How to make your own MIDI over Bluetooth instruments

This is a step by step tutorial tutorial on how to make a basic wireless MIDI instrument, using MIDI over Bluetooth, with Arduino and an affordable ESP32 board.
I'll show you every connection and component, every bit of code and the libraries that you'll need to get your own wireless MIDI instrument up and running.
(Except!!: I forgot to mention that before installing the ESP32 board package, you have to go into the Arduino Preferences menu and in the field that says: "Additional Boards Manager URLs:" you have to post in the following link:
Thanks Álvaro Lozano for pointing that out.

[DJDiskmachine]

That cardboard guitar thingy is the prettiest thing I've seen in a good while 😍

[SuperPol]

Funny how you pressed the button harder to get more velocity, while there is really no need for that. It's like leaning in curves when playing a racing game ;)
Good tutorial, opens op a lot of inspiration!

[jackeddymusic]

Well done! Such a good, no nonsense tutorial. This could also serve as a great introduction for anyone who's never used the Arduino environment before, because you leave no steps out, you show how easy it is to get Arduino set up and then get pretty amazing results so quickly with such few lines of code. You rock. Keep up the good work!!

[cpuchip]

I totally love this. We had just start teaching our kids programming, and this will be a super fun project to introduce them to arduino. Thank you for showing how easy it is to get started!

[tobyclbain]

Thanks for a great tutorial, it's been very helpful with my project. I'm wondering if it's possible to connect to my Macbook using BLE? For some reason the device never shows as an option in the bluetooth settings....

EDIT: to anyone trying to figure this out in the future, I had to connect via the Audio MIDI settings on my MacBook. There's an option for Bluetooth in there, connecting via the "normal" Bluetooth settings wouldn't work for me.

Thanks again for a great tutorial!

[maukaman]

Hello!
I have an idea for a project that I think should be pretty simple but I haven’t found any good examples of it online yet. I’d like to build an artificial sound machine for small electric vehicles so that drivers/ pedestrians can hear you coming. It should be easy enough to use the 0v-4v signal from a standard hall throttle to modulate the sound along with the speed right??
I believe lots of people will have interest in a device like this, especially because many countries will soon be enacting new laws that require small electric vehicles to play sounds for safety.
I am about to order a teensy microcontroller and hopefully I will be able to figure this out. When I had the idea I immediately thought of you because I imagine this would be a simple project for you.
If I have any questions while working on this I might ask you if you don’t mind…. Or if you wanted to I think it would make a great subject for a video, and would likely bring many other viewers to your channel.. just a thought.😄

[nemact]

Hello, wonderful project. I did all the steps exactly as you did In the video but I'm am getting <BLEMIDI_Transport.h> error with the code. Can you help with this? Also the kit on your website is sold out, can you tell us when it will be available?

[chonz]

Awesome content as always! I made a custom "flute" with a Feather 32u4 Bluefruit, which works both through USB and MIDI-BLE. I still have a WIP version 2 with a Teensy (for working standalone) and a Adafruit BLE SPI Friend, but haven't finished it yet. It will have an air sensor based on your videos about wind instruments, thanks A LOT for that, it never occurred to me that approach!
I guess my v3 is going to be based on ESP32!
Greetings from Argentina :D
PS: if I go to Barcelona next year I'll send you a message to see if you have a workshop running or something like that

[SukronN]

I want to ask? what about the bluetooth latency

[haley]

Thanks but this is a midi _controller_ . The _instrument_ here is the phone. Do you have anything on creating an esp32 midi instrument?

[dtone]

Inspiring video and I have a breadboard MIDI controller working using your tutorial and a LOLIN D32, however ...

BLE MIDI Connect is not compatible with Android 13 😢

I have written to the developer to ask if they plan to make it so, but in the meantime do you know of any other BLE MIDI connection utilities that might work on Android 13?

[nicholasjensen]

Is there any noticeable latency when using bluetooth that would interfere with using this for percussive instruments?

[flywittzbeats]

I can’t figure out how many analogio’s this has… is it only one? And do you have any recommendations on a multiplexer?? Thank you so much. Can’t wait to get your kits!

[WhatUpTKHere]

Have you had any luck doing this with Windows? I've found it just auto disconnects the device after pairing when using the ESP32-BLE-MIDI library.

[monsieuraned]

Hi everybody. Your work is good and deep. I have few question to ask. I try to control ableton from Android with midi commander app. I tried to make a midi ble bridge to USB midi with a esp32-C3.. But it doesnt work. I receive midi message from Android app to esp32. But i can't go further. I tried with hairless midi serial bridge, but nothing incoming. Any ideas ? Thx.

[chihauccisoilconte]

Thank you for the video! - I have a question: the first time I used the device it worked fine, but after the first time, the controller stopped working and the MIDI BLE App as well as the Synth app can't see it. Oddly, the Android phone normal BLE keeps seeing it and contacts with it, did you ever experienced something like this??

[Karedu.]

One question 🙋‍♂️, while using it on windows it have direct midi connection or does it need an external program like hairless midi?

[tognoliettore]

Thanks for this lesson/tutorial
I was able to make it work with android like in the video,
but I don't know how to make it work in the linux =/
Do you have any idea?

[hsitz]

Thanks, cool video. But I was actually looking for a way to use an ESP32 as an alternative to a BLE MIDI adapter like Yamaha UD-BT01. Seems like this is part of the way there, but I have no idea how to do the next step. I wnt to hook this up to USB cable output of a controller to get midi from a controller into the ESP32, so the ESP32 can relay it via Bluetooth to a computer/synth. Any clues on how this can be done, or where I should look for more info online?

[das]

To improve the experience you may consider increasing size of code sections..I couldn't read the code