Roland gets into the Bluetooth MIDI game

[Dr Mike Metlay]

Many thanks to ElmerJFudd for bringing this to KC's attention! Check it out:

 

https://www.roland.com/us/products/wm-1/features/

 

For those who are new to wireless MIDI over Bluetooth, beware of old wives' tales about BT being useless due to latency issues. That is STILL true, very much so!, for audio â it's unusable for musicians. But MIDI? Phreeow! (That's a technical term FYI)

 

Bluetooth has been phenomenal for MIDI I/O for years now, and it keeps getting better. Ableton Link loves Bluetooth, and it's amazing to have an entire network in perfect sync without a single cable dedicated to the task. Some folks swear they can feel the latency, but I am nowhere near as nimble as they are and I think it works fine.

 

Yamaha makes dongles like this as well, one for MIDI ports and one that works on USB controllers that don't have 5-pin. Both work well.

 

https://usa.yamaha.com/products/music_production/accessories/md-bt01/index.html

https://usa.yamaha.com/products/musical_instruments/pianos/accessories/ud-bt01/index.html

 

The UD is actually really neat, how it works: you have a USB controller with no MIDI outs, that needs power from your computer to work (as well as the data hookup)? No problem! Hook the USB port to an ordinary wallwart USB power supply â an Apple iPad charger works brilliantly for nearly everything out there, and even a little iPhone charger will work for many smaller devices â but put the UD in between (plug it into the wallwart and plug the cable into its other end). It passes power and does MIDI I/O up the cable to the controller, works a treat!

 

For plugging into 5-pin, my personal favorite is the Quicco Sound mi.1, which was the first out and still has the most stable performance of all the ones I've tried. The developer is Japanese and speaks virtually no English, which makes support a bit awkward, but I've never needed to have a support question answered: the thing just WORKS, and it's so low-profile that you can put your keyboard into a gigbag or case without having to remove it. NO other BT adapter is like that. They have just announced a new model:

 

https://quiccosound.com/?pid=152215231

 

For those of you without currency conversion handy, 4200 Yen is about $40, way cheaper than any of the other alternatives. If the mi.1 II works as well as the previous one, this is a stone cold bargain.

 

CME has just released a whole line of new models that supposedly have even better performance, including one that can plug into only one MIDI port if that's all you need. (Quicco Sound announced theirs years ago but it's apparently not shipping yet). They have just started shipping at least one of these, no word on how well it works yet.

 

https://www.cme-pro.com

 

At least at first glance, perhaps the most remarkable thing about the Roland system is that it costs more than all the others But this Fast mode might be intriguing if it really IS faster than the competition....

 

mike

[Mike Rivers]

Many thanks to ElmerJFudd for bringing this to KC's attention! Check it out:

 

https://www.roland.com/us/products/wm-1/features/

 

I was a bit puzzled when I saw this, particularly the photos of it being connected between the 5-pin MIDI input and MIDI output of a MIDI device. Apparently the WM-1 communicates with iOS devices (only) using their built-in Bluetooth I/O. For a Windows computer, you need another part, the WM-1D, which gives you a WM-1 compatible Bluetooth port from a USB port.

 

 

And how about us Androids? We got Bluetooth too, just like an iPhone. I suspect that Roland has done what they need to do so there isn't any setup or software installation, just plug and go. They're good with that, particularly in their recent line of podcasting setups.

 

Quite expensive, and not much documentation yet.

[SamuelBLupowitz]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: MIDI over Bluetooth is my favorite advancement in music technology of the century so far.

[Dr Mike Metlay]

I dunno, I like Ableton Link, but I won't argue overmuch about your choice Sam.