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

The MIDI Captain is well-made, powerful, versatile, provides great value, and has massive potential to evolve. I'm really rooting for this company to do well with this product. The MIDI Captain can work on a very basic level, allowing you to to control effects, sequencers, and other MIDI gear. It has different modes that will suit different types of users and workflows. The device is also capable of deep, expert-level configuration to do more complex tasks, including sending QWERTY keystrokes, mouse-clicks, and playing back timed sequences of actions. Unfortuately, the documentation is disorganized and not clearly written. For example, the instructions for installing the firmware say "Turn computer off" but it really means turn the MIDI Captain off. There's no way a noob could possibly know that. I think a new user might have trouble sorting through the different downloads and options that are on the website. I'm pretty experienced and it was kind of confusing to me. Be aware that managing data when it is in USB setup mode, all file processes are VERY slow. All the firmware installation tasks, deleting files, copying, emptying trash, ejecting, all take a LONG time-- way longer than you think should be necessary. Be patient. Just wait until it's done. It all works fine, though. And the docs do give accurate warnings about that. The expression pedals inputs are expecting a TRS connector, with the wiper of the potentiometer connected to the RING of the TRS plug (not the tip). If the pedal is wired/connected this way, it works perfectly. If your pedal doesn't work right, you might want to try adapting the cable so that the tip & ring are reversed. The manual makes no mention of this, but it is mentioned in one video. I've seen reviewers complain about the unit, when they've just got the wrong kind of pedal/wiring. I wish Paint Audio would add a proper MIDI NOTE OFF command (as opposed to using NOTE ON, VELOCITY 0). This way you can enter release velocities-- which is good both for synths that support it, but also can be used in other ways. I also wish that each and every command/message could be sent to any combination of MIDI, USB, and MIDI MATE-- even all three. That is how the Ampero Control works, and it's clever. It might make sense for there to be a user forum, but I could see why that's a can of worms. At the moment, it feels a bit like doing a research project to put the whole picture together. OK, after sharing some of the frustrations, I still think this is a fantastic product, and I'm hopeful that it will get more updates and improvements.

I have been using midi interfaces for guitar rigs for years. They are often complex, massive, and limited in functionality. For example the FBV only lets you change led colors when used with factory devices but the user can’t decide color. My previous Meloaudio Midi device could only send cc#69 with a value of 0-3 after a complex firmware upgrade leaving 4-7 orphaned on my device with no option to deep dive program to fix. It was semi-flexible. Others have no usb or midi din5 connection or won’t power with pedalboard standard 9volt input or even battery. This device with latest 3.0 Geek mode allows any cc with any value on button press and depress independently. It will even allow a chain of 6 commands to each press/depress if you like for more complex activity! This device can act as a 16x8 x12 command sending any combination of continuous control, program change, and or midi notes!!!! It literally replaces my big guitar midi pedal, page turner pedal, midi foot note keyboard, and control pad for SampleTank at the simultaneously in a footprint less than 1/2 of my previous guitar foot pedals. Pictures are custom colors (beyond basic rgb as you can see) on this device programmed by me with the great new onscreen interface. Getting the new firmware on the device was as easy as using a usb flash drive!!! Quality is superb all around. Only complaint is the spring on the battery compartment makes it a little awkward when removing/installing batteries but certainly not a deal breaker! I’m definitely going to upgrade to wireless module for 40$ asap!

First the positives. The super mode is great in concept and price point is good. The build quality is great and also the lighted switches are highly customizable. The programming aspect via super mode is very customizable and you can program for single press, or cyclical press on press or release etc. However a few things make it difficult to use or cumbersome to use or even unusable/reliable 1. Power issue: my unit suffers from intermittent power loss. My guess is the 9V power jack is not connected properly. when I press on the foot switches sometimes it causes the unit to loose power. I have to wiggle the power cable at the jack to restart it. This makes it very unusable or unreliable for live use. I have reached out to support twice with zero response. 2. the programming for super mode while highly customizable -has to be done tethered to the PC. This is quite cumbersome if you are trying to program on the fly. A way to program it remotely via a phone app or via bluetooth would have been convenient For these issues I am giving it a 1 star rating. There is definitely scope for more improvement. I could have lived with the programming aspect - but the power issue just makes it too unreliable. maybe i received a bad unit.

Love this thing - especially in supermode, which is basic text files - so easy to setup the way I need with my various pieces of midi-enabled gear. PC, CC, midi notes, and HID controls - all there! I believe some people had a hard time getting going with this. Just invest the hour to read the manuals (the user guide and supermode), do a couple trial runs, and you'll get the hang of it in no time. Using it w/ ableton, aeros studio looper, guitar tabs pro, and a few other things. Great value for the money!

