Bluetoth midi keyboards?

[MusicalGlenn2022]

Hi folks.

I'm a freelance composer and sound designer. I gave up the gigging life after 30 years. I have tons of sample libraries like native instruments, east west etc but I have been dogged by nuisance electrical breaker trips for 4 years now.

I can plug a midi keyboard in to a laptop on batteries and have no issues but I'll trip the breaker if I use my desktop computer. Found out it's caused by harmonics in the electrical supply between the mains (AC) and the keyboard and computer (DC).

An Uninterruptable Power supply might fix this between computer and socket on the wall. Then I saw that some keyboards have built in Bluetooth and can send midi date from keyboard to computer.

Anyone heard of this? Wouldn't latency ruin your playing? I think yhe keyboard I saw was a Roland G3 or G5. It's an actual workstation keyboard.

Any thoughts?

 

[Dave_bass5]

I use a Widi master at sound checks sometimes. This is a Bluetooth midi transmitter/receiver system, powered from the host device. I plug the transmitter in to my Keylab Essential keyboard and power the keyboard off a power bank. The laptop picks up the Bluetooth and it works as if it were just another midi in.
This allows me to go out front when sound checking and hear what’s going on.
No latency issues to my ears, other than the usual when you get too far from the stage. BT doesn’t have a huge range, but I’ve not had any drop outs so far. It’s not like Bluetooth audio, which will have too much latency to use.

 

[amwilburn]

Bluetooth midi and bluetooth audio are *very* different things; bluetooth audio is useless for sending /transmitting sound to keyboards because of the massive latency, correct (bluetooth generally only has a 2.4megabit/sec bandwidth (only 300kBs!) which is tiny, but midi is also tiny, so yes, there is slight latency, but it's almost imperceptible (3ms). So it's totally fine to use bluetooth for midi.

The Truth About Bluetooth MIDI - Wireless MIDI? What about latency?

Many people (including engineers) who did not try Bluetooth MIDI assume a lot of things about latency with MIDI over Bluetooth.....

www.cme-pro.com

Mark

 

[seanL122]

I have a little midi hub/repeater/router that includes Bluetooth MIDI. I got the H4MIDI WC from CME. It works great as the USB host for a number of USB keyboard at a time (using a plain-old USB hub to multiply ports). It has five-pin DIN connectors for old keyboards that don't have USB or Bluetooth. CME makes you buy the Bluetooth part separately, and install it yourself, so you get a fun little lunchtime project. The bluetooth radio is called the "CME WIDI Core." Total cost was about $100 on Amazon. I got this model because it does not require a laptop (except when you change the programming).

CME makes a bunch of different models to fit your particular needs. I am not very happy with their documentation. Oh, I almost forgot, their stuff can be programmed to do all kinds of MIDI gymnastics. You can have multiple setups to do different routing, filtering, channel re-mapping, note-to-CC mapping; all kinds of tricks. Check out cme-pro.com.

I only own one keyboard that has Bluetooth, so I am plenty happy. I have not researched what would happen if I wanted to support more Bluetooth devices.

There is also another company that does similar stuff; DOREMiDi. Their stuff is sold on Amazon with the name Camola. I haven't tried any of their stuff.

And of course, Yamaha and Roland both have their little MIDI/WIFI/Bluetooth adapters. I have not looked at them at all.

I think there are also some more expensive products out there for permanent stage installs and lighting DMX, but the above two brands are workable and cheap.

Sean