Bluetooth MIDI receiver for player pianos
LCD-MIDI connects your phone to your Disklavier, PianoDisc or any player system with a MIDI input, then does the work a plain adapter can’t: it calibrates every key, keeps the volume where you set it, balances the band against the keys, and shows you what the piano is doing. Nothing else in this category has a screen. Nothing else we know of puts MIDI and stereo Bluetooth audio in one box.
Already own one? LCD-MIDI is the new name for the PianoLink LCD MIDI Receiver. Same box; update it to the current firmware.
4.0″ touchscreen · 480 × 320 · the real home screen, drawn here to scale
What it does
A Bluetooth dongle passes notes through and hopes for the best. LCD-MIDI sits in that same spot and takes responsibility for how the piano actually sounds.
Player systems never play all 88 keys evenly. Calibrate on the touchscreen or from the PianoStream app: match a few anchor notes and the box shapes the rest. Saved in the box, kept through every update.
Tap FIX A NOTE, tap the key that stood out from the last eight the piano played, and the box plays it between its neighbours. Softer, Louder, Done. The change stays for every song — and works for a dead key too.
Set a High limit once. The phone’s volume slider then moves the piano only inside the range that sounds good on your instrument. Every song also levels itself, so a quiet recording comes up to match.
On a Disklavier or a PianoDisc with a tone generator, give a solo-piano song a band that follows the pianist. Drum Boost fills out faster songs; late-drum intros and tempo-aware ambience keep slow ones gentle. XG Sync lines it all up with the keys.
Five sliders — Piano, Bass, Drums, Band and Follow — set how the band sits against a real acoustic piano and how much it comes down with the phone’s volume. Tune once, save, forget.
Many piano recordings are played softly in the low register. Bass Boost lifts the bottom two octaves on the piano itself, on by default, off with one tap.
Connected or not, which phone, the volume the app is sending, live bars while a song plays, and a Demo button so the piano can play with no phone at all.
Playing an analog or FSK system through the audio input? The box keeps re-asserting your volume on the piano every second, so a glitch in the audio stream can never make the piano jump.
LCD-MIDI is a standard Bluetooth MIDI device. PianoStream, Synthesia, GarageBand, a MIDI file player: if the app speaks Bluetooth MIDI, it plays the piano.
Sounds
Three of the band tiles step through three voices each. The horns don’t play chords — they find the melody and play just that line, the way the records do.
Plus Strings (four steps from soft to Lush, with flute and harp on the melody), Rhodes, Harpsichord and Accordion. Sounds come from the piano’s own XG tone generator; a plain-GM system plays the nearest standard voice.
Two models
Both run the same firmware and share the same screen. Universal adds a second radio for stereo audio.
One 5-pin MIDI cable to the piano. The phone plays the keys; the box calibrates, limits and shows.
For: any player piano with a MIDI input, played from PianoStream or another Bluetooth MIDI app.
Everything in Bluetooth, plus a high-quality Bluetooth audio receiver with an external antenna. Shows on your phone as a second device and powers up with the box.
For: pianos with speakers or an audio input, older analog player systems, and anyone who wants piano plus backing audio from one app. As far as we know, the only standalone box that does both.
How it compares
The usual ways to get a phone into a player piano, side by side. The dongles are good at what they do; it is a smaller job.
| LCD-MIDI Bluetooth | LCD-MIDI Universal | Bluetooth MIDI dongle (MD-BT01, WIDI Master) |
Bluetooth audio receiver (generic) |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plays the keys over Bluetooth | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Stereo audio to the piano’s speakers | No | Yes | No | Yes |
| Screen | 4″ touch | 4″ touch | One LED | One LED |
| Per-key calibration, Fix a Note | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Song leveling and a volume limit | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Disklavier / PianoDisc balance profiles | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Live band from a solo-piano stream | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Organ / Brass / 80s Synth ladders, melody horns | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Volume lock on analog / FSK playback | n/a | Yes | No | No |
| Plays with no phone (demo) | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Settings from the PianoStream app | Yes | Yes | Pairing only | No |
| Firmware updates | Web page over USB, no account | Web page over USB, no account | Vendor app | None |
| Two-way MIDI (piano back to phone) | No | No | Yes | n/a |
| Power | USB adapter | USB adapter | From the MIDI jack | USB adapter |
Product names belong to their owners. Dongle and receiver rows describe the category as commonly sold; check a specific model’s own specifications.
Universal · Piano + Audio mode
PianoDisc, Pianocorder-era and analog Disklavier systems take their music as an audio tone (FSK) on an RCA jack. With Universal, PianoStream sends that tone over Bluetooth to the box’s audio receiver and the piano plays — while the MIDI side of the box keeps control of the volume.
When the app is setting the piano volume but no MIDI notes are flowing, the box knows the piano is playing from the audio input and switches to Piano + Audio mode on its own. The moment MIDI notes return, it switches back.
Your volume is re-sent to the piano once a second for as long as Piano + Audio mode lasts. A dropout or a stray message in the tone can’t leave the piano blasting.
Eight colour level meters with peak-hold caps and a pulse on the beat, a live PIANO VOLUME readout, and a LOCKED chip that blinks each time the lock does its job.
What’s new · Rev 113
Rev numbers appear in the footer of the box’s home screen. Update from a computer in two minutes — see Firmware updates.
Works with
Firmware updates
Updates install over the USB cable from Chrome or Edge. Calibration and settings stay as they are. Boxes sold as PianoLink LCD MIDI Receiver update the same way.
On a computer, go to balanceiq.com/update.html in Chrome or Edge.
Connect the box to the computer with its USB cable. The MIDI cable can stay where it is.
Click Install, pick the USB device, wait about two minutes. The box restarts on the current firmware.
Who makes it
LCD-MIDI is conceived, designed and built by Richard Hayes of Hayes Electronics in Pleasant Grove, Utah. Richard is an electrical engineer and piano technician with 32 years of hands-on experience with Yamaha Disklavier and PianoDisc player systems, and the founder of the PianoStream streaming service. Across all those years the same question kept coming up: why does the piano play every song a little wrong? The box is the answer. Every unit is assembled and tested on a real player piano before it ships.
hayesiq@gmail.com801-687-5413balanceiq.com/update.htmlPianoStream (iOS / Android)