It’s here!!! Should I call in sick the rest of the day?
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I don’t know how helpful i’ll be, but thinking about this will help me.
I guess for starters you need to think about the physical connections. I’d think you’d probably want to establish a stock connection arrangement, and then create several different Midihub patches, to switch between, for different sorts of operation. Some devices will be chained on the same DIN MIDI, with MIDI thru and use of separate channels. Once you’ve settled on a connection arrangement, and have successfully done a few Midihub patches, during which you may switch the arrangement around, but once you’ve settled on one arrangement you could consider another stock arrangement, a second one, that would allow you other possibilities.
Obviously the PC will sit on the USB MIDI connection, no sense having it on any of the DIN connections. It may make sense to have some MIDI controller devices connected directly to the computer, rather than through the Midihub, depending on the software or DAW you use on the PC.
I don’t have enough experience yet, but i think it might be interesting to try to combine two of your sequencers, or parts of them, like the CCs. What sorts of things are you trying to do, and what sort of music do you like to make.
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Isn’t the standard quarantine two weeks ?
Have fun. I’ve been considering chordal things that i can do – perhaps off of foot pedals (i’ve got a one octave bass pedal set, and a bank of 3 - 5 expression pedals) and using that as accompaniment with a live instrument (like a sax). I’ve also wondered about a Micro Scale output – perhaps from the MIDI of a Roland Aerophone. Outputting chords in scale and key from the Aerophone would be interesting too.
ADDED: Mine just arrived too !
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Enjoy! Now time to put into practice all that theoretical stuff you’ve been envisaging 
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Ordered.
I will have to rethink the routing of the studio with the addition of 2 devices : Blokas Midihub and Conductive Labs The NDLR. A lot of possibilities.
Here you go :
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Mine arrived yesterday but I’ve been in a total creative slump for a while so I haven’t put it to work yet.
Without working out exactly what I’d need the ports to do, I set up a generically useful mapping to start from. It’s a combination of a 3-to-1 merger and 1-to-3 splitter.
inputs a+b+c --> output a
input d --> outputs b+c+d
Once I get back into the groove I’m looking forward to doing small, self-contained experiments with the various manipulations available. I kind of pre-ordered this thing on the port count alone without really thinking about the creative side.
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I’m quite interested but am hesitant now they’ve put the price up. A couple of questions.
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Can you switch Midihub patches without using the computer? Maybe with PCMs?
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Can parameters on the Midihub be controlled from a midi controller without the editor being connected? Like the LFO rate etc. If so can you set a control channel (like have the hub parameters only respond to MIDI Ch 16?
Cheers
Alex
- There is a physical button on the device that you can use to switch between presets 1-8. You can also do it with PCMs on the input port and channel of your choosing.
- Yes, you can use the software to define note & CC mappings to any parameter. There’s a Map button to easily learn your desired input.
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Thanks, on any channel you choose?
Yes, when you use learn it learns the note/cc, the channel, and the input port it came from. You can of course set up multiple maps to the same parameter if you want to allow it to come from more than one channel, port, or note/cc.
Thanks, damn it does sound good
Heck, answering x0x’s questions got me in the mood to play around with it.
The midihub is turning notes into repeating chords, which are then duplicated to 3 different pipes, two of which are transposed an octave up and down, with note lengths fixed to 1 bar, and a low chance of triggering. Not even close to what this thing is really capable of, but I liked what was happening.
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I just pulled the plug and bought one of these. I’m not going to use it that much for creative MIDI effects (at least I don’t think so), but more for MIDI utility type of stuff, such as merging MIDI signals, remapping CC values, and so on.
I don’t even think this box is that expensive. If it simply would have been a 4 in/4 out MIDI interface without any extra functionality, it would have been expensive, but not ridiculously so, especially since it looks nice compared to the competitor’s monstrosities. However, when adding the standalone capabilities (things that I otherwise planned on implementing via a Rasperry pi or Aurdino), I would say that this device starts to seem cheap for what you’re getting. Unless you already have a computer always running (which you’re willing to hand of all the MIDI juggling to) next to your hardware (and even in that case, you still have to beat the Midihub Editor software), I don’t really see what alternatives there are.
Really looking forward towards getting mine!
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2 questions for those who use the box already:
- do you notice any latency?
- have you experienced passing MIDI clock through it? I use a Multiclock as clock master and wanna continue doing so, and would go out of it through the Midihub to my synth. I wonder if anyone has tried something like that and whether there is any issue.
Thanks!
That’s what I’m using mine for, more of a utility than a fancy midi fx box. I know I could probably do much of what it does with USB midi and Logic’s midi environment, but the little MIDI hub is super easy to program in comparison (looks quite cool with blinking LEDs showing midi data going in and out, too). And it’s nice to know that if I do want an LFO or whatever I can easily set one up.
Just one thing to bear in mind when buying these is shipping seems to take ages!
No noticeable latency for me. I’ve been passing clock through it using my Digitakt as master no problem at all.
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Do you have to program everything or a simple task like passing clock through it is straight forward? Thx.
By “program” I mean drag n drop stuff in the editor, it’s very straightforward (you can download the editor to try it out, btw). If you set up a MIDI pipe that connects an input and output, it will automatically send all of the midi through, including clock and transport
That’s how I understood it. Thx for the fast reply. So the Midihub is an empty box where you create your Patches according to your needs.
Yes, it wont do anything until you’ve sent it a patch from the editor to tell it what to do. But you don’t need to have it connected to the editor all the time- you can store 8 presets on it, and cycle through them with the button on the top.
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