beat bars

I recently received both the expression pedal and footswitch from Beat Bars and I've been very impressed so far.

Firstly, and most importantly, the build quality is stellar. The units feel rock solid, and you can really stomp down on these with confidence. The build consists of an exceptionally durable, powder coated metal chassis with plush foam padding under the units.

Aside from the obvious build quality and price, one of the main draw cards here is how these operate. Unlike other expression pedals, these are MIDI enabled and programmable meaning you do not need a quarter inch expression input on your controller for these to work. They transmit via MIDI cable or USB (Switchable via a toggle on the so could be connected directly to your DAW and can effectively be used with multiple controllers at once without having to disconnect and reconnect them.

Programming the pedals is simple and done by downloading the setup app. One quirk which I found odd was currently you cannot program both simultaneously via the app. One needs to be disconnected before setting up the second. Technically its not a huge issue since you really need to only program them once, but it would be great if this were corrected in a future update.

I have the expression pedal set up to control expression amounts in addition to dynamics control on my mod wheel for orchestral libraries, which works great. The footswitch is flexible too allowing you to send a multitude of MIDI messages as well as program change information which I thought was super useful. The switches are lit by LED's and can be set to both held and trigger modes making this ideal for live looping setups too.

All in all, I think these units are awesome value for money for anyone looking to enhance live playing or integrate extra control via your feet to any live or studio setup.

I recently received both the expression pedal and footswitch from Beat Bars and I've been very impressed so far.

Firstly, and most importantly, the build quality is stellar. The units feel rock solid, and you can really stomp down on these with confidence. The build consists of an exceptionally durable, powder coated metal chassis with plush foam padding under the units.

Aside from the obvious build quality and price, one of the main draw cards here is how these operate. Unlike other expression pedals, these are MIDI enabled and programmable meaning you do not need a quarter inch expression input on your controller for these to work. They transmit via MIDI cable or USB (Switchable via a toggle on the so could be connected directly to your DAW and can effectively be used with multiple controllers at once without having to disconnect and reconnect them.

Programming the pedals is simple and done by downloading the setup app. One quirk which I found odd was currently you cannot program both simultaneously via the app. One needs to be disconnected before setting up the second. Technically its not a huge issue since you really need to only program them once, but it would be great if this were corrected in a future update.

I have the expression pedal set up to control expression amounts in addition to dynamics control on my mod wheel for orchestral libraries, which works great. The footswitch is flexible too allowing you to send a multitude of MIDI messages as well as program change information which I thought was super useful. The switches are lit by LED's and can be set to both held and trigger modes making this ideal for live looping setups too.

All in all, I think these units are awesome value for money for anyone looking to enhance live playing or integrate extra control via your feet to any live or studio setup.

Anyone who plays the guitar and uses a wah pedal often mimics this characteristic effect with their lips.

This app does something incredible. You don't have to use the pedal, just make this effect with your lips and the application will read your lip movement.

Of course, this works only with the wah-wah VST plugins, which can be found in any decent DAW. The application turns the mouth into a MIDI CC stream - it is not a plugin that modulates the audio signal.

It works virtually without any latency - I tested it with a Wi-Fi connection to a Mac. You can also configure Bluetooth and connect directly via a lightning-USB cable, but I haven't tried these connections.

The speed and precision are especially impressive in the TrueDepth camera mode for the iPhone X and later versions.

Unfortunately, this add-on is not free, but it costs only $5.

The free version using a standard camera works noticeably worse, but it still does the job.

In addition to CC, pitch-band and after-touch modes are also available, although they seem less useful. You can also "calibrate" the range of motion of your lips.

I haven't tried using the application with an external MIDI controller, something in the opposite way - it's possible to start-stop the face tracking itself. It can be quite useful when you want to enable/disable the effect by pressing the button or pad.

To comfortably use the application while playing the guitar, it is good to have it on a phone neck holder (there are quite a lot of them on the market), or on a small tripod in front of you, but it will work only for keyboard players who sit more or less in one position and do not sway;).

I imagine that not only the lips can be tracked - you could probably turn effects on/off by blinking your eyes, but then it would be more of a toy, and this application can work in normal playing, even live! It will definitely impress the audience.