IK Multimedia is now shipping the iRig BlueBoard — the first wireless MIDI pedalboard for iOS and Mac.
iRig BlueBoard is designed to give you a hands-free way of controlling your music apps. The BlueBoard features four backlit soft-touch pads, housed in a sturdy chassis. Two TRS expansion jacks are also included, for connecting MIDI expression pedals.
Here’s a video intro for iRig BlueBoard:
Features:
- Bluetooth MIDI pedalboard (10m/32.8′ range)
- 4 backlit assignable foot switches
- 2 1/4″ inputs for assignable expression pedals or switches
- Can send Bank Change, MIDI Program Changes and MIDI Control Changes
- BlueBoard iOS app runs in background on mobile device or Mac, and translates Bluetooth messages to MIDI
- Runs on 4 standard AAA batteries
- Small enough to fit in a laptop bag
The iRig BlueBoard is designed to work with any iOS device or Mac that supports Bluetooth 4.0 / Bluetooth Low Energy.
Pricing and Availability. iRig BlueBoard is priced at $99 (79 Euro), and is shipping now. For additional information, check out the IK Multimedia site.
If you’ve used the iRig BlueBoard, leave a comment with your thoughts!
Why no Windows love?
It might be because Apple’s implementation of Bluetooth is not standard, which is why Bluetooth accessories have to be certified for the iphone or else they don’t work.
Hopefully in the future because this looks nice.
You are correct, plus its easier to develop for Core MIDI as a whole because it works across all Apple devices. Windows and other OSs run on many different hardware machines.
MIDI is MIDI, you cannot implement MIDI in a non-standard way or else it just wouldn’t work and CoreMIDI it not an exception, Bluetooth stacks on the other hand is much more different and you can have a certified Bluetooth device that will not work with Apple’s devices because its not certifided for Apple’s certified protocols.
Now the question is would this device be easy to port to Windows if it was coded in pure Midi instead of CoreMIDI? Because technically I never had any problem with using MIDI software or devices on Windows throughout the years on many different hardware.
Will you be able to run this AND dock the ipad in the Alesis IO Dock …with regular midi coming ina dn out of it? if so this could be a godsend….midi clock going to the din in and the blue board sending midi notes…if this works as well as I think it could…i would love to see a chromatic version for bass footpedals…a la kmi 12 step
Hi, modular freak here. TRS ins – Works with CV??? please?!
Baloney. I use every operating system there is, according to the only reasonable criterion: does it meet the need. Windoze, as much as I dislike it for a lot of things, is a very solid music platform. To not support it with a device that is MIDI/Bluetooth is, frankly, absurd. C’mon, IK, fill the whitespace.