Nektar Pacer MIDI DAW Footswitch Controller

Initial impressions after one night of experimentation:Physical:It is very well built. Metal chassis, foot switches feel very solid and are quiet. Heavier than I expected which is a good thing. Nice rubber treads on the bottom to keep it from sliding. Profile of the pedals seems about right though I did accidently catch the rotary knob with my foot once or twice while operating. Spacing of the pedals is good. For my size 10 1/2 shoe -- not a lot of extra room, but not too tight either. Responsiveness of switches is very good. It has the appearance of durability. Time will tell, of course.Operational:Out of the box it has a preset to do what I wanted: activate notes on a soft synth. It's six notes on pedals 1-6 running from E to C. Worked immediately with my Arturia soft synth through Logic, no drivers or other nonsense necessary. <Whew!> I immediately set about programming a new preset the get closer to a full chromatic scale. You can't, of course, with only ten pedals, but who really needs C# and Eb? Well, I do, but not that often. So the preset runs E, F, G, A, B, D on pedals 1-6 and F#, G#, Bb and C on pedals A-D. This will work on a lot of music I play.I intend to set up another preset that will be aimed at minimize foot travel; probably E, A, B on pedals 1-3 and G, C, D on 4-6. That gives me the ability to do 1-4-5 blues/pop patterns in the two keys I use most.The process of coding in the specific notes is a bit laborious -- a computer app would be really handy -- but once you get the hang of it it's not too bad. I made a few mistakes but was able to correct them without starting over. After coding the pitches I coded the LEDs to get a different color for each pitch. Since it's not layed out like a real keyboard the lights might help me find the right pedals until I develop the muscle memory. All told it took about 90 minutes to get the custom preset the way I wanted it. And then it simply worked. Love it when that happens!At some point I'll try it with triggering sequences and other stuff. The possibilities seem pretty limitless.Conclusions:I love it. This is what I've been wanting for a long time. I've owned various bass pedals which are really nice, but take up a lot of room. I nearly got the Keith MacMillen 12-step but the complaints about the small size and unreliability scared me off. I could wish the Pacer had 13 pedals instead of 10, but I don't know that the extra size would have been worth it. There is the possibility of adding external footswitches that can be assigned to fill out the scale, but I'm not sure I'd like having loose mismatching targets to hit with my foot while performing. We'll see.It's early days, but so far I am really thrilled with this thing. Good job, Nektar!

First, note that this thing is built very, very well. It is heavy, and the switches are built to be stomped on for a long, long time. The only problem I have is sometimes hitting the knob when aiming for pedal D, so I'm going to create my own little foam 'donut' so that I don't accidentally hit the knob while performing. And yes, you can program it to be 'off', but I'd like to keep it available during performances.Programming on the unit itself is a bit awkward, but that's true of most of these kinds of devices. Nektar says they are working toward a programming application of some kind, but there's no timetable or specs for that at this point. Still, I was able to do everything they said I could do with just a little manual reading, so not a huge deal.I'll be using this for several functions, all through MainStage, to control a variety of keyboard functions. But the most exciting use is as bass pedals when I'm playing the uke. I've programmed it so that it produces ten bass notes that I can assign to various sounds in MainStage. Very cool. Programming works well, if a little klunky. Hopefully they'll release a programming at some point in the near future to make that a lot quicker and easier.All in all, highly recommended. Tremendous value and fantastic build quality for the money.

This is a very high quality piece of kit. I bought it to control various aspects of my DAW of choice, Reaper, and it does a very good job of that. More specifically, I've set it up to control the Super8 looper in Reaper so I can have a multi-channel looper with the ability to record, play-stop, overdub on dedicated footswitches. I also recently started using IKM's Amplitube guitar amplifier modeling software and of course the many footswitches and ability to use expression pedals (I just have one) and footswitches (again, I just have one) to control the virtual guitar pedals, amps, and switch between patches is very satisfying. It's easy to program the footswitch once you understand the process. The ability to select the LED color above each switch to help remind you what you've programmed it to do is a nice touch. It's big, takes up a lot of floor space, and it's heavy, but it looks killer and makes me want to play music. Nothing but praise for this thing.

Hard to program but when I did it is great

The product itself seems to be functioning fine buy this was definitely a used item. This controller was out of its protective plastic and the cables were just thrown in unwrapped. The box said it included a user manual... which was missing. It wasn't fun having to program using a pdf on my phone. This was definitely a used item, most likely a return that wasn't inspected. I did not order a used midi controller. I ordered a new one. What carelessness displayed by the seller. Avoid purchasing on Amazon.

I shopped and shopped for a programmable midi foot controller with a solid build, quiet buttons, and as many buttons as possible within a reasonable budget. I didn't want yet-another expression pedal, just as many solid/quiet buttons as possible without breaking the bank. This is the one. The buttons are like the Boss FC buttons, with firm but silent control. Each button can be programmed to execute multiple midi commands on a click, and each footswitch light is customizable. When I use the pedal to control my Boomerang Looper, for example, I use light red and red for 'Erase' and 'Erase All'. I don't use the pedal to control a DAW, but it's perfect for it and I might use it down the road. Buy this if you want solid, quiet, programmable reliablity.