Nektar Pacer USB MIDI Footswitch Controller with Nektar DAW Integration

Product Information

It’s not such an immediate solution for non-guitar playing studio-based musicians, who have less of a need for the kinds of real-time switching at which Pacer excels. PayPal UK Ltd, Whittaker House, Whittaker Avenue, Richmond-Upon-Thames, Surrey, United Kingdom, TW9 1EH. For more comprehensive DAW control, we might recommend a keyboard-based MIDI controller or something like the Ableton Push. The CCs used in this preset, the CCs used in this preset are good for MIDI learn purposes, because they are not commonly used.

Nektar DAW integration provides the highest level of integration with additional options for track and patch selection, customised RGB LED colour feedback and in some cases additional functionality. The Nektar Pacer MIDI DAW Footswitch Controller is a stage-ready foot pedal with 10 programmable LED foot switches, providing you with hands-free control of your DAW, MIDI guitar software or hardware, as well as channel and FX switching on your favourite amp.Most of Pacer’s User Presets are configured to transmit on the Global channel (set from the Global menu, as described in the user guide). Although I was very impressed by the range of non-DAW-specific functionality that Nektar have managed to cram into the Pacer, it remains, at heart, a floorboard DAW control surface and excels in that role. However, it’s not so useful, if you would like to control more than one device/plug-in from a single preset. Though it's important to keep in mind that your experience with the Pacer will certainly depend on the gear or software you try to use it with.

Unfortunately, the Pacer's rather limited screen display isn't always a tremendous amount of help, as it doesn't have the ability to display user-generated labels for pedal functions or states and relies mainly on CC and NRPN numbers and RPN labels to indicate footswitch status. Whether you are looking for a simple pre-configured solution to control products such as Line 6, Kemper Profiler, AxeFX and Avid Eleven, want to control your DAW without letting go of your instrument or plan to create your own advanced setups for controlling a live show, PACER does it all. At first blush, I’m a bit concerned that an unexpected press could put the unit in an unwanted preset when playing live. All this packed into a rugged, solid steel casing to make the Nektar Pacer MIDI Foot Controller ideal for any studio or stage application.

It's fully integrated with Nektar DAW software, and supports the MCU protocol for other DAWs — it's even supported by Avid Pro Tools. You can also use it to control parameters like bass, gain, or even the speaker cab selection switch. While there are certain aspects of the Pacer that are designed for non-guitar use, it does enough for both the guitar player and the DAW user to have value in both contexts.

When you load a preset, up to 16 MIDI-messages or switch states can be sent at the same time: Just one stomp can have a dramatic effect! That’s a lot of switching power right at your feet: With just one press of a button, you can send up to 16 MIDI and relay messages to reconfigure a setup instantly. Load different key centres into other footswitches, use the ESS function, use the external footswitches to change octaves, or just simply assign one note per pedal, and the option of introducing extra musical motifs in the studio or live on stage becomes more than just a possibility.But for basic functionality, the Pacer can definitely give you a fair amount of controller over your studio software, all from a floorboard that can be controlled by your feet. The 3-character display will now show ‘0’ to indicate that the control is configured to transmit on the Global Channel. I’ve had my Pacer for quite a while and I really like it, but now I’m in a situation where I need to have footswitches two different places on stage - and I’m thinking about how the external Footswitch function works.