H9 Preset Changes from Forscore

[ericdano]

I have an H9, and I want to have Forscore send over bluetooth program changes to change presets. How does one do this? 

[nickrose]

We know little about Forscore since it is not our product.

However, since it is an iPad app, my guess is that you may be unlucky.

To send MIDI over Bluetooth from a (later model) iPad, you need to use Bluetooth BLE 4.0 or above.  Since this was introoduced after the H9 was designed, the H9 can not support it.

 

[ericdano]

Yet there is an option in the H9 for Midi over Bluetooth…….why is that there then if it doesn’t work?

I just want SOME other program to be able to send a midi command to the H9 via Bluetooth. Since the option is in the Pedal Settings, and it specifically says “Midi Over Bluetooth” I would assume it is possible. So what exactly does it do then if you enable it? Nothing? It’s just a dummy option then?

nickrose wrote:

We know little about Forscore since it is not our product.

However, since it is an iPad app, my guess is that you may be unlucky.

To send MIDI over Bluetooth from a (later model) iPad, you need to use Bluetooth BLE 4.0 or above.  Since this was introoduced after the H9 was designed, the H9 can not support it.

 

[gkellum]

ericdano wrote:

Yet there is an option in the H9 for Midi over Bluetooth…….why is that there then if it doesn't work?

I just want SOME other program to be able to send a midi command to the H9 via Bluetooth. Since the option is in the Pedal Settings, and it specifically says "Midi Over Bluetooth" I would assume it is possible. So what exactly does it do then if you enable it? Nothing? It's just a dummy option then?

That options there in case you want to control the H9 with a MIDI device attached to iOS as a MIDI device.  For example you can connect a BlueBoard to your iOS device and send it's MIDI messages to the H9 through H9 Control.

We did try to do what you want a few years ago.  We allowed users to have H9 Control create a virtual MIDI port and you could have an app like ForScore send MIDI to the H9 through this virtual MIDI port.  The problem was that having the app run in the background caused problems with the Bluetooth connectivity.  iOS just isn't designed to allow you to have apps in the background with active connections to Bluetooth devices.  So, it didn't work as expected and it caused a fair amount of Bluetooth connectivity issues.  So, we had to give up on that feature.

[ericdano]

Perhaps you need to revisit it. Many apps I use on the iOS work fine with bluetooth in the background. I can stream audio to head phones just fine. The bluetooth bicycle trackers I use for cadence and distance work fine in the background. Both work fine together in the background. 

I’m also able to use programs like Sampletank and mi1 connect together without issues. mi1 connect is a dongle that connects any midi device to an iOS device. I use it fine with an old Korg M1 keyboard through mi1 connect and then to Sampletank. I believe a midi virtual port is created for them to work. 

At the very least you should allow the H9 iOS app to multitask then. It is a pain in the ass to not be able to split screen it or anything in iOS. 

gkellum wrote:

ericdano wrote:

Yet there is an option in the H9 for Midi over Bluetooth…….why is that there then if it doesn’t work?

I just want SOME other program to be able to send a midi command to the H9 via Bluetooth. Since the option is in the Pedal Settings, and it specifically says “Midi Over Bluetooth” I would assume it is possible. So what exactly does it do then if you enable it? Nothing? It’s just a dummy option then?

That options there in case you want to control the H9 with a MIDI device attached to iOS as a MIDI device.  For example you can connect a BlueBoard to your iOS device and send it’s MIDI messages to the H9 through H9 Control.

We did try to do what you want a few years ago.  We allowed users to have H9 Control create a virtual MIDI port and you could have an app like ForScore send MIDI to the H9 through this virtual MIDI port.  The problem was that having the app run in the background caused problems with the Bluetooth connectivity.  iOS just isn’t designed to allow you to have apps in the background with active connections to Bluetooth devices.  So, it didn’t work as expected and it caused a fair amount of Bluetooth connectivity issues.  So, we had to give up on that feature.

[gkellum]

ericdano wrote:

At the very least you should allow the H9 iOS app to multitask then. It is a pain in the ass to not be able to split screen it or anything in iOS. 

The problem is that connecting to multiple H9s didn't work once we let the app go into the background.  Connecting to a single H9 worked fine, but many users found they simply couldn't connect to a second H9 at all.

We were experimenting with this feature (again) just about a month ago.  We put out a release to allow the app to go into the background to support multi-tasking on iOS 11 (v2.9.3).  That caused a lot of problems for some users.  So, we had to undo that change.

Here's the forum thread about this issue:

https://www.eventideaudio.com/community/forum/stompboxes/help-communication-error

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