There's a lot to love about this pedal. But there are a few small areas for improvement that buyers should know in advance. None of these are deal breakers. And it's hard to find *anything* with the capabilities and versatility this midi pedal offers. Read the other reviews, watch the many YT videos praising this pedal to learn what's great about it (those videos are all 100% right). And to be clear, none of my complaints make me regret my purchase. But here are a couple things that keep me from giving this 5 stars. First, let's talk about the midi ports. IDK why, but the ports are slightly further apart than midi ports usually are. Why does this matter? Because if you're going to use anything other than the Paint Audio wireless midi adapter, you're going to find that it barely fits. The cable between the two is stretched to the point it's going to break quickly with repeated use. To use a standard wireless midi adapter you're going to need to use an extension cable or adapter, which is unnecessary, inelegant, and inconvenient. Now, let's talk about batteries. It doesn't come with an internal battery, which just seems a little cheap at this price point. But, you can use your own rechargeable AAs. In a way, that's a nice feature, because in theory you could quickly swap batteries at a gig if you forgot to charge it at home (more on why this fails below). It even has a setting that allows you to charge the batteries over USB while installed in the device. That's great. But here's where it gets weird. That feature only works when the device is turned on. You can't charge the batteries inside the pedal with the device off. Ok, so take the batteries out for charging. Well, that gets weird too. The battery compartment is poorly designed IMO. On mine, one battery easily slides out, but it runs into the retainer spring before you can pull it free. It's like the hinge on the battery door doesn't fold back far enough. So you have to wrestle with the battery a little to get it out. But the other battery... it won't slide out at all. It's like the sleeve that holds it in is a hair too tight. No amount of shaking will dislodge the battery. The only way to remove it is to grab a tool and pull it out. I can't imagine doing this in the middle of a gig. I will say, normal alkaline batteries slide out easily. It's only my rechargeable ones that have this problem. I've noticed before that rechargeables all seem to be a fraction of a mm wider than non-rechargeables. But in any case, the battery compartment should accommodate all AA batteries. My last critique is more of a feature request. I'm using this in "Geek Mode" which manages to be both super customizable and incredibly intuitive and easy. But there's one setting missing in Geek Mode that I wish were there. There's no way to set the inactive color of the footswitch LEDs. You can set the color of the active state of each button, but when the button is off, so is the LED. It looks like you can change this in "Super Mode" but I haven't gotten into that yet. I just wish we had one more setting for the button LED so you could set one color for "on" and different color for "off." If you're reading this and thinking, "man, this guy is really picking nits," you're right, I am. None of these critiques should prevent you from buying this pedal. The fact that these are the only things I have to complain about says that Paint Audio got everything else about this pedal right. Overall this is a great pedal. It solved a problem for me in a way that almost feels magical. I wanted a way to control my band's video playlist live during shows without going full Ableton/backing tracks/etc. It's a bespoke need that there just wasn't an easy out of the box solution for. Using the Midi Captain in Geek mode, I got it all setup and working in a few minutes. It's a brilliant device and I'm very happy with my purchase. There are just a few minor things that are preventing me from giving it a five star review.

I ordered this device because it is far more compact than my old Behringer MIDI Controller, and seemed to be the best value at this price point. I needed something that could be programmed in various configurations for my Headrush LooperBoard and possibly also for my Headrush MX-5. So I needed more programming flexibility than other controllers in this price range often have. When I first received the MIDI captain, the text-file based programming seemed a bit daunting. But I quickly learned the setup system (it turns out that it wasn't nearly as complicated as it at first seemed) and was able to get it up and running right away. I had a bit of a disappointment when I learned that "Bank up and down" buttons only changed PC codes, not CC codes. That meant that I was limited to 8 CC codes (or 10 if I reprogrammed the Up/Down buttons). The Looperboard uses only CC codes, so I was hoping to have multiple pages of CC codes to switch between. HOWEVER! I emailed their tech support and asked if there was a way to configure it to meet my needs. I got a very prompt response from Wilson, the owner of PaintAudio, and he agreed to make a new version of the firmware to meet my needs. I just installed that new version today, and it is GREAT! It still does everything the old version did, but now has a "geek mode" that lets you configure up to 6 simultaneous PC, CC, and note codes for each button press AND release, and allows for 16 pages/banks of these! Best of all, these changes can be made directly on the device, so there's no need to plug it into a computer to adjust settings anymore. I am incredibly impressed with this customer service and with the new possibilities opened up by this new firmware.

