Look ma, no hands! Foot MIDI controllers double review (and giveaway!!)
I must confess I often receive messages from music-related companies asking to review their products on Film Scoring Tips and kindly decline. However when Polish brand beat bars offered to send me a couple of their flagship foot controllers I just couldn’t resist. I will however say that I only accepted on one condition: this will be an unbiased review.
To be honest I haven’t particularly felt the need for another controller to add to my workflow, Composer Bridge takes care of most of my needs efficiently, however there have been situations where I thought it would be useful keeping both hands on my piano and yet modulate a MIDI parameter while playing, so hopefully the EX3 MIDI Expression Pedal and FS3 MIDI Footswitch will come to my rescue in these situations!
Before starting with the review there is one more very important piece of information that I’d like to share with you: further below there will be some instructions to learn how to put your hands (or should I say feet in this case?!) on one of the 2 foot controllers that beat bars will kindly give away to our lucky readers! Sweet right?
Unboxing / wow-factor
The unboxing experience is very important for me. The right packaging can start the user journey on the right note. Too little and the product will feel cheap, too much and it will feel presumptuous or, worse, environment-unfriendly. I am happy to report that both these products hit the right mark for me! They sport a minimalistic cardboard box but take a hint or two from Apple with the color scheme and product photos.
Even though we are entering the era of less and less accessories/cables in gadget packagings I was happy to see USB cables provided in this case. The cable is of the very commonly seen USB standard A/B-type kind. Its length (3 meters) seems enough to satisfy most users’ needs. So far so good, even though a USB-C cable would have been a bit more convenient for those of us who rely on the very limited choices of inputs found on a MacBook Pro…
The EX3 also includes an Allen key to adjust the resistance of the pedas.
Construction-wise both pedals look and feel very nice, sturdy and elegant. Furthermore they are both lightweight thanks to the choice of materials. I only have some reserves on the foam pads found on the EX3, but since I have a strict no-shoes policy both in my house and my studio they shouldn’t deteriorate too soon.
Installation
The installation process couldn’t get easier than what it is. You connect your devices via the provided USB cables and voilà, they just work. You do need to install a lightweight utility in order to change the MIDI parameters they control but that too is very easy and straightforward. Heck, you don’t even need to run an installer, you just drag and drop the utility to the provided “applications” folder alias, very well done!
Worth noting: I have Mojave installed on my machine and had no problem whatsoever with the installation. However I couldn’t test the available Catalina version of the utility.
You can adjust the resistance of your EX3 pedal if you wish, in fact I increased mine all the way up.
User experience
The configuration utility’s UI is simple and clean. Everything pretty self-explanatory. Once configured you can use your controllers and they just work! I really like how they feel. They are super responsive and really added up to my overall writing experience.
The fact that there are no instructions, neither in the box or on beat bars website, is a testament of how easy everything is with their controllers, however some might miss being able to reach for a manual.
Flexibility
The more I try the controllers the more they are naturally becoming part of my workflow. Once I loaded a full orchestral template and Composer Bridge on my iPad I did experience a wow moment. Being able to control my Violins I dynamics with one foot, while changing articulations from legato to staccato with the other foot and see a visual feedback of that on Composer Bridge made me smile.
This was just an easy setup of the pedals but I am already thinking of quite a few different scenarios that I can achieve by changing the settings, and honestly, I can’t wait to try them!
In fact, can YOU think of how you’d setup yours? What would the pedal control? And the switch? Check the paragraph below to find out how to share your ideas and get a chance to win your own controller!
Giveaway
This giveaway is open to any participant based in North America, Europe, UK and Australia. Unfortunately we must ask everyone who is not a resident of these countries to sit this one out. So here is what you need to do to participate:
- Like this post on Facebook
- In the comments describe how you would configure your controllers and how they would interact with your own setup/workflow.
- Hit like on your favourite ideas from other users
The deadline to participate is April 25th at 11:59pm (London time). The author of the most liked comment will be the lucky new owner of a EX3 Midi Expression Pedal. We’ll also assign a FS3 Midi Footswitch to another commenter drawn randomly. On April 26th tune in on our Facebook page to know if you are one of the winners.
Winners will be tagged in the announcement post’s comments and will be kindly asked to provide their postal address and phone number via direct message/email.
Conclusion
I think by now it is pretty clear what I think of these controllers…but just in case it is not: I LOOOOVE THEM! They’ve only sat beside my other pieces of gear for a few days but they are already indispensable, kudos to beat bars for creating a product that feels simple and powerful at once. In fact I am so impressed with them that I decided to create a Film Scoring Tips Favourite Gear seal and I am happy to announce that the EX3 and the FS3 are the first recipients of such an amazing honour! Well done!
