MIDI Kinetics Forum

Hi Phil,
so, everybody confirms non-reliability of wireless midi.
just as you said, i was thinking about this :
buying 8 ipad midi interfaces and my two old ESI midi interfaces to connect my macbook
I found 3 midi interfaces for ipad :
Mobilizer 2
iRig
Yamaha i-MX1
Which one should I choose ?

best regards,
Bruno

many people report that wireless connections can cause problems. But with the right card/setup it can be very reliable.

I would only buy 8 MIDI-interfaces if you need to sync (MIDI clock) all iPads. There's also to consider how you will power them. For normal use I would test different cards/computers for wireless.

Even with the best MIDI-interface for iPad, the iConnect, problems (latency) may occur, as someone reported here in this forum. Also with my iRigMIDI, which works fine, but doesn't power the iPad as it should

My only need is a reliable midi connection. That is to say : no loss of connection.
A little bit of latency is not a problem for my use.
and I don't need any power for the ipads : each monday I practice currently 8 hours of connection ( a whole day workshop ! ) without power problems.
I just ordered 4 pieces of Line 6 MIDI Mobilizer II
for testing the reliability and practical qualities (I'm often working with children).

It's a pity to have to go back to cables...
But Liine doesn't seem to have solutions for wireless wifi.

any news or contributions about it are welcomed.

Bruno

I am runnning Lemur on an iPad 2 using a wifi router and Windows 7 and I am experiencing a drop of my MIDI out port, but after thinking about it I'm guessing it correlated to the DHCP Lease Time on router which was set to 1 Hour. I never kept count but, I use my Lemur on my iPad to do lighting at a nightclub and for about 5 hours each night. I dont think the port drops more then 4 times throughout the night, so that would make sense. Just changed DHCP Lease time on my router to 12 hours. I'm hoping this will remedy the problem. I will be sure and post an update either way.

a connection of one iPad can drop if another iPad targets the same MIDI port. That is can happen easily.

I haven't had any dropouts anymore since some time. Could it be that all dropouts I experienced did happen because I used two iPads with multiple tasks, often both running Lemur and sometimes by mistake using the same MIDI ports? Could be, I can't say now.

are you talking about wireless midi ? or cabled midi ?
my experience is that you'll have loss of connections if you go wireless , sometimes and also in some places, it's very erratic...
And I think I know you'll have the same problems with Lemur, Midi touch or any midi app on ipad... i experienced it myself

that is to say :
you can use wifi in the studio , when you experiment or when you build a new set up or compose something. A loss of connection is very rare and, most of time, it has no great consequences.
but if you go live, on stage , for a public performance it's foolish to relie on wifi. Go back to midi cables, definitely.

certainly. Although you can stumble over a cable on stage.

I read my last post again and see it was not clear. I was writing about wireless connections. Sorry about the confusion.

Between the beginnings in January 2012 and today there are some changes. I know Lemur a bit, I can even take advantage of some simple scripting, and I don't change my targets so often anymore. Every iPad (3 pieces) has its dedicated function and proper place in the studio. I'm simply more familiar with Lemur and wireless connections so that unintended errors don't happen that often anymore. I also use a different laptop (with a wired gigabit card), maybe this had a positive influence as well? The last connection dropout was probably two months ago I guess.

I imagine following scenario that might have happened a couple of times: I'm controlling Cubase with iPad A and use two Lemur targets (and four MIDI ports). The next day I do the same with iPad B because A is occupied. Then I start Lemur on A for a Reaktor session (that doesn't even need MIDI), and without knowing the cause, B has red ports because A had the same ports assigned. But I just look at B and wonder why this dropout had happened. Months go by, and I experience the same thing occasionally, and think about a bug in Lemur.

I am still not certain, but I suspect these dropouts were in fact unintended user errors. Lemur was an expensive piece of gear, and cases were rare where people used more than one at once. With Liine Lemur this has changed, and you still can select a MIDI port that is used by another iPad and won't get a warning. But you will get a connection problem.

Now that you are on the safe side with hardware interfaces, you may again try a wireless session with all your iPads?

i'm glad to have someone to talk to , using more than one ipad with lemur.
very useful and rare.

of course, you must use a different daemon port for each ipad, I never did another way.
when testing the set up (8 ipads wireless midi) in my studio, no problem, no loss of connection.
when i went in a school for workshops, losses of connection began.
I first incriminate some children who were going out of the app to explore some games on the ipad
that happened sometimes in the workshops.
But in fact , sometimes the loss of connection happened when nobody touched the ipad.

At the beginning , i used Midi Touch and experienced with those problems.
So i incriminated this app (very good also, but not well developed)
and switched to Lemur (much more reliable and powerful).
but exactly the same problems with wireless midi, depending on the locations :
I performed some concerts on one ipad without any problem,
but in all my setups with 6 or 8 ipads, i had at least 5 or 6 losses during one day.

I read on forums that interferences with phones, other wifi networks all around us, can make wireless midi connections very erratic in some locations.
and i believe that.
so, i think that if your setup works well in your studio, you're the lucky one
I'm one too, in my studio...
but elsewhere, now I always use my 8 Mobilizer II wired on a midi interface.