MIDI USB adapter issues

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trevordavies
Posts: 54

Post by trevordavies »

I have just tried a MIDI to USB adapter connected to the iPad. It's a cable style adapter as opposed to a full blown interface. It worked after a fashion but didn't play back all the notes. I was using a Yamaha GM 225 set to basic piano. Any ideas?
raynebc
Posts: 39

Post by raynebc »

This is typical of very cheap/shoddy adapter cables.
Nicholas
Posts: 13132

Post by Nicholas »

I am inclined to agree. Do you have a picture of the offending adapter? (Maybe a link to the site you purchased it from?)
trevordavies
Posts: 54

Post by trevordavies »

I got the adapter from eBay. It was cheap.
Interestingly the first one I ordered was cancelled by the supplier because they had found a fault with them. Having compared the cable with a middleman 2X2 and trying both on a laptop I can see that the cable is at fault. It sends but does not return accurately. As you can't use the midiman with an iPad, can you recommend a good quality usb/midi cable? I guess that given a good quality cable the set up should work.
Nicholas
Posts: 13132

Post by Nicholas »

This one works pretty universally.
trevordavies
Posts: 54

Post by trevordavies »

Thanks. I just looked on your keyboards site and I actually bought the bad cable you have illustrated!
Nicholas
Posts: 13132

Post by Nicholas »

If you'd like to learn more about why that one is bad, jimhenry uncovered some really nasty info about them, here.
trevordavies
Posts: 54

Post by trevordavies »

Just to let you know I have bought the E-MU cable recommended by you and it works. I also tried a similar one from M-Audio and that works too. Neither like being disconnected and re-connected the way you can get away with if you are using a standard USB: I have found that if you lose the connection you have to quit Synthesia, re-connect and re-boot the app. Thanks for the help and support!
Nicholas
Posts: 13132

Post by Nicholas »

It's good to hear you've got things up and running!
monkel
Posts: 199

Post by monkel »

I use the iRig midi adapter, you can get deals for it for about 20-40 €:

http://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/irigmidi1/

When I plug it in it works perfectly. Just when it's already plugged in when I turn on / wake up the ipad Synthesia often won't recognize it. But even in that case when I pull it out I immediately get a big warning screen, indicating that the cable has been disconnected, so it somehow was still active.

Is this a warning screen from Synthesia?

http://imgur.com/PiLSCSA

If so, then somehow it was still recognized, just not working properly.
Nicholas
Posts: 13132

Post by Nicholas »

monkel wrote:When it's already plugged in when I turn on / wake up the ipad Synthesia often won't recognize it.
iOS has some pretty strange behavior when it comes to connected devices. It is very aggressive about conserving battery power, so when it goes into sleep, it all but virtually disconnects USB devices.

I've seen the same with most of my test hardware: after wake, there is very little to be done except disconnect/reconnect the adapter. (Sometimes even that is finicky and it ends up taking an app restart or even a device restart.)

The yellow image is from Synthesia. (That was fun to draw. :D ) What I'm guessing is happening is that despite iOS sending the adapter into a very low power state, the operating system still knows it's connected. The pop-up happens in Synthesia when the number of detected devices changes. So "present, but not working" is probably the expected (bad) behavior.

I wish I had a better answer.
monkel
Posts: 199

Post by monkel »

Thanks for the explanation - I guess you can't be expected to fix apple's problems ... :)

Though I do wonder how DJs and other artists that actually use iPads on stage handle this. I really can't see anyone in that situation trust part of their performance to the whims of Apple. If this was always a problem I'd just expect them to drop the iPad from their setup for something more dependable.
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