RK-008 BLE help needed

Dr. Kunz

My goal is to use a M-Vave Smk-25 (25 keys + 8 pads + 8 knobs) to remote control the RK-008 over BLE.
I configured the M-Vave controller the same as my Keystep but apparently there is no way to establish a Bluetooth connection with the RK-008. With the RK-008 set to remote channel 16, BLE Mode = On and BLE Dir = In an antenna icon starts blinking in the lower right part of the display but nothing else happens; the same applies if I set BLE Mode = Party. During connection tentatives I looked for discoverable BLE devices on my Android phone (Samsung A-52) and only the Smk-25 is visible, the RK-008 never appeared as BLE/BT available device.
I probably am overlooking something basic, any hint on troubleshooting?

Thanks in advance

Dr. Kunz

Update: I managed to connect both devices to my phone over BLE using MIDI Connector Free app as a bridge; then selecting the M-Vave SMK-25 as input device and the RK-008 as output device the app routed controller MIDI data to the RK-008.
It's a little progress though not exactly what I expected. FWIW the RK-008 is set in BLE Mode = On and BLE DIR = In+Out, the connection happened after setting the above and rebooting the RK-008; previously this didn't work when trying to connect SMK-25 to RK-008.

Paul_Dablue

Well I never had an issue connecting my M-VAVE smk-25 via BLE to the RK-008, granted I often had to turn off BLE on the RK-008 then back onto party mode before it would connect.
But I just tried it and I cannot get it to connect at all, I think firmware 2.33 has broken the BLE connection.

Dr. Kunz

Paul_Dablue thanks for the feedback, I had the same impression. Switching BLE on and off give -a sort of- unpredictable behaviour: I was continuosly scanning for BT devices availability on the phone and the SMK-25 takes 2-3 seconds to show up (after turning BT on) while the RK-008 shows once in a while. The antenna icon appearance seems unrelated to BT activity or at least I have yet to understand it :-)

grit

I just quickly checked BLE with a nanokontro and computer but nothing out of the ordinary there. Not sure what the m vave things do though

Dr. Kunz

grit thanks, would it be possible to make previous firmware available for download so I can check how BLE behaves?

grit

In the setting page the previous firmware is available in a small ‘downgrade’ link on the left top of the rk008 graphic

Dr. Kunz

grit thanks for the hint, I had to crank Chrome zoom to 175% to read "Downgrade" instead of "X0j<yvbzx" :-)
I had to go back to f/w 2.20 to have a successful BLE connection to the keyboard, using Party mode and In or In+Out.

Paul_Dablue

After a downgrade to fw2.28 the M-VAVE smk-25 will still not connect via BLE in party mode, a physical midi in from the M-VAVE does work as expected, the Korg nanoKEY works fine via BLE on fw2.33 and fw2.28

Strange because I was raving about the M-VAVE back in July 6 in another thread and had no problem connecting via BLE, I haven't used the BLE on it for at least a few months and I have changed NO settings on the M-VAVE, so it must have been a firmware version previous to fw2.28 that definitely did work.

albert

in order to check this, we've ordered that specific BLE keyboard. It will arrive in the next couple of days... then we can test it ourselves and keep you informed

Dr. Kunz

albert great, you guys rock!

grit

The 2.35 update is now available at https://retrokits.com/rk008/settings/ in which we can confirm m-vave working again.

Dr. Kunz

grit thanks for looking into it, really appreciated.
Under f/w 2.35 the M-Vave SMK-25 now connects very quickly to the RK-008: after setting BLE Mode to PARTY and rebooting, I'd say 1-2 seconds from power-up while the antenna icon is still blinking 😺
Well done!

Paul_Dablue

On a similar note, July last year I purchased an M-VAVE Chocolate bluetooth footpedal, I thought it would be perfect for Start/Stop/Next part control of the RK-008, but it would not connect with the RK so I had to return it.

I'm wondering if i should try the newer Plus version, was the ble fix for the SMK-25 a simple thing?

M-VAVE Chocolate Plus Wireless MIDI Controller Foot switch Supports MIDI Host
https://a.aliexpress.com/_EGXV1Jx

grit

Paul_Dablue the footpedal still doesn’t work, not sure why but well .. you have the keys now 😬

Albert Pauw

I had reported this already to Gerrit, but for here it may be good to know.
I have two Widi dongles, a CME Widi Master, and en MVave MS1 (from AliExpress). Both work for input and output to the RK008. Unplugging one and switch to the other does not always work without switching the RK008 off and on again. I haven't tried it with sysex messages, as I have nothing available at the moment for use. I used the BLE mode, not the party mode. For good measure, I am using the latest firmware as of now 2.33.

g3o2

I find Rk8’s BLE to be pretty unreliable. More particularly, it seems rather challenging to keep a stable connection. Occasionally, it would lose its connection for no reason. I don’t know whether this is related to the firmware or not. In any case, switching off Rk8’s internal BLE and connecting a WIDI Jack via TRS to Rk8 improves the BLE UX for my use cases.

Andrew J

g3o2 I kind of see BLE as an insane feature for a sequencer, and I rarely use it, though I will admit it's definitely spotty with the iPad. I've wanted to use the RK-008 to sequence stuff more on there and more and bluetooth (even though there are commonly hiccups and latency) has become more attractive. I also have the Teenage Engineering ortho remote operating using BLE MIDI (which is also tricky as hell to connect to the iPad), and it's surprisingly awesome to use as basically a wireless MIDI CC macro knob, I've wondered if/how I would connect it to the RK-008, how well it would work. It'd be a nice little CC sidecar. I really wish there was a little bit more detailed instructions on how to connect the RK-008 BLE MIDI/troubleshooting tips

g3o2

Andrew J I record to Rk8 by connecting my synths via BLE, however, instead of relying on Rk8’s internal BLE, I use the WIDI jack instead. The latency is negligible.

albert

yeah.. this whole BLE thing is a bit p.i.t.a. ... originally we just wanted to be able to have a simple controller to connect 'to the party'... later we implemented the client mode to be able to connect to iPhone and such
But admittedly: BLE functionality is not very high on our priority list :-/