Frequently Asked Questions - midiBeam
Q: Sometimes I get weird MIDI response with midiBeam, while everything works fine with MIDI cable connection. After turning off and restarting it works well. What is the problem?
A: Your instrument may send some initialization data that will be lost if you turn on midiBeam too late. Your MIDI signal path is the following:
Instrument -> TX02 -> radio transmission -> RX02 > hardware or software synth. To avoid this problem, you must turn on your devices in reverse order of the signal path:
Synthesizer
midiBeam (also perform pairing at this point if necessary)
Instrument
Q: Sometimes I get dropouts, hanging notes. Instead of solid lights the LEDs blink sometimes, connection is unreliable. On other occasions everything works well. What can be wrong?
A1: Check your batteries in the transmitter unit TX02. Always use alkaline batteries and avoid rechargeables. Latter provide less nominal voltage therefore will not perform reliably.
A2: The symptoms point to a problem with the radio connection. Very probably there is a collision with another radio system on stage or in the neighborhood (Wi-Fi, wireless microphone, in-ear monitor, wireless audio transmitter for an instrument). You have to set midiBeam to a free radio channel that is not disturbed by other sources. To do so you have to perform a pairing, then midiBeam will automatically find a free radio channel. Press the button on both devices. Both will blink for a few seconds, then they turn solid, showing that radio connection is established on a new channel. When setting up your system, it is especially important to keep the following sequence:
Power up your other wireless systems on stage (wireless microphone, in-ear monitor, wireless audio transmitter for an instrument).
Power up midiBeam.
Perform pairing of midiBeam.
Q: We use several pairs of midiBeam (4 of them) on a relatively small stage. One by one everything is OK, but if we use all systems at the same time we get dropouts / errors. We took care to perform pairing for each pair separately.
A: The radio power of midiBeam is adjustable. While it is delivered from factory with the maximum power setting, which guarantees a stable connection at large stadiums and a rough environment too, this power could be much more than necessary on a small stage. On the other side, on the highest power setting slight distortion/crosstalk of the radio circuitry can eventually disturb adjacent channels. So, in this situation it will help if you set the radio power of all systems (equally) to a lower level. This also reduces battery power consumption a little bit.