0 which i am not expecting Midihub to handle.

BTW: Bome has been very active in promoting and supporting MIDI 2.0 on their BomeBox which has similarities to the Midihub in function.

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midihub can serve as a good midi-loopback intermediate device for digitakt.

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The thing with midihub is mainly about midi din , which has its own limitations for both midi 2 and mpe.

Generally, I’ve haven’t seen issues with large amounts of data and midihub - but I don’t usually send mpe over din, I prefer to use usb.

Bome I think are trying to line themselves up as a midi 2 bridge - but it’s unclear what functionality they will provide at this stage.
( I just wish they’d ditch their own WiFi midi protocol and switch to rtpmidi if they want to improve connectivity ;))

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Hi,
could anyone tell me how much does this cost?

I paid 122 euros. They are not taking orders until they finish the first production batch, but you can sign up for the waiting list.

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Seems the next batch is not going to be ready anytime soon !

Would happily trade my bomebox for this one ! :smiley:

It’s been a real grind for Blokas to complete all the orders they have, but they’re getting close to fulfillment.

New progress update from them today. This is from the update:

Summary
We are near the finish line, currently waiting for Midihub’s packaging to be manufactured and once it is, hopefully in coming weeks, we will start shipping out your pre-orders!

So reasonably the pre-orders should be in our hands in a month. It’s been a long go. Looking forward to some inspired creatiion with the Midihub.

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I was really please to read their update also. I had it consigned to the backburner of my mind but this could arrive just at a nice time to glue together the ideas I had for my next project where I’ll be using the DT as a central controller and then triggering scenes from Live over by midi whilst also controlling a couple of other synths. This could make worries about sync much less of a concern and there’s even some scope for exploring the delights of this box of tricks.

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Same. I haven’t “counted” on it in my brain… but I’m going to be excited to hook it all up when it arrives. I have immediate thoughts about routing and filtering, obviously… But cannot wait to dive into the wilder possibilities!

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Does midihub can achieve math op ? Like storing var, list and manipulate them ? Thx.

Looking forward to this being available but I would also like them to do a simpler 1X1 or even 1x2 DIN utility device. I could do with several of those.

I could see that, but at the price, i’d be comfortable ignoring the extra inputs and outputs, and using the Midihub in this sort of role too. As far as i understand things, and i could be wrong, it should be possible to use ONE Midihub as two or three such separate independent smaller devices at the same time. Or perhaps a separate larger and a smaller function together at the same time. This is on my list of experiments to run anyway, to see if this sort of independence can be achieved.

As far as i can make out – NO – but these sorts of operations would be nice, and could logically fit.

I will be finding out soon enough as Blokas has started shipping, and so i’m in line to receive one in a week or so.

Check the Midihub homepage to see the current status with shipping. I’d expect that general orders could be delivered in a month or so – check with Blokas.

Neat. I wonder when mine will ship? Then I can stop forgetting and remembering every month or so that I ordered one. Did they send an email that they had started shipping, because I didn’t get one.

I got two emails. One specifically to me that tells me my priority number, asks if my mailing address is still correct, and tells me they should ship in a week.

The second email was Update #8 which is more or less the same as the changes to their web-page that i showed. They shipped 106 yesterday of the 826 total pre-orders. They plan to ship 150-200 every week going forward. They say specifically – “All of the Midihub pre-orders will be shipped in the coming 4 weeks.”

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I received the progress update email too. No shipping email as I’m not in the first batch.