Topic by Jake Johnson

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Topic: Wireless MIDI?

It's not coincidental that this question arises at the same time as the release of the Model B. I have one or two too many keyboards, and I would like to make some cables go away so that I can play the Model B and other pianos in different rooms. Has anyone set up a wireless MIDI system using Pianoteq, or for that matter, with a conventional piano multisample?

The basic question, of course, is simply: Does it work reliably? More freezes or disconnects? Troubles keeping up with big polyphony crunches on piano runs or chords?

Some other questions come to mind:

1. There seem to be several brands, and Yamaha has introduced their own system at this year's NAMM. Does one brand seem to be better than another? (Here's the Yamaha page describing their two interfaces, one for a keyboard with a USB port and another for keyboards with standard MIDI ports: http://usa.yamaha.com/products/musical-...nterfaces/ )
2. Can you set it up so that multiple keyboards can send and receive MIDI date? (Not necessarily at the same time.) I just want to have keyboards in different rooms, with each being able to connect wirelessly to a central computer running Pianoteq.
3. Any increase in latency?
4. The more worrisome question is, why haven't we seen wide-scale adoption, or at least promotion of wireless MIDI? It seems to offer a lot possibilities for home use and of course for stage. The ability to reduce the number of cables on-stage sounds like good news. But I haven't seen a big push. There was the announcement and some buzz a year or three ago, and then little was said. Or was there a silent revolution, and now everyone is using wireless MIDI, while I just haven't caught on?

Last edited by Jake Johnson (27-01-2016 16:35)

Reply by SteveLy

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Re: Wireless MIDI?

I have zero experience with this but you might also want to look into wireless USB, WUSB.

3/2 = 5

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Reply by alessandro

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Re: Wireless MIDI?

I tried MIDI over IP network (wired or wireless) for using an Android tablet as Pianoteq controller.
It works, but I think that latency is too much for use as a player.

This is what I used:
https://code.google.com/archive/p/dsmi/ (app: Wireless Mixer)
http://www.tobias-erichsen.de/software/rtpmidi.html (app: TouchDAW)

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Reply by keymanpal

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Re: Wireless MIDI?

I have many years of reliable use with CME WIDI-x8 http://www.forum-pianoteq.com/viewtopic...62#p941262 
even using wind controllers. Trade off of no cables, a bit of latency but you have error correction, not a single "hanging note"

Different rooms? does not make too much sense where if audio coming out?

Reply by steff3

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Re: Wireless MIDI?

Jake Johnson wrote:

1. There seem to be several brands, and Yamaha has introduced their own system at this year's NAMM. Does one brand seem to be better than another? (Here's the Yamaha page describing their two interfaces, one for a keyboard with a USB port and another for keyboards with standard MIDI ports: http://usa.yamaha.com/products/musical-...nterfaces/ )

Also interested in that - I think what Yamaha introduced is not their own thing, but a new open standard proposed by Apple( & partners?). Would be interesting to see Microsoft adapting this standard es well - I plan to check that out - especially to see how the latency is and if that works for real-time playing scenarios.

For windows there is also the option to connect to Apples MIDI over WLAN/WiFi, not sure that the latency there is however. And also not sure how robust the implementation is.

Definitely an interesting topic.

best

Reply by SteveLy

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Re: Wireless MIDI?

I'm considering getting an AKAI EWI-USB (electronic wind instrument) and wireless would be the preferred way to go, be it over MIDI or USB.

It seems very difficult to find WUSB products because search engines tend to mostly bring up usb wifi devices.

I read that Apple has some low-latency wireless MIDI thing going, but if it's proprietary Apple, it's no good to the rest of us.

Last edited by SteveLy (29-01-2016 17:24)
3/2 = 5

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Reply by alessandro

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Re: Wireless MIDI?

SteveLy wrote:

I read that Apple has some low-latency wireless MIDI thing going, but if it's proprietary Apple, it's no good to the rest of us.

You may be referring to AppleMIDI/RTP-MIDI that I mentioned in the previous post, and for that there are implementations for most operating systems.

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Reply by Jake Johnson

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Re: Wireless MIDI?

keymanpal wrote:

I have many years of reliable use with CME WIDI-x8 http://www.forum-pianoteq.com/viewtopic...62#p941262 
even using wind controllers. Trade off of no cables, a bit of latency but you have error correction, not a single "hanging note"

Different rooms? does not make too much sense where if audio coming out?

