# CME WIDI master - bluetooth midi - new product



## Dewdman42 (Aug 29, 2020)

I just wanted to report that I finally received the CME WIDI master product, which I pre-ordered some months ago and they finally shipped..









WIDI Master - Wireless MIDI Adapter via Bluetooth by CME


WIDI Master is your virtual MIDI cable. Now you can connect all your MIDI devices - without computers - without cables - with WIDI Master!




www.cme-pro.com





Fantastic product so far, I will probably get a few more. For example, now my JL Cooper Fadermaster doesn't need midi cables strung across my desk to get the midi:









Seems to work perfectly well for the fadermaster use. I am not sure what the latency is like until I try connecting a midi keyboard and playing on it, I don't think i would use this solution for all my keyboards anyway, I want to make sure I have midi timestamping and all that, but for a few older midi devices I have in the studio that sit across the room, its perfect.

A few warnings though.

The device requires power from the MIDI. many devices provide power over midi but some don't. My Fadermaster apparently does! They have a spreadsheet on their website showing known devices that work, but anyway, just something worth pointing out. They also have provided instructions to build your own external power if you have to, but who wants to do that?

Secondly, it is shown on their website that it can connect over Bluetooth directly to a Mac running MacOS...and I was very excited about that...however, it should be pointed out that it is using a newer version of bluetooth, which is probably faster or whatever and so that's a good thing, but it appears my aged 5,1 MacPro is not supported for this bluetooth... FYI.

The way it works for me is that I put a WIDI on the Fadermaster and another WIDI on my computer's midi interface, and the two communicate over bluetooth with each other.  Works fine. Its probably possible to get a PCI bluetooth card for my computer or something for less then the price of a second WIDI device.

_UPDATE: I found usb dongle bluetooth receivers for like $10 that apparently should be compatible. I am waiting to hear from CME for sure, but that sounds like the cheapest solution to use one of these with an older MacPro, get one WIDI and one USB bluetooth dongle (BLE) and that should have you doing wireless midi from a remote spot in the room. its possible that would have slightly more latency then using direct built in Bluetooth or a PCI bluetooth card, but it sounds like this device is only 3ms latency, certainly for faders and stuff like that, not a problem._


Also another caveat worth mentioning, they have a firmware update but the only way to apply it is with an android device. Doh! Hopefully I will never need a firmware update.


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## Dewdman42 (Sep 24, 2020)

I want to report some more on this product. I have spent quite a bit of time troubleshooting it. They have some work to do.

Basically, it works totally great and fine if you have only two widi masters in the room, connected to each other for the two ends of a virtual midi cable. they automatically connect and work perfectly like magic.

They start to be very problematic if you try to use the advertised feature of being able to connect directly to the Mac's built in bluetooth, which I cannot recommend at this time. it seems to connect only once and works fine until you disconnect and then I can't get it to ever connect again. they keep connecting to the mac automatically in non-midi way after that first time.

Its also somewhat hassle if you try to use more than one pair of widi master for multiple virtual wireless midi connections in the same room. It means whenever you power on your devices, you need to make sure to power them all off and then power up only two at a time until each pair, makes pairing connection , then power on the next two, etc.. So that they will automatically pair with the right one. There is no way to explicitly control which ones pairs with which.. So its kind of automatic voodoo that works great when there are just two of them in one room and only one virtual wireless midi cable, but kind of a hassle as soon as you move to more in the same room.

CME says they are working on an iOS app that can be used to configure WIDIMAsters to always connect to other specific WIDImasters...so maybe when they get that app out it will be more useful, but I think at this time, the product works awesomely great as two units connected to each other and no other blue tooth devices in the room. If more than two it works less great and if you try to use with built in mac bluetooth turn on, forget it.


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## Virtuoso (Sep 25, 2020)

Roland just launched one of those today:-









Roland - WM-1D | Wireless MIDI Dongle


WM-1D: Wireless MIDI Dongle - Wireless MIDI for a Wireless World




www.roland.com


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## Dewdman42 (Sep 25, 2020)

I wish these guys would make something with small form factor that uses wifi instead of bluetooth. The bluetooth pairing paradigm is a pain in a studio with multiple devices. Will keep my eye on the Roland. Apparently Yamaha already had one too.


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## Dewdman42 (Oct 18, 2020)

update to this thread. I ended up purchasing a new bluetooth board for my 5,1 MacPro. This one:









Mac Pro 2009 (4,1) and Mac Pro 2010-2012 (5,1) - Apple Broadcom BCM943602CDP - 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac with Bluetooth 4.2 Upgrade Kit - Limited Edition


802.11ac, BT 4.2 and Continuity & Handoff for HACKINTOSH, Mac Pro, iMac with Native Support for Apple Broadcom BCM943602CDP for PC, HACKINTOSH, Mac Pro, iMac



www.osxwifi.com





A bit costly, but I can say it works like a charm in general and brings my 5,1 MacPro up to date in terms of Bluetooth. This board adds faster AC wifi also. Supposedly the bluetooth in this board can handle all the cool continuity and handoff features, but I haven't tried yet. And it will handle Apple's latest bluetooth keyboards, magic mouse, etc.. so it is perhaps a generally worthwhile upgrade.

But anyway with this board installed the widimaster works very smoothly and easily as would be expected. Now I can use one WidiMaster on my JL Cooper FaderMaster and another one on my VoxTonelab and I have two more for as-yet-undecided purpose...but they make these devices show up on my mac as bluetooth midi devices and works very well.

I doubt, in this configuration, that I am taking advantage of the turbo modes that supposedly are possible with CME wireless midi solutions. Since I'm not really using a normal midi keyboard, I'm not that concerned about it for the moment, I will test that out later though. Its possible that two widimaster's communicating wirelessly to each other rather then directly to the mac over BT, might use turbo modes to either reduce latency or increase thru-put, I'm not entirely sure at the moment.

The Roland setup is doing similar stuff.


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