Disaster Area Midi Baby 3

This is my 3rd midi pedal, I went cheap at first and you get what you pay for. This one is solid, you can program the colors of the LED so you know when it's on or not. Great value.

The unit itself performs exactly as I hoped so I'd give it a 5 is this regard. For someone like me who is unfamiliar with midi, setting this up is a real patience tester. The online editor is not great and company support seems to be lacking from my perspective, so you are largely on your own in getting this configured to work with your device. I would rate this portion as a 2. Once you get it figured out and configured, it is great. I'd therefore rate it 3.5 stars if that was an option, I'll round up to 4 overall because it works so well if you can get it set up.

This was the best choice ever for controlling my midi equipment

I am NOT a MIDI expert by any means, but like so many of us, I bought a piece of gear and then came to realize that MIDI was a necessary evil to fully unlock its potential. The HX Stomp is a compact, pedalboard-friendly amp modeler and effects processor, but it has only three footswitches and one extension jack for a footswitch or expression pedal. Enter the Disaster Area Midi Baby 3 (MB3)...The MB3 is roughly the size of a BOSS distortion pedal, though its footprint is slightly larger than that, allowing room for the cable inserts on top for MIDI out, power (9V center-negative), and the black/red "extension jacks". The device is highly programmable using a web-based MIDI editor. Thankfully, you can hook it up using an (included) mini-USB cable, as opposed to needing to have a DIN MIDI interface with your computer. Though not as elaborate as something like the Morningstar MC3 or MC6, the MB3 is deceptively powerful. Each of the three buttons can be set to transmit different MIDI messages (or batched message patterns) with a tap, hold, or long hold on the footswitch. (You can even adjust how many milliseconds it takes for each message to be triggered).The documentation on how to set all of this up is...not great, though part of that is due to the nature of MIDI. You'll spend most of the time in the MIDI implementation chart for the device you're trying to control. There is an option to import and export configuration files for the MB3, and thankfully, I was able to dig up some templates for my device from the Line 6 forum and TheGearPage.At roughly $130 at the time of my purchase, I should express that this was actually among the cheapest of the MIDI footswitch options I came across. And, yet, the black and red extension jacks on the MB3 are a great feature that wasn't even offered on several more expensive options. These jacks allow you to plug in a dual momentary footswitch (these can be found online for as low as $20), and this allows you to then add 2-4 additional MIDI switches (or an expression pedal, I believe). So, not only is the MB3 a solid controller itself, but it's also a sort of expansion hub allowing you to link up even more physical switches to control your MIDI devices. Among the robust control options on the MB3 is the ability to send MIDI tap tempo (flashing LED indicator included).All sounds great, right? Well, almost. Ultimately, I was able to get the MB3 to work with my Stomp in a reliable manner I was happy with, but there was a lot of trial and error involved. Also, some functions particularly those mapped to the long press functionality, either didn't work, didn't work consistently, or seemed to confuse my HX Stomp and render the controller "frozen" (until I rebooted the HX Stomp). So I've basically abandoned the long press function (for now) and am using one or two extension footswitches, all with single-press functions instead. It's possible there's something I'm doing wrong on my end, but the fact that I wasn't happy with how it was working underscores the fact that the MB3 is not at all "plug-and-play".There is also a widely-discussed software issue with the three LED indicators on the MB3, though at the time of this review, they do seem to be working for me. I found that if I programmed a lot of different command options (especially with tap vs. long press options), some or all of the lights would shut off altogether, or only the left LED would stay lit blue, seemingly unresponsive to further input. On the one hand, you could argue the LED's are a luxury that aren't even attempted on similarly-priced footswitches. On the other hand, this is an intended and marketed feature of the device, and it SHOULD work properly. At the time of this review (March 2021), Disaster Area had acknowledged the possible glitch online, and indicated that they were working on a v9 firmware that could resolve it, but the issue remains.VERDICT:It really feels to me as if the MIDI Baby 3 is one firmware update away from being a 5-star product, and incredibly versatile one at that. I'm happy with the build quality, the small size, the price point, and the ease of integrating this controller into a pedalboard setting. But some of the strange behaviors I encountered while configuring the device - even if tolerable - do suggest that the MB3 is not a fully-completed concept. However, I am still excited about the purchase, as I really appreciate the power and flexibility it adds to my HX Stomp, and the customization is really hard to beat at this price.

Does everything I need. Only reason it’s not 5 stars was because when they assembled it, the two outside pedals, which are meant to me lower in profile, were way to low. So I had to open it and adjust it as the nuts holding them up couldn’t even bite to stay on.Other than that, perfect!