The reviews are pretty unfair with this one. This is a product for high skilled people woth midi programming. Not user friendly in general terms, but totally versatile for people with specific midi needs

My needs were simple. Got this to replace an ancient ROLLS Midi-Buddy controller from min-90s's for use with a new guitar head, a Hughs&Kettner Deluxe 40 with in-board EFX, I needed a way to set up and save my settings/patches across multiple banks, for different songs/sets and the old ROLLS pedal was rapidly going south, either not sending PC commands or sending wrong one which is very bad when you are playing in front of 150 people (bad switching can totally blow a lead break, etc.). So I picked up a PA MIDICaptain in Blue and it solved all those problems. It is sort of a bear to program but read the docs, watch the online video for Geek Mode (what I needed) and experiment. Took me about 3 hours from opening box to having all basic programming tasks complete. Still, it does need better documentation. Basically, what I has to do was just go into Geek Mode and set up each button with a PC event, using same channel the ROLLS was on (Channel 1) and the program number for Bank. I also changed my opening screen to a custom one I created and set it for all lights on (I am using it with a 9V 1A supply shared with my CryBaby Wah). So far, it has been rock-solid and reliable and I am very happy with it. I do not have any problems with the button spacing (use the clear toppers from PA!) and it has a much smaller overall footprint, I may check out the wireless option but I don' see much need for it. Interesting though. What I do think PA should do is make a custom case for it with compartments for a 20' MIDI cable, Power supply the two extra clear toppers.

Das Gerät ist hochwertig verarbeitet und macht durch die beleuchteten LED-Taster auch optisch einiges her. Besonders für Live- und Homestudio-Gitarristen bietet es alle wichtigen Funktionen, die man im Alltag benötigt. Zu den wichtigsten Features gehören: Mehrere frei programmierbare Fußtaster mit LED-Anzeige Senden von MIDI Program Change (PC) und Control Change (CC) Befehlen Unterstützung für verschiedene MIDI-Protokolle (z. B. USB-MIDI und 5-Pin MIDI, je nach Version) Preset- und Bank-Wechsel für schnelles Umschalten Kompatibilität mit gängigen Modelern und Effektgeräten (z. B. Kemper, Helix, Quad Cortex etc.) Kompaktes, roadtaugliches Metallgehäuse Ich bin sehr zufrieden und würde jederzeit erneut kaufen 🤘

Seul produit sur le marché qui soit aussi puissant, souple d'utilisation et compact. La programmation et les mises à jour de Firmware sont un peu foutraque, mais après tout, pas plus que les autres footswitch du même genre (prévoir un doliprane et un peu de motivation). Sinon, preset parfait, bien pensé et "out of the box" pour un Kemper Player. Attention avec les piles rechargeables ! L'affichage devient vite très sombre et l'autonomie est assez limitée. Avec des piles neuves (non rechargeables, donc) on tient dans les 3/4 heures. Par contre la connection direct en USB qui fait à la fois alimentation et liaison midi tout en un, très pratique.

Deciding to buy this was difficult. People either rave about it or talk about horrendous experiences. I have an expanded pedal board based on a Boss ES8 and Morningstar ML5 for 5 extra loops. The ES8 doesn’t quite give me enough footswitches and I’m limited on space. The Morningstar MC6 Pro has fewer switches, is bulkier and costs nearly 3 times the price so I got my Captain delivered yesterday. I am very happy with it. I have 2 banks set up mainly addressing the ML5 and easy access of Source Audio EQ2 presets. I have read no manual but I watched the firmware update video and got all the other information from Scott Uhl’s 22 minute video. Firmware update hit a glitch on my Mac. I got an error transferring the entire update so I did it a folder at a time. Turns out a couple of language files, which I don’t need, were the issue so I left them off. Other issue I encountered, which I also experienced with the ML5 (but fixed by getting a MIDI hub), is that with the ES8 MIDI going through the Captain - ES8 commands weren’t getting to my other devices. This was fixed by putting the Captain MIDI before the ES8. As the Captain is another controller on the board I couldn’t put it through the MIDI hub. Complaints? Well I can’t bring myself to pay £40 for the wireless dongle. Around £25 would be more sensible. Also note - and I realised this after I ordered the STD version so I had to cancel and reorder - the STD version does not have WiFi! For the extra £10 it’s worth having it even if you don’t need it now.

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

Funciona a la perfección, te descargas de su página los ajustes adecuados, en mi caso para un Kemper Player y no tienes que configurar nada más, todo un acierto.