How much latency are you seeing with the CME WIDI-X8? (I would use wireless headphones for the output.)

Reply by Jake Johnson

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Re: Wireless MIDI?

Just checked the Yamaha site again, and it now says that the new wireless adapters are shipping. Full retail price is $79.95. http://usa.yamaha.com/news_events/piano...d_md-bt01/

A quick Google search shows very few stores as listing them, but the few that do are pricing them at $49.95. (But none in stock, yet...)

I'm hoping that Yamaha has brought the latency down.

Reply by Gilles

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Re: Wireless MIDI?

Jake Johnson wrote:

How much latency are you seeing with the CME WIDI-X8? (I would use wireless headphones for the output.)

I once tried wireless headphones ( http://www.headphone.com/products/sennh...-headphone ) plugged into my normal usb unit and added latency was unacceptable.

Reply by keymanpal

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Re: Wireless MIDI?

googling: latency CME WIDI-X8
https://github.com/raboof/alsa-midi-lat...ME-WIDI-X8

Don't know if i can test something by myself...

Reply by steff3

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Re: Wireless MIDI?

alessandro wrote:
SteveLy wrote:

I read that Apple has some low-latency wireless MIDI thing going, but if it's proprietary Apple, it's no good to the rest of us.

You may be referring to AppleMIDI/RTP-MIDI that I mentioned in the previous post, and for that there are implementations for most operating systems.

or more like this one
https://developer.apple.com/bluetooth/A...cation.pdf

and I think one needs btle ( blue tooth low energy or blue tooth 4) for low latency applications

Last edited by steff3 (30-01-2016 06:39)

Reply by Jake Johnson

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Re: Wireless MIDI?

Gilles wrote:
Jake Johnson wrote:

How much latency are you seeing with the CME WIDI-X8? (I would use wireless headphones for the output.)

I once tried wireless headphones ( http://www.headphone.com/products/sennh...-headphone ) plugged into my normal usb unit and added latency was unacceptable.

Drat. You're spoiling the dream, here. I was hoping to keep one keyboard in the music room and another in a (better heated) room, and be able to choose where to work. And I haven't found a way to keep several keyboards together without either taking up too much of two walls in a corner or using a two-tiered stand that puts one keyboard out of reach while sitting down. Spoiled by playing guitar--you can have six of them sitting right next to you and swap them out easily. Well, even with keeping everything in one room, assuming that Yamaha is putting this system out because they've solved the latency problem, getting rid of some cables will be good.

Reply by groovy

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Re: Wireless MIDI?

steff3 wrote:

and I think one needs btle ( blue tooth low energy or blue tooth 4) for low latency applications

Hi,

I just noticed, that the brand new, portable Kawai ES110 has wireless midi on board. It seems to be "Bluetooth LE", which has lower latency, than Classic Bluetooth technology:

Latency (from a non-connected state):             6 ms
Minimum total time to send data (det. battery life)    3 ms
(from Bluetooth low energy)

Hopefully, it will not add more latency, than a typical usb-to-midi conversion (but I guess that's too optimistic).

Does anybody have already experience with Bluetooth LE? on Linux?

Do external Bluetooth LE solutions exist, that can be connected to a keyboard's USB or standard MIDI port?

cheers

Reply by dominique.rillh@yahoo.fr

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Re: Wireless MIDI?

Hi,

I Use the MD-BT01 add on BTLE Midi componment. It run perfectly on my Ipad from a Nord stage II ! but I Don't achieved to connect it on my MACBOOK PRO

Does somebody have experience with it ?

Dominique

groovy wrote:
steff3 wrote:

and I think one needs btle ( blue tooth low energy or blue tooth 4) for low latency applications

Hi,

I just noticed, that the brand new, portable Kawai ES110 has wireless midi on board. It seems to be "Bluetooth LE", which has lower latency, than Classic Bluetooth technology:

Latency (from a non-connected state):             6 ms
Minimum total time to send data (det. battery life)    3 ms
(from Bluetooth low energy)

Hopefully, it will not add more latency, than a typical usb-to-midi conversion (but I guess that's too optimistic).

Does anybody have already experience with Bluetooth LE? on Linux?

Do external Bluetooth LE solutions exist, that can be connected to a keyboard's USB or standard MIDI port?

cheers

Reply by Jake Johnson

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Re: Wireless MIDI?

