PAINTAUDIO MIDI Captain Foot Controller Multi-Effects Keyboards Synthesizer USB-MIDI musical software Bias with Time Engine Function Support all PC/CC/Note commander 10 Foot Switches (Blue)

Second best digital guitar purchase after the HX Stomp it controls. You won't even come close to this value with any other stompbox midi controller. Turns my HX into the rig it was always meant to be. Many hours of use and no issues. Just join the Reddit community for MidiCaptain if you're a bit nervy with setup.

TL;DR = Fantastic hardware ruined by its unfinished firmware and unforgivably bad documentation. Long Version: Previous reviews of this item are neither constructive or informative for users or the manufacturer. I hope all will find this review entertaining if not useful. Everything herein pertains to the V4.0 firmware as of January 2025. I'm a MIDI power user and not afraid of some tinkering to get things working. I purchased this device because it's marketed as a 'do-aaallllll-the-midi' powerhouse featuring a great user interface with lots of feedback on the status of each switch, all programmable without the need to connect to a PC for a little over £130. This is too good to be true (foreshadowing), count me in! The hardware is indeed fantastic! There's no other word. It's a great size, built like a tank, can be powered via pedalboard (centre-negative 9V DC) power, USB or battery. The screen is full-colour, sharp and brightness-adjustable – yay! The highlight though is the LED's - OH the LEDs! The segmented RGB LEDs are a brilliant idea. They can convey all manner of switch-state information at a glance when using the stock presets the pedal ships with (more foreshadowing). The packaging has got some really nice touches too. Overall, one gets the impression that the manufacture's intent was to make a fully featured product for professional use. But unfortunately in the space between where the intent and the execution lies is a vast yawning chasm. Okay, here we go: One runs into the first signs of trouble when trying to update the firmware. Specifically, trying to locate and then decode the instructions for doing so (we'll come back to the documentation in a moment). Some reviewers have already ranted “...THE UPDATE BRICKED MY UNIT...” or words to that effect. These people were clearly a little vexed when they wrote their reviews but, having been through the same experience, I can to see why. The procedure is not what you'd call musician-proof. You have to stand on your head and do a bazillion (slight exaggeration) button combo press while plugging the pedal into your PC via USB. It'll appear as a drive on your PC/Mac. Then erase everything on the pedal's “drive.” Then, inexplicably, you have to “empty your PC's recycle bin” before copying and pasting the new files (that you downloaded and un-rar'd from the manufacture's website). You have to have figured all this out by decoding the comically/infuriatingly terrible user manual. At least there IS a manual but sweet mother of living divine.... It took me two attempts but I got there in the end. This update method is what I'd expect to find on a prototype in its alpha stages of development, not a supposedly finished product. We haven't even got to using the thing yet :-P Okay, so we've updated the firmware without ruining the unit [breath's a sigh of relief]. Let's do some MIDI shall we!? How about something basic - A midi note? Wait, there's no way to edit presets in 'standard' mode so we can't set what notes we send? Okay. You gotta turn the thing off, stand on your head again, do another button-hold and turn it back on. It boots into “Geek Mode.” Hmmm. Mildly offensive stereotyping aside, let's persevere. So... midi notes: the simplest setup would be to send a 'note-on' message when we press a pedal down and a 'note-off' message when we release again. That way we won't get stuck notes. Wait... there's no note-off option... just “note”... so it just transmits a note-on message? We can't turn the note off again?! There isn't even a 'note-toggle' option? The note it just ON forever or until we turn the pedal off?!?! [Face-palm] Okay, what about the so called “Super” mode? Surely there's some common sense there....right? Stand on ya head again and do yet another button-hold whilst power cycling the pedal to enter “SUPER MODE.” Er... Nope, not there either, just 'note'. Useless! In fact, we can't edit anything at all from the device itself in this mode. Wait, what?! No, you're gonna have to edit, save and reupload a ******** .txt file from your computer first?!?! What, the actual, donky-spanking &%$£!!! Okay, silliness aside, we've fallen down at the first hurdle; basic documentation and turning midi notes on and off. Even if we could properly program note messages, it gets worse. Remember those sweet segmented LED's with all the promise of rich status information they could provide? You get none of that for your own presets – not even in “super” mode. The English translation of the 'Super Mode' manual is even worse than the main one. Why are their two manuals?! Trying to understand - let alone edit - the .txt file using this manual is a futile exercise. If programming the LED's IS possible, there is precisely no information on how to do so. As far as I can tell, you can set LED colour and nothing else. No segmentation, no pulsing, just on and off, long-press, long-press and release. No sequential presses, no double taps. Far from comprehensive and what the product marketing would have you believe. So, no useable implementation of midi note messages; no on-board GUI for advanced programming and no way whatsoever to control what the LEDs do; an obtuse and unreliable firmware update method and farcically bad documentation. Yikes! This pedal is such a missed opportunity. If it delivered on what the marketing implies, it'd be an absolute monster. But the overall user experience is atrocious. If the manufacture can fix the gaping holes in the functionality, implement an actual update protocol and write a decent manual, they'll have hands-down the best general purpose MIDI pedal around. But as of writing this in January 2025, I wouldn't recommend this pedal to anyone other then those who want to use it completely stock with supported third party devices and software.

