Q: Why don't H-Pi products have USB ports?

USB is everywhere. This does not make it good for MIDI.

MIDI was designed as a system where any device with MIDI ports can communicate with any other device having MIDI ports, otherwise known as a "peer-to-peer" system. USB does not work this way. It is a system which requires a master device (a computer) to provide power and route all the traffic, otherwise known as a "host-centric" system. It is our opinion that MIDI-over-USB is a lousy standard, because this basic lack of peer-to-peer connectivity is fundamentally incompatible with the basic concept of MIDI.

Not only this, but there are other more technical reasons that USB is bad for MIDI. Contarary to popular belief, although USB is much faster and has much higher bandwidth than the MIDI standard, it also has inferior latency and jitter when compared to a standard MIDI port (see Paul Lehrman's article from 2001).

Our main complaint is that any device requiring MIDI-over-USB is a computer peripheral, not a stand-alone device. We may decide to design some computer peripheral units in the future, but so far we are interested in building self-contained stand-alone MIDI devices, not computer peripherals. We hope that some high-speed standard will replace MIDI and when it does we will adopt it gladly, but USB is definitely not this standard as it lacks basic peer-to-peer connectivity and is otherwise simply inferior.
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Q: How do I set the Pitch Bend Range for my MIDI/RTAS/VST/AU instrument tracks?

When using software instruments with H-Pi products, you will want to set the pitch bend range to 1 semitone. Often, there is simply a dial or drop-menu on the software instrument window interface to do this. But, if such an interface is not there, you can also add the following MIDI messages to each MIDI track at the very start of the event list.

Bank Change: (your bank number)
Program Change: (your patch number)
Controller 101: 0
Controller 100: 0
Controller 6: 1
Controller 38: 0

Always make sure these messages are sent on the correct MIDI channel for each track; this is important to remember when setting up multiple tracks using copy and paste. Also, always send the controller messages after a program change. If the track requires a program change somewhere after the beginning, the messages should be added again. Note that both TBX1 and TPX keyboards send these messages automatically when a preset is selected, so you don't necessarily need to add these messages yourself to every track; you can instead just record yourself pressing a preset before playing.

It is a good idea to make a template file with 16 tracks already created with software instruments configured for each channel, with these messages already at the start of each track. Once you set up such a template, you can just open it and save it under a different name for each new recording.
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Q: Why isn't H-Pi at trade shows like NAMM?

Many people have asked why they have not seen us at NAMM or similar trade shows. It costs a lot of money and takes a lot of time to participate in such events, and at present, we simply cannot justify such expenses. If you look for our advertising budget, you will see only a bill for internet hosting. You won't even find hours logged for YouTube videos, because videos are simply made in 'spare time'. We hope that you will support us for choosing to keep our costs as low as possible so that our products can be affordable. Not participating in expensive trade shows is one way we are keeping prices low when every product is being made one at a time by hand. This situation may change in the future, when our products are being mass produced.
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H-huh?

Q: What does Hπ mean? Good question; your inquisitiveness is about to pay off, big. You've heard of Grand Unification Theories? Hπ is the answer. That's right; Hπ is a mathematical formula which explains the entire universe. It also allows you to win the lottery. No, I'm only joking. Hπ is in fact a branding symbol (see graphic at left) which was used in the Old West in America and also in Ancient Greece. It actually stands for Homestead Prime Select Beef ... or Lamb. OK, enough horsing around. Hπ symbolizes the cross-cultural structure of this organization. The H is for Hunt and the π is for Petkov, which in the Bulgarian alphabet (Cyrillic) begins with the letter π. Really, to be correct the π should be uppercase Π, but because the lowercase version π is more recognizable, we use that. Now that you are armed with this vital information, though you may not have solved all the riddles of the universe, and you may or may not be a vegetarian, you still might win the lottery. Good luck! Ask a question Back to top.