john magner
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 15, 2023
Good pro gear
AllTold
Reviewed in the United States on January 16, 2023
Blackstar feels like a company with a skeleton crew that just has their stuff made in china. They're unresponsive at their site and even joining their forum took two weeks of waiting to be let in. Very lame. The controller itself is well constructed, kind of heavy-duty for what it is. The functionality is basic and it is good to have the Windows App to configure for use in CC Mode. There is no "long press" option in CC Mode, which is something I did want (Airstep has that). With long press a single button could do two different functions. The Win App is just okay and will crash from time to time. The App is just an EXE that you run from wherever you drop it. Again... lame. 9v battery life is poor, it's good for a few hours or so, but there's a manual power switch on the back panel and if you forget and leave it on overnight the battery is toast.I use this controller with Fractal FM3 for Scene changing and it does the job just fine. For pedal board planning the controller measures 15.55" x 2.75" x 1.375"
Liz
Reviewed in the United States on August 27, 2022
Solid construction. Works with the latest Apple computers with the M1 Chip/Monterey OS. Software easy to program. Great replacement for the discontinued Native Instruments Rig Kontrol. Works perfect with Guitar Rig 5 and 6. Added 2 M-Audio EX-P pedals and it works great. Only minor issue with this item is you need to do a Google search for the download link to the software and firmware update (the download link provided in the documentation found in the product box doesn’t work).
steffan k. gonzalez
Reviewed in the United States on October 9, 2022
I have been using this with my Quad Cortex. I am new to midi programming but it was fairly easy to figure out by watching some youtube videos. This midi controller allowed me to use my QC in a hybrid mode setting that is not yet available on the QC itself. I set it to access 3 scenes, 2 presets and to engage the tuner. Also it has allowed me to keep my very expensive and much loved piece of equipment safely on top of my cab with my power amp. There is one con to this controller. When you press a foot switch it stays lit up unless you hit that same switch again. That's it though.
Rafael Evora
Reviewed in the United States on October 23, 2022
Ok, The build is good. Connects very well with ableton, and everything looking good except the fact that when you try to change switches from Momentary to Toggle in the software it just doesn’t do it. I contacted customer support long time ago but didn’t get any reply. Had same issue in two different units, kept one of them cause I still need the pedal and can move on with Momentary mode but we’ll, still having those issues.
Martin C Crane
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 23, 2021
Able to operate via midi (Patch change) my Line 6 Stomp straight out of the box. The rest is a journey yet to be discovered. Well done local boys Blackstar.
Jared shoegaze
Reviewed in the United States on February 18, 2021
I was having issue with it not workimg at all. Then kind of working. As far as Windows pic goes, you have to install firmware. A GREAT person on a YouTube comments section said you must download firmware UPDATER, then move the firmware file into UPDATER. I downloaded both from black star website. Put them both on my desktop. Open firmware UPDATER, then click on load and find the firmware file on desktop, hit update and it works great now. I use it for ableton looper. 6 buttons almost not enough lol. Great product. Don't get anything with less than 6 buttons cause you will miss out. Contact if you have questions.
Mark H.
Reviewed in the United States on February 11, 2021
DO NOT BUY THIS FOOT SWITCH!!!! THE LINK FOR THE SOFTWARE DOWNLOAD DOES NOT EXIST!!! FURTHER- I CAN GET NO RESPONSE FROM THE MANUFACTURER FOR THE SOFTWARE!!! PEDAL IS USELESS WITHOUT IT!!! SAVE YOURSELF A HEADACHE AND BUY SOMETHING ELSE!!! CHECK OUT THE FORUMS AND SEE HOW MANY PEOPLE GO THROUGH THIS ON THIS PEDAL.....BEWARE
Lawrence M. Lutton
Reviewed in the United States on January 6, 2021
This is a great controller for Ableton Live.It wasn't clear what expression pedals worked correctly with it (my Yamaha FC7 didn't work well at all) so I did some testing with a potentiometer and ohmmeter before trying an M-Audio EX-P (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000NLRWEI) which works very well with the switch set to the M-Audio position and the trim control set very near to its lowest position. Configured in that way both the output is full range (0 to 127) corresponding with the full range of pedal motion and seems to be linear.
Aperion
Reviewed in the United States on April 17, 2021
I have always had a timing issue with looping pedals, after reading a review of how well this works with Ableton for live looping I thought would try it. It was way easier that my Boss Loop Station, and it has intuitive controls that are pre setup for Ableton. It worked pretty much out of the box. I did have to download updates for the pedal, but after that is was simple. I use a MacBook Pro with Ableton Live 11 Suite to create live loops and it works great. It is not cheap but if you are invested in Ableton Live it made sense to me to utilize equipment that has pre-configurations so that I can spend more time making music.
Tech Home
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 24, 2020
This arrived last week, plug it in and it was pretty much ready to go. Had to update my version of Ableton so it included the control surface. Switches are good-quality and very easy to press was your foot. Expression pedal works well, Great for control of Wah pedal in guitar rig. So normally fussy with controllers, I generally make myself. But for the price and functionality of this its easier than making one.