Nektar

Taking a cue from the guitarist’s efects
pedalboard, Pacer is a bank of ten MIDI
footswitches (plus an additional one for literally
stepping through presets) that serves as a blank
canvas for creating your own DAW, plugin and
hardware control schemes.
Picking up the Pacer
The 50x23cm metal unit is supremely sturdy
and reassuringly heavy (3.5Kg). The switches
feel great underfoot and the unit is class-
compliant and USB bus-powered – although a
power supply is provided for use via the 5-pin
DIN output with non-USB gear. A rotary push
encoder facilitates programming, and the LED
readouts above each switch give three lines of
info and feedback. These are simply backlit
stencils primarily showing Track and Transport
switch functions (see below), although the
colours of the status bar elements can be
changed. MIDI message type (CCs, Aftertouch,
note numbers, etc) and values are displayed in
the alphanumeric red LED above the encoder.
As well as power, USB and MIDI DIN, the back
panel houses quarter-inch sockets for adding
two expression pedals, four footswitches and
four relay outputs for controlling efects and
other settings on non-MIDI guitar amps.
There are 24 editable presets onboard,
including a handful of keyboardist orientated
setups, but mostly catering to various guitar-
related devices: Line6 Pod and Helix, Kemper
Proiler, Electro Harmonix 45000 Looper, etc.
For DAW control, though, Pacer works via an
integration software layer for Bitwig Studio,
Cubase, Logic, GarageBand, Nuendo, Reaper,
Studio One and Reason, or the Mackie Control
Universal protocol, with four of the top row
switches lipping between Track and Transport
modes, and stepping through tracks.
In Track mode, the bottom six switches
operate Solo, Mute, Record Arm, Click on/of and
next/previous preset for the currently selected
plugin. In Transport mode, they control
playback, cycle on/of, record, etc. Annoyingly,
however, in Ableton Live, Track mode doesn’t do
anything apart from toggling QWERTY keyboard
MIDI input. All 24 presets leave the top row
switches assigned as just described, although
they can be overwritten (presets are also
changed by holding down the Preset switch, and
selecting with the other switches); and the
Preset switch returns from either DAW mode to
the current preset. Thus, dancing backwards
and forwards between presets and DAW control
is efortless. It’s a very clever system.
Feet don’t fail me now
Pacer is a revelation – endlessly lexible,
incredibly powerful, totally reliable and great
fun to work with. There’s really no limit to the
MIDI-assignable things you can do with it:
activate and bypass efects, start and stop
recording in looper plugins, trigger clips and
Scenes in Live or Bitwig Studio, switch patterns
in a step sequencer, send MIDI notes to trigger
drones and basslines, conigure a whole live
set’s worth of plugins… anything that can be
done via MIDI signalling, basically.
Obviously it’s more relevant to the live
performer than the producer, but the ability to
control DAW transport and mixer functions in
the studio with your feet might well be worth
the price of admission alone. Our only criticism
is that it’s not much fun to program, so hopefully
a software editor is in the works.
Web www.nektartech.com
N e k t a r
Pacer £200
This amazing MIDI pedalboard wants you to let your feet do the
talking when it comes to controlling your live and studio projects
Verdict
For A live performance gamechanger
Frees your hands up in the studio
Versatile and deeply programmable
Easily expandable via extra pedals
Relay outputs for guitar amps
Against Really needs a software editor
Track mode doesn’t do much in Live
If you perform live with your laptop and/or
MIDI hardware, Pacer is utterly essential. In
the studio, it’s less so, but still very useful
9 / 1 0
Alternatively
Behringer FCB1010
NA » NA » £117
Not as powerful or programmable,
but includes two expression pedals
KMI SoftStep 2
NA » NA » $300
Space-age pressure/position-
sensitive pedalboard
The extent to which Pacer can be
programmed is truly impressive, although
the old-skool single-knob-and-alphanumeric-
display interface is a chore to use.
Each switch (and the encoder, outside edit
mode) can output any of a range of MIDI
messages – all CCs, note, NRPN, Program
Change, Pitchbend and Aftertouch. A switch
can be conigured to send up to six MIDI
messages at a press, either at the same time
or in a sequence, advancing through them
with repeated presses of the switch in
question or one of the others. Ingeniously,
each preset can also be assigned up to 16
messages that ire when it’s loaded, so a
preset dedicated to a particular song, say,
could activate and/or bypass multiple plugins
when called up. Individual presets can be
assigned to switches, too, for easy stepping
between speciic setups, enabling
incorporation of pre-planned transitions
through presets into the presets themselves.
Get with the program
November 2018 / COMPUTER MUSIC / 99
nektar pacer / reviews <
CMU262.rev_pacer.indd 99 9/17/18 11:53 AM