Hello All,
Does anybody have any experience with this product? Any feedback?
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I just became interested in BT MIDI after getting a Korg Nanokey thingy, and will be buying this Yammy BT dongle ASAP. I’ll let you know how it goes.
I always thought BT MIDI was laggy and unreliable but so far my experiences have been very positive. Latency seems very reasonable, and operating range is comparable to what one gets with standard lenght MIDI cables (ie. usually under 6 meters or so). I believe the key thing here is the Bluetooth 4.0 low energy protocol, earlier bluetooth implementations seemed awful somehow.
No idea how this yamaha dongle power itself though. Any ideas? My nanokey uses two AAA batteries, but perhaps that’s just to power the LEDs?
Some midi ports provide power. Perhaps this dongle is limited to those? Also considered a bluetooth midi adaptor. Zivix PUC+ looks like an alternative as well, which runs on batteries.
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Oh yeah, MIDI bus power. I hope not though, not all MIDI devices support it.
I see the appeal in a BT MIDI dongle mainly as a way to quickly output a MIDI track from a DAW to a single synth/box and tracking the output, ie. a way to easily render hardware alt takes of softsynth tracks. Wouldn’t count on it as my only MIDI interface at the moment, even though my experiences have been promising.
Now then, getting Ableton link sync to DIN MIDI via BT, could be very cool if it works well!
Looking at a review, it works with MIDI power. Thinking of getting a PUC+ instead. Then connecting that to a MIDI thru hub.
On a OT note, I bought a Nanokontrol studio the other day to get the free Reason Limited software with it, Propellerheads are running a sale to upgrade to full version of Reason 10 for $99 in case you want to upgrade yours as you should have the same free software. Bonus for me is that the Nanokontrol studio makes a nice Mackie interface.
yeah, nanokontrol studio is on my shopping list as well. These korg nano* slates are great lil controllers, and best thing is they arent crippled with any propietary-only BS which would make them less useful outside of Korg ecosystem. My nanokey works even with my MPC live, scales arps and all 
Think I’ll go with the PUC+ too if its not too expensive.
EDIT: ouch, its double the price of the Yammy! Furthermore, the PUC+ has only one DIN MIDI port… I will go with the Yamaha dongle and hope most of my gear will power it. The PUC+ looks too ”complex” IMO, I just want a dumb cable…
Yeah scrapping the idea of the PUC+, just read a review, it’s only midi out so not bi-directional.
The video said you can configure the DIN port to be IN or OUT with an app. But I get nervous thinking about requiring any apps to change something as basic as that, y didn’t they just add a physical switch to the unit, instead of adding those redundant LEDs and vegas mode?
Maybe the review I read was mistaken. Thinking of hooking up a midi hub to iPhone/iPad, then BT to iPad to midi hub. Not the most practical of setups but just to see what it is like.
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Here’s a list of synths that don’t provide MIDI bus power, not sure how up-to-date. Think I may try my luck with the Yamaha dongle and the newer Elektron machines.
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Big thanks for the link sir!
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Hmm, how about this one?
I’m not a tinkerer myself but this might be doable…
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Just wanted to bump this topic, to see if there is any recent experience out there with this MD-BT01 device and the MonoMachine.
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kinda interested in these, since with the new Digitakt OS 1.20 I can connect to my iPad directly via USB to send audio to MIDI…
I have a Faderfox UC4 that I use in my setups, but in order to transmit the messages from the controller I have to first set up every CC in the MIDI tracks, so the Faderfox controls the Digitakt, then the Digitakt transmits the message to the iPad… PITA
So I was thinking… with one of these, I could bypass the whole DT thing and go straight to the iPad via bluetooth (and actually control DT’s parameters as well, routing some channels from AUM to DT, if I’m not mistaken)
EDIT: although, thinking about it a bit more… considering the iPad doesn’t have fixed CC messages, it’s not as painful - as long as I remember to activate the corresonding MIDI channels, it might be enough (and I can use the default CC numbers)… hmmm
Those BT MIDI dongles work well on the DT but not on faderfox MIDI out ports. They simply provide too low a voltage to feed them.
Ironically, the power supply of the foxes usually provides enough juice but it’s rather the “interesting” internal circuit design that doesn’t make use of it at the MIDI Out.
By the way, if you plan to use the incremental encoder knobs as such, the iOS app “Drambo” supports them.
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what do you mean by incremental encoder knobs…?
The difference between a classic potentiometer and a rotary encoder is that a pot sends a control value according to its angular position while an incremental encoder sends tiny “+” messages when turned right and “-” messages when turned left.
Advantage of the latter is that when you switch banks, turning an encoder will change the mapped parameter accordingly without jumping to a totally different value like with a potentiometer.
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Yeah I interpreted right then… I remember I had a Novation Remote Zero SL that had those, are you sure the Faderfox has them as well? How unfortunate that the Digitakt (or all elektrons for that matter) can’t receive those kinds of messages - it would open a whole different world in terms of external control