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I've tried using my LX708 with an iPad Pro and various synth apps and the Bluetooth MIDI latency is horrendous (maybe as much as 1 second).

Has anyone else noticed this? Is the problem with the LX708, IOS, or just Bluetooth MIDI?

Due to the placement of the USB jacks on the piano, it's quite cumbersome to use a MIDI cable, and I'd have to connect & disconnect the MIDI cables during every session. I really wish Roland had put MIDI and audio jacks on the back of the piano (or put them both in the front and back).

Thanks.

Mark

Something is wrong then. I used Bluetooth with my iPad Pro connecting to an LX708 in the piano showroom and it was fast. Maybe you should call Roland Technical Support and open a service ticket? Suggest making a recording of the problem being demonstrated, maybe with your cellphone. If you demonstrate the issue to them, they might send a technician over to take a look.

Arne you sure the latency is in the Bluetooth midi connection ? How are you getting audio from the iPad ?

Audio from iPad to piano is also Bluetooth.

I had really hoped this would be fairly "plug & play", with MIDI and audio being over Bluetooth rather than multiple cables.

Though I've worked in IT for 30+ years, and have been working with MIDI and synths for 35+ years, I've grown a bit impatient with this sort of thing, expecting it to just work, rather than it becoming a research project and hours of troubleshooting. That's why I've avoided a computer-based keyboard solution for many years, compared to just an all-in-one solution (piano, ROMpler, synth, etc). Troubleshooting tech problems totally kills any musical inspiration.

In reality, the more technology advances, the more difficult it becomes; the whole "plug & play" idea is great when it actually works - then it becomes a nightmare to troubleshoot when it does work because the mechanisms to troubleshoot are often removed (for example, logs).

Thanks.

Mark

Yeah, sounds like it is time to call Roland.

Well, your problem it is not Bluetooth MIDI, it is the Bluetooth Audio, that is not made to transmit realtime audio. If you plug some head phones in your iPad, I bet everything will work great.

I was thinking the same thing.

Make that three of us. Bluetooth is laggy.

Sorry for your trouble, though I do agree that you should look at the audio aspect. I have a little Bluetooth transmitter and a set of Bluetooth headphones that use the low latency Bluetooth "standard". This is much better than standard Bluetooth, but you can still sense a bit of lag.

In a sense, I am glad to hear another tech worker say what you said in your post. Having been a software engineer for more than 20 years, I just don't enjoy troubleshooting stuff at home. It simply sucks the fun out of music making.

What I do is keep the piano part all in the hardware of my DP and use my computer for various courses, just watching the videos and displaying the PDFs. I have a small mixer that I run the output of my computer into, along with a CD player and whatever else I may want at the moment, and that output goes into the audio inputs on my DP so I can hear it all through my headphones connected to my DP. The mixer is an ART PowerMix III that just has three stereo inputs. It has a very small form factor, is quite inexpensive, and easy to use. This makes for a very simple setup that always works, never gives me any trouble, and does exactly what I need done and no more.

My computer is a Microsoft Surface Pro 4 with 256 GB internal SSD and a 512 GB MicroSD card. The Surface sits on the music stand of my piano and easily runs all my courses just fine.

If it isn't absolutely necessary to run Bluetooth, maybe consider something along these lines, substituting your iPad for the Surface of course.

Tony

Gotta agree with this. BLE used for BT-MIDI is still laggy, thigh it's literally an order of magnitude better than standard BT audio. Some people can tolerate it, but it adds an extra 20-30ms to your audio chain, which is quite noticeable to me (and negates pretty much everything you can do to optimize latency for real-time playing). That's just not worth eliminating a lag-free USB cable IMHO.

Indeed. 20-30 msec TOTAL latency is intolerable. So adding 20-30 msec to existing latency is just too much.
When you consider that the piano isn't going anywhere, what's the harm in using a cable?
Plug it in, plug it in.

Even though this thread is a bit older, I would like to report on my current experience (year 2022) with Midi over Bluetooth on Roland.
I am using a Roland FP 90x with an iPad Air (4th generation) and the app called Simply Piano.

I have noticed some delay (latency) when playing notes. It's like I have to play the notes faster than they appear on the screen. This makes using midi over bluetooth pointless.
But I also have to admit that I have both midi and audio transmitted over bluetooth.

My current solution to this problem is to use an adapter from DigitalLife (DigitalLife USB to MIDI Interface Converter Adapter).

This eliminates my latency problem - even if it means I always have to connect an extra cable.

With the iPad Air 4th generation it has a usb-c interface.

All you need is this. And it will carry midi and audio over usb

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00VKSF39O/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1

One cable

Midi over Bluetooth adds 10msec to the delay versus midi over usb

If you are sending blue tooth audio back to the piano, that will add a considerable amount of delay.

@Purdyd: Thanks for the tip with the cable.

I have to correct my statement about midi bluetooth. My last tests showed that the noticeable latency problem only occurs when I transmit the sound via Bluetooth in addition to the midi data. So I solved the problem by transmitting the iPad sound to my mixer via a cable and only the midi data via Bluetooth.