According to the Yamaha site at https://usa.yamaha.com/products/music_p...index.html , you should be able to connect it to a recent Mac computer without a problem so long as the computer has bluetooth capabilities. Does your mac have a card installed for bluetooth?

A second queston: You say that it runs perfectly on your iPad. Are you using it to play a piano library installed on the iPad? (If so, which one?) Are you not getting any additional latency at all or dropping of notes?

In any case, I don't understand why this device is for ios and Macs only. I thought that bluetooth was supposed to be a universal standard.

Last edited by Jake Johnson (21-09-2019 16:37)

Reply by dominique.rillh@yahoo.fr

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Re: Wireless MIDI?

No I connect the Ipad to the nord for synth one or FM Player or Digital D1, ... But It would be very nice to have pretty piano sound on the Ipad ... I try the IGrand Piano from IRig ... but this is to far from my objective ...

Thanks for helps I found the solution ...

Best Dominique


Jake Johnson wrote:

According to the Yamaha site at https://usa.yamaha.com/products/music_p...index.html , you should be able to connect it to a recent Mac computer without a problem so long as the computer has bluetooth capabilities. Does your mac have a card installed for bluetooth?

A second queston: You say that it runs perfectly on your iPad. Are you using it to play a piano library installed on the iPad? (If so, which one?) Are you not getting any additional latency at all or dropping of notes?

In any case, I don't understand why this device is for ios and Macs only. I thought that bluetooth was supposed to be a universal standard.

Reply by keybender

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Re: Wireless MIDI?

groovy wrote:
steff3 wrote:

and I think one needs btle ( blue tooth low energy or blue tooth 4) for low latency applications

Hi,

I just noticed, that the brand new, portable Kawai ES110 has wireless midi on board. It seems to be "Bluetooth LE", which has lower latency, than Classic Bluetooth technology:

Latency (from a non-connected state):             6 ms
Minimum total time to send data (det. battery life)    3 ms
(from Bluetooth low energy)

Hopefully, it will not add more latency, than a typical usb-to-midi conversion (but I guess that's too optimistic).

Does anybody have already experience with Bluetooth LE? on Linux?

Do external Bluetooth LE solutions exist, that can be connected to a keyboard's USB or standard MIDI port?

cheers

There's an interesting discussion on bt midi latency on (i think) gearslutz. The numbers you're posting seem very optimistic. I think the bottom line was that anything < 20ms is not achievable with the current standard.

Reply by groovy

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Re: Wireless MIDI?

keybender wrote:

There's an interesting discussion on bt midi latency on (i think) gearslutz. The numbers you're posting seem very optimistic. I think the bottom line was that anything < 20ms is not achievable with the current standard.

Does that mean Bluetooth LE cannot transmit MIDI notes with a minimum latency of 3 ms, in the connected state?
And also not in 6 ms + 3 ms = 9 ms in non-connected state?

Reply by keybender

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Re: Wireless MIDI?

Don't take my word for it... search the gearslutz forum.
THis thread (https://www.gearslutz.com/board/music-c...ement.html) is not a bad start...

Reply by groovy

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Re: Wireless MIDI?

I had the chance to get a first impression of a Yamaha MD-BT01 MIDI-to-Bluetooth adapter.

The good message first: It ist recognised by a Linux Debian 10 (Buster) and appears as MIDI input in Pianoteq Trial v6.6.0. The Bluetooth connection to the Yamaha was made with a Logilink BT4.0 USB-adapter.

My test-laptop was a slow Celeron N3050 dual-core. With perf index 12..14 I normally do not use it with Pianoteq. So in my quick test the absolute latency and performance is not in the focus. Just the relative increase of BT versus usb-cable interested me.

Keyboard was my old Kawai ES3, which has 5-pole MIDI-in and -out connectors and a USB MIDI port. Note c5 from default Steinway D Prelude was played several times and the overall-latency measured (time between keyclick and PC-speaker sound)

Pianoteq settings: 128 samples buffersize, 48 kHz.

These were the overall-latencies with my normal USB-cable:
[ms]
39
35
36
37
39
37
38
35
35

... and these with the Bluetooth connection instead:
[ms]
80
65
80
76
49
70
52

... horrible sluggish and jittered with the BT-connection! For me unusable to play piano.

Would be interesting, if a faster Laptop, another OS or a USB-Dongle from another vendor can reduce the latency of the BT-path (or if it is broken-by-design ...)