ABOUT THIS ARTICLE
This article will teach you how to connect your GripBeats® to your Windows computer via Bluetooth using MIDIberry and loopMIDI.
If you are looking to install the GripBeats® Desktop App for Mac, please visit here.
CONNECTING TO WIN
WHAT YOU WILL NEED
Receiving GripBeats data on WindowS (WIN 10)
To receive real-time data from a GripBeats device you need:
MIDIberry which supports Bluetooth MIDI and allows to route MIDI messages to real and virtual MIDI devices.
loopMIDI is a virtual loopback MIDI cable that serves a medium to transport MIDI data from the device to any application where a MIDI device can be connected.
The GripBeats® Desktop Patch that contains the firmware to be used. It must be flashed to the device and can be done by following this guide.
Steps to receive data
Install MIDIberry, loopMIDI, and the GripBeats® Desktop App for Windows.
Open loopMIDI and ensure that a virtual MIDI port is already in the list shown in the setup tab, otherwise you can add the port with the plus (+) symbol that can be found in the bottom left corner of the loopMIDI window.
Flash the firmware from the .zip file to the GripBeats, and then turn on the device to be discoverable by the Windows machine.
Turn on the Bluetooth in the Windows machine and open MIDIberry. You should be able to see the GripBeats in the input and output sections of MIDIberry, as well as your loopMIDI port similar to what is shown in the following image. If the device does not show up you can try turning on and off the Bluetooth in the Windows PC, and/or close and open MIDIberry.
Now you can route the data from the GripBeats to the loopMIDI virtual port by just selecting the GripBeats as input and the loopMIDI port as output. After this, you should be able to see the data from the GripBeats flowing in the Input Monitor section of MIDIberry, as well as how the “Total Data” and “Throughput/sec.” values from loopMIDI change in real time. Now you are successfully receiving MIDI data in Windows from the GripBeats. If the data is not flowing, as before, you can try turning on and off the Bluetooth in the Windows PC, and/or close and open MIDIberry.
At this point, you can open the GripBeats® Desktop App for Windows or any other software that can receive MIDI messages. The MIDI device to use is the loopMIDI port, from which we can receive the messages. To check if the data is flowing, you can look at the "RAW" data from the left sidebar. Now you can implement any application in Windows that can be controlled through the GripBeats.