As I arrive ultra late to the party, I think the Midihub and it’s feature have been well explained by other before me, so I’ll try to keep it short.
Externally I think it looks good and has a pleasant form factor, for whatever reason I expected it to be slightly bigger. Nice !
I mainly use it in a computerless set up, to connect my modular, drum machine and synths to a sequencer.
Here’s my “sounddesign” SoundCloud (updated weekly) to give an idea of some of the stuff I do. https://soundcloud.com/maxime_graf
Having the ability to route each information exactly as one wish is really valuable, and makes integration of any gear easy. I also use it live on gigs to sync all my pedals from one midiclock, and it’s as easy as it sounds.
To me, at the time of writing (nov. 2018) the midihub is an extremely versatile routing box, but could really benefit from additional, more creative options. There are a lot of simple routing devices on the market, but the MidiHub with its programming software could easily go way beyond simple routing with future pipes as described by the community.
Things that aren’t found often but could be of use on any set up such as Midi Roundrobbing, Velocity remap, microtonal scales, … those types of application could really make the MidiHub an unmistakable and necessary tool. And would also gives the “programming part” even more value - making a utility tool almost fun to use !
As briefly mentioned above, the main features I’d be looking for in future updates would be those “velocity to CC” or “aftertouch to CC” or even “keynumber to CC” if doable. This would make MIDI almost modular in that any information could be modulating any parameter. (And it would be a nice workaround for “plug ins/synths that doesn’t respond to velocity/aftertouch etc”. It’s like wining at MIDI implementation!!)
Also the Midi roundrobbing pipe would be a good tool that is hard to find anywhere else and could turn any combination of mono plug in/synth/hardware into “polyphonic” devices.
But these aren’t complaints since the MidiHub never claimed to do any of the things mentioned above ! What the MidiHub does, it does it well and cleverly.
Other than that, I think the people behind blokas and the community of beta testers are willing to make the best out of this device, so it looks like the already good MidiHub can only go further !
Pricewise, as of nov.18 I think it shouldn’t exceed the 150.- mark. Depending on the planned evolution/addition of pipes and parameters the price could be revised. But if the price is too high, the MidiHub will only sell to a niche looking for one or two specific application… A larger 6x6 / 8x8 box could be interesting in some set ups.
I’m not sure I would have bought it spontaneously before getting involved, but now that I have tried it, I would easily recommend it to anyone using more MIDI than just a keyboard and a computer!
Maxime