I have not ventured into the complexity of this unit. For this purpose it is blessed with 'Geek Mode' which got me working with my RC500. This mode only gives basic parameters, so although I got all the switches paired up, they needed 2 presses to function. After I built up confidence in Geek Mode, I moved onto the regular menus and modified one of the existing presets. For the money, nothing comes close to these pedal. It is true, dont expect support. There are plenty of YouTube videos though, so I would take a punt.

I powered this up with no issues… for about three minutes. Then I got a black screen. Couldn’t get the device to boot again after multiple firmware re-installs (as advised via the paintaudio website and YouTube channel) which take literally an hour at minimum due to an inexplicably slow transfer speed on the device (changing the usb cable out and using different ports on your computer will not help). They claim on their website that this device is “never bricked”. That’s just not true. I returned this the next day having spent hours trying to just get it back to a default bootable state having achieved nothing. If I could give it zero stars I would, without hesitation.

The description makes it seem it's configurable more than I've been able to pull off. But I've just written my own midi scripts and it works brilliantly with that.

Update: I was happy with this but it relentlessly crashes. All of my config was working and now it won't switch on frequently - blank screen. Too late to return to Amazon so will have to contact seller. Really powerful product but to get what I needed from it I had to use the superuser mode and edit the scripts on my computer. Lots of good guidance online but you need to be careful when editing the scripts. Make a backup of the contents of the memory when you first plug it in so that you can easily recover any mistakes. The geek mode is much easier to use and also very flexible as it can be programmed on the device screen. You will need to understand a bit about midi and control channels. Each of your pedals should have the required information in the manual. Some pedals need you to send an 'on' signal and some need both an 'on and off" to simulate a pedal press but you will have to play about with this per device. Only issue I had was that the unit would not let me write to it when it was plugged into my Mac so I had to use a PC laptop to make edits. A powerhouse with the capability of much more expensive units if you can get your head around it!

Beware, if you buy this, get amazon insurance. Because the manufacturer will ignore your emails!

Very flexible and can cover most needs. Ideal for kemper, axe-fx, helix, etc. The developer is keen to produce firmware updates with new features. Not for anyone with zero midi knowledge as you need a little understanding to achieve your needs. there is a couple of things i hope they will implement in the future (May 2024) but its already good enough for gigging. Well built, sturdy. Will do far more than you need for a variety of situations. Check out the videos.

Es una fantástica pedalera midi, fácil de configurar. Finalmente la devolví, ya que este modelo no tenía la opción de wireless (adquirí el dispositivo midi necesario para usar el midi wireless en Amazon Alemania) por eso realicé la devolución y pillé el que si lo tiene...que son unos euros más caro

Midi problem solver. Rugged build and versatile. I wanted to let the company know I thought it was great so I sent them an email which I never do. Also, with a suggestion for a future firmware modification. Wilson, the face of the company responded within 20 minutes to thank me and let me know my rather obvious suggestion was already going to be included in the next firmware update. Impressive to say the least. Buy this thing if you need a powerful, inexpensive midi switcher! Don't let the inexpensive part make you think it's not powerful. One thing I needed to do was have the ability through midi to turn on a return in my preamp. This allows a synth sound from my Ipad, triggered by a Fishman Triple play to be routed to the output of the preamp. My combination of gear made a loud pop sound out of the box when I switched in the return if notes were being played. Not very professional. The Midi Captain allowed me to send All notes off to the synth as well as a patch change on switch down, followed by 'return on', then volume change on the return to match the patch volume to the preamp patch, and all notes back on, on the synth on switch up. Kind of convoluted, but no more pop. I've still got several commands left on that switch to dim the lights, trigger pyrotechnics, or make me a drink... no, it won't actually do that last thing. Buy it, it's good!

Tiene varios modos, yo uso geek mode, ya que se me hace muy facil editar los comandos desde la rueda y boton que vienen alado de la pantalla. Se siente de buena calidad y funciono rapidisimo, lo unico malo es el tiempo para actualizarlo, tiene una memoria muy lenta pero fuera de eso solo lo tienes que hacer una vez si quieres agregarle los nuevos modos

Ottimo controller midi, con possibilità di personalizzare e "programmare" ogni singolo pulsante assegnando comandi diversi per tocco singolo, tocco doppio, lungo etc. Si possono anche personalizzare i colori dei led, e altro ancora. Un avvertimento: si tratta di un prodotto per esperti. La configurazione e il setup richiedono molto impegno, e il manuale non aiuta molto. Sono riuscito a farla funzionare dopo diverse ore, ma una volta che si capisce il funzionamento è perfetta. Personalmente la uso per controllare applicazioni DAW. Unico piccolo difetto, i pulsanti sono un po' rumorosi, aspetto da tenere in considerazione se si vuole usare la pedaliera durante le registrazioni.

Top gerät. Funktioniert sehr gut mit dem Kemper player zusammen. Eingesteckt. Und alles läuft. Ich habe nichts anpassen müssen. Ich habe den captain vor allem haben wollen, damit ich sehe, welcher rig aktiv ist. Die Anwahl ist sehr schnell und einfach.