I find the Bomebox and Bome Network incredibly handy. They both helped get rid of so many clumsy midi cables on my desk. I have not played a gi using Bome Network yet, but I'd like to. How reliable midi over WIFI? How about latency?
Hi, thanks for letting us know!
In general, we don’t recommend using WiFi in live situations just because of the general risk of interferences which can cause longer delays. But it depends a lot on what you’re controlling. For lighting, I imagine it’s not so bad compared to a rhythmic drum playing.
The Bome Network uses a proprietary solution which is 100% reliable as long as there is WiFi reception at all. MIDI messages cannot be lost, but delayed. Of course, if the WiFi connection breaks down, the MIDI stream is down, too.
Regarding latency, it works fine, also for real-time music, but it could be better… We have run informal tests:
We had this test setup:
MIDI DIN IN -> BomeBox 1 ----WiFi----> BomeBox 2 --> MIDI DIN OUT
We have measured the time it took from MIDI DIN IN to MIDI DIN OUT. Average latency of 2.17ms, minimum 1.27ms but maximum 16.1ms with standard deviation 2.04ms. By comparison, we measured for std dev with MIDI-DIN: 0.02ms, Ethernet: 0.1ms and USB: 0.21ms.
You will have to try if WiFi is OK for you. To be sure, use Ethernet…
I’ve edited your title.
Thank you, Florian, for the detailed explanation. It is very helpful. Bome Network is so useful and handy around the home studio. I may test out the WiFi setup in a “forgiving” gig. My main 15.6 hybrid tablet does an ethernet port and as you suggested I can use that, too. What about a USB ethernet adaptor? Will it work, too?
“In general, we don’t recommend using WiFi in live situations”
This is disappointing to hear, and I’m glad I ran into this thread before purchasing a BomeBox. Right now I have a custom-built instrument, although maybe it’s a bit of a stretch to call it that. It’s basically just a DJTT MidiFighter 3D mounted into a guitar body. I’m running it to my laptop via a USB cable going into an active USB extension. (If anyone’s curious about the instrument, feel free to look up Mechanical Vein & the electro-axe.)
I’m using this in 2 bands where we thrash about quite a bit, and it’s really nerve-wracking thrashing so hard with a hardwired USB cable + extension. So I’ve been thinking of installing the BomeBox into the body of the guitar, to accept the MidiFighter’s class-compliant USB signal & send that to my laptop over wifi. Are you advising against this? Or does it seem like it would work just fine?
Do you know if people have been using the product live over wifi very much, and do you know how successful that tends to be? This original thread is almost a year old, so maybe there’s been more testing for this sort of thing? The product seems absolutely brilliant, and I hope that it turns out to work for my scenario!
Hi Keithtron,
the BomeBox WiFi is impeccable 🙂 it is that we don’t recommend any wireless technology on stage. But if you need that, the BomeBox will work as good as any WiFi device. There are many customers who use the BomeBox wirelessly on stage and we have not heard of any problems. Just make sure you don’t keep heavy metal objects and/or walls in between the BomeBox and the WiFi counterpart. And IF there are WiFi problems, the BomeBox will ensure that as soon as connection is back, all pending MIDI notes are sent to avoid hanging notes.
I’ve actually been contacted by a user who built a wireless MIDI guitar using a BomeBox attached to the back of the guitar. It works well for him, as much as I know. Of course we’d think it would be much more pretty if it was attached to the front of the guitar 🙂
Hope that helps!
Florian