Fiddlewax Blue v1.1 adds support for realtime MIDI output over WiFi. Now you can use any of the instrument’s interfaces to control your favorite sound libraries on your desktop or laptop. Bring on the synthesizers and effects!

And using MIDI with other apps also means you can easily create sheet music and piano rolls of the songs you’re playing. Here’s an example of what GarageBand produces while recording:

Here’s how to make it happen.

Setting up MIDI over WiFi with Fiddlewax Blue is easy, but it does require a few steps to get everything talking and playing together.

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1. Make sure both devices are on the same WiFi network. For testing, you don’t need to do anything fancy here. But if you want to really play with fast timing, you’ll need to setup an Ad hoc WiFi connection (a direct wireless connection between your devices, instead of going through the WiFi access point).

Alternatively, you can connect your devices via bluetooth. This gives reasonable timing without needing to disconnect your existing WiFi connection. Just pair your computer and phone/tablet via Bluetooth and you’re ready for the next step.

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2. Open Fiddlewax, tap on the Fiddlewax logo (top left), and set MIDI Output to YES. This creates a Bonjour network-MIDI source that is ready to output notes over a WiFi connection.

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3. Now we need to help the desktop/laptop find Fiddlewax and listen for notes. This will vary depending on which operating system you’re running:

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Mac/OSX - Within your Applications folder, open the sub-folder called Utilities. Now open the application Audio MIDI Setup. Once it’s open, make sure the MIDI Window is showing (if not, click Window in the top bar and select it). In the MIDI Window, double click on the Network button. If you don’t already have a session, click the + button under My Sessions to create one. Make sure it’s enabled (its checkbox should be marked). Under the Directory section, you should see the name of your device. Click on it, and click Connect. If you don’t see your device’s name, disable and re-enable MIDI in the Fiddlewax app to help it along. Note that it may take a few seconds for everything to shake hands. Once the connection is established, you’re ready for step 4.

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Windows - If you don’t already have one, you’ll need a network-MIDI capable application. Many musicians recommend downloading rtpMIDI. Here’s a quick tutorial for how to set it up and connect your device. Or if you prefer a video walkthrough, here’s an example of setting up rtpMIDI and Bonjour to connect a iOS app to Cubase7. Once your devices are connected, go to step 4.

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4. At this point Fiddlewax should be outputting MIDI notes over WiFi to the desktop/laptop, but without a virtual MIDI instrument, the notes don’t make any sound. You need a sound generator, or soft-synth, to turn those notes into audio. There are lots of MIDI soft-synths to choose from, so here are a few to get started.

GarageBand - This is probably the easiest way to get up an running on a Mac. Just start up garage band and create/open a project with a Software Instrument track. Select the track, and it should play incoming MIDI events. Voilà! Windows Default - Windows has a built-in soft-synth that can play basic MIDI instruments. You may need to poke around in the control panel to turn things on or adjust the volume, but it’s a simple way to make sure everything is working. Otherwise, you can install something a bit faster and more configurable, like VirtualMIDISynth. Cubase - If you’re looking for a full Digital Audio Workstation (DAW), Cubase is good option. Note that things can get complex quickly. Reason - Another good DAW, but with the look and feel of physical knobs and racks, is Propellerhead Reason. Lots of cool features to explore, but like Cubase, things can get overwhelming if you’re new to the space.

Why you should setup an Ad hoc WiFi network.

If you really want to play Fiddlewax as a realtime input to your MIDI workflow, timing is everything. It’s important to hear the notes as they are played without delay, and for recording, it’s important that the notes are placed at the correct moment in time. For these reasons, you’ll really want to connect your devices directly over WiFi (ad hoc) instead of via your WiFi access point / router.

Over a typical WiFi connection, latency (i.e. delay) measures anywhere between 20 and 500 milliseconds. That’s up to a half second behind - drats!

However, over an ad hoc network the delay is greatly reduced and the sound feels instant as you press on notes and chords in Fiddlewax. 2-5 milliseconds is common, with occasional spikes up to 20. But the latency is easily 10x better than over a standard WiFi setup, and well worth the minute or so to set it up.

For most desktop/laptop users with integrated WiFi this is quite easy to do - just click on the WiFi networking icon in your system tray and tell it to “create a network.” Then just connect your phone or tablet to the new network and you’re ready to roll.

For comparison, connecting directly via Bluetooth falls somewhere in the middle of the two WiFi configurations (5-50ms).

Note that you may need to enable/disable the MIDI interfaces after you switch the network around so that everything reconnects and MIDI data flows as intended.

If you run into an issue, or have other suggestions on how to get things setup, share your thoughts in the comments below.