They’ve just released the demo. Looks quite cool
Really cool, but can’t it be done by the Blokas Midihub with some tinkering?
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No idea of feature overlap, just wanted to say competition is good 
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Metaconformer is a modular MIDI processor designed to expand the capabilities of musical instruments and to simplify the interaction between a musician and their MIDI instruments. It offers new ways of playing music through innovative and groundbreaking MIDI message routing capabilities between multiple instruments.
The MIDI protocol is an efficient engineering solution used reliably for decades by musicians. However, in many situations it does not take into account the musical context, which is essential for the artist. Metaconformer changes this. Located between the MIDI controller and your instruments, it coordinates human ideas with the language of hardware.
Metaconformer’s capabilities provide new ways of playing instruments, by combining MIDI instruments and exploring their interaction . You will be able to play multiple instruments at the same time as if they were part of one larger instrument. Metaconformer also opens up the possibility of sound control through pressing the keys on your MIDI keyboard, instead of having to reach for the knobs on your gear. This will allow you to discover and unlock new facets and possibilities of your favorite instruments!
The idea behind the Metaconformer is to give musicians a new way of looking at their instruments and what else they can do with a little creativity in MIDI.
SOMA is closely related to the idea of organismic synthesizers . Each of our instruments aims to give the musician the experience of interacting with a system in which several independent modules can influence each other and create more than the sum of its parts.
Metaconformer is no exception. It breaks down at least two barriers that have stood in the way of all MIDI musicians for decades. It establishes a dialogue between different instruments, breaking the barrier of parallel universes of MIDI channels. And Metaconformer also allows you to enter the values of synthesis parameters not by turning knobs on your synths, but by pressing keys on your MIDI keyboard, breaking the barrier of the one- dimensional universe of notes and creating a multi-dimensional universe of parametric chords.
160 €
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For the same price you can get the Blokas Midihub has 4 full size MIDI ins/outs, a sturdy steel enclosure and more robust USB type B port, and a proper software editor that is essentially allows you to code your own custom pipelines with a fairly easy visual block interface.
Not sure what advantage the Metaconformer has exactly besides being smaller, and having the ability to set it up without software, which IMO isn’t important as you’re probably not going to want to be trying to fiddle with its configuration when you’re performing a live jam anyway.
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I can’t really see an use case for this one tbh
Yes. The only thing that this can do that the hub can’t without midi data or a cpu is switch the function of the midi in/out. So this appears to have more hands on control, but that seems to be the only advantage, as far as I can tell anyways.
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I honestly assumed that this would have some kind of software interface for configuration, but nope it seems like you do actually have to learn the how to read the 1960’s era 8-bit LED interface -
This kind of thing must be enjoyable for some I suppose.
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Seems like the Blokas requires an app that runs on a computer for all setup.
The SOMA you can setup with just the onboard controls - no computer app to run.
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Once you set up the Blokas you don’t have to touch the software again if you like, and you can store (IIRC) 8 presets that you can cycle through with a button on the device, in case you had a few different hardware setups you wanted to use with it.
As we are all using computers anyway I don’t see that it’s a problem, and if you did really want to do some adjustments live without software I don’t think the binary 8-bit thing is going to be particularly intuitive unless you’ve spent a lot of time learning it. Also you can MIDI map stuff in the Blokas which allows you to make adjustable setups quite easily, for example I have a bunch of buttons on a Faderfox controller that bypass filters in the Midihub, and allow MIDI data from keyboards to be routed to particular things on the fly. Works great, I highly recommend that thing.
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I didn’t say using a computer was bad or anything. 
In the demo of Combiner mode, buttons were being pressed to change from which voice the Metaconformer starts looking for a free cell. I thought that was neat. This suggests to me the Metaconformer is directed towards users who like to improvise a lot.
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Blokas is like an eurorack - can do everything theoretically. But lots of people choose compact stand-alone solutions which can perfectly do one job at a time. Also stand-alone solution has complete design. Simple and predictable. Not all people love to design pipelines and learn how to midi.
metcon is like swiss army knife in midi world. You no need to know midi for operation. It works well for my setup: A4, 8T, op-z. And really helps to use only one midi channel and create complex routings to desired voices of instruments using metcon mutes.
In metcon you have no need to operate binary numbers. Everything you need in 99% of situations is just midi keyboard and your ears. Feedback is based on audio, leds just indicates that cell is active/inactive and so on.
Metcon has mutes. It’s a small thing but If you have 8 devices there are 256 possible combinations. Do you want to search exact combination in 256 blokas patches?
blokas is good for some complex situations, but it has no flexibility. If you want to change one bit in a patch you use computer.
Swiss army knife vs advanced workshop? Depends on situation.
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(…)
Core Values
We recognize life in all its manifestations to be the highest value, in particular, the life of humanity and the natural world while cherishing the life of every individual.
(…)
source:
https://somasynths.com/philosophy/
I think it’s just hard in Russia to say anything…
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Okay, that makes sense. I’d still have a hard time choosing between these two, but both seem to have their uses.
The RK002 deserves a mention as well.
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Same. Initially, I really struggled to work out what purpose it served.
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General overview is the paragraph with the answer “why metcon is exists”
Maybe try Functional description paragraph to read about its functions))
I get it now. But it took the whole of the YouTube video, plus a detailed read of a lot of the manual before understood what combiner mode was meant to do. By contrast, with some product videos, you know in the first minute if it’s something you’re interested in.
Can we remain on topic?
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The main feature of this tool is that it has a planned update cycle that will contain a lot of interesting and creative things. which will be outside the stated specifications
Politics should really be avoided, it spoils any chance of a discussion about the gear
There are lots of flags, if this continues it’s inevitable that the topic will be temporarily closed until the temptation to politic passes. Yes it’s important and integral and may not be easy for y’all, but it just doesn’t work if it overly derails things, or worse …
thanks in advance
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