Keith MCMillen K-712 Softstep 2 USB Midi Foot Controller

Arrived very quickly, excellent price, very high quality and beautifully functional. Downloaded editor and set up patch 60 to drive 8 MIDI drum patterns in Sonar's Session Drummer 3. A little bit confusing over note numbers. Working brilliantly using front 8 switches. Will use 5 rear switches for individual drums. Unit can do much more than this! Robust, compact, clear bright lights on switches. Extremely pleased. Obviously a product like this is for particular needs, so advise researching and making sure you know how you would use it. There are alteratives, but I have separate expression pedals, so this complemented them well.

I always imagined a mixer where the channel faders were actually the LED VU meters themselves but until the KMix this was just an idea straight out of science fiction.This is one of those rare devices that works exactly how you hoped it would. Although Windows support was a bit delayed after its initial release, it is rock solid under Windows 10 as an 8 input, 10 output audio interface and you can set buffering to permit fairly low latencies, around 5-6ms on a not-particularly powerful laptop, playing instruments through Reaper.I've had this unit about 3 years now I think and it has never ever malfunctioned in any way.It was a thoughtful touch that the headphone output is configurable as a separate stereo pair of outs, which makes this perfect in a home studio.It's also the first audio interface I've had - of several over the years - where noise due to ground loops is completely absent, the preamps are very quiet.As a bonus, it also acts as a control surface, which means that within Reaper I can control mute, solo, channel gain, pan, transport and scrubbing as well as switch between plugins directly from the KMix. The control surface plugin for Reaper is completely free (search kmix reaper to find it). You can just switch between control surface mode and mixer mode from the unit front panel, which is very handy.The only very minor negatives I could raise would be that the button legends are quite small though of course backlit and that the preamps could benefit from a switchable attenuator for very hot signals, but that's nitpicking since obviously you can just plug an inline pad into a channel in that situation.It would also be great if KMI ever produce a version where all 8 input channels can handle mic and line inputs, at present you have two mic/line channels and the rest at line level, but this is pretty much the case for most audio interfaces anyway, and you can always hook up an external preamp if you needed more mic-level channels.The mixer is very capable, with inline parametric EQ, noise gate and compressor on every channel, and they work extremely well. Also it supports multiple switchable 'scenes' so you can save an entire setup and recall it at the touch of a button - the sort of thing only available otherwise on high-end digital mixers.There is nothing quite like this unit on the market and considering that an audio interface with this number of ins and outs is already getting close to the price of the KMix, given you also get a decent mixer and control surface included, in something the size of a paperback book, with no moving parts, hence, rugged and reliable - well, what's not to like. One of those rare products that I have not been disappointed with in any way.

I'd always wanted one of these, but what a disappointment. I'm gonna keep this short, but basically I sent it back and got a refund. The faders are rubbish; you have to press really hard to get them to move and are totally imprecise; also one of the faders wouldn't got to zero unless you gave it a really hard thumb push; totally unreliable. The USB connection would work sometimes; not others; so just couldn't rely on that either. The pads are multi-touch; but not simultaneously; so you cannot use this as a proper Ableton launchpad. I could go on.Personally, I think KMI should have had a new edition out a long time ago which fixed a lot of these problems. Also note that KMI sell reconditioned units for under half price. I see these are 'out of stock' now.So, gutted about the product, but happy with the way KMI and Amazon dealt with the refund!

Great mixer, plenty of inputs and midi.

Not fit for purpose. In order to connect to a midi synth, you need to pay an extra 55 or so quid for the 'midi expander'.

I have owned mine for nearly 5 years after buying it at release. It has been on nearly every day and often overnight for this entire time.The Good: Its small, the desktop software for it is simply brilliant and very easy to use to see where to route sends, adjust gain, fiddle with compressors and reverb etc. I never have problems getting signal in and the right wet/dry mix sent out to pedal effects etc. Can't fault reliability after nearly 5 years apart from I once dropped some heavy headphones and that was enough to break the front headphone socket where a light piece of plastic inside snapped, so I can no longer push headphones in but I actually don't use the socket now.For a few years they kept firmware and software updates coming which was good, however for a mixer and audio interface there was not much of a reason to update.Having used other audio interfaces I don't think I have ever found an admin desktop config tool as good as the K-Mix one. Very clean and simple to access the detail. Other efforts from companies like focusrite are not as easy to follow.The Bad: It is not capable of being an audio interface without some clever work on ground loops and related buzzing issues. I only use it as a non-computer connected mixer because everything I tried when connecting it to the USB of 3 different Mac's I have owned in the last 5 years has resulted in buzzing feedback. I put this down to it not having a dedicated power supply and when it draws power on the USB hub from the computer you get heavy buzz. Its OK connected to a mains USB type socket with sharp clarity and no hum, so I then feed its output into a Focusrite USB audio interface. In many ways this non-computer attached way of working with it has suited me anyway, but it's annoying to have to re-connect it to adjust menu settings.The rubber sliders promise a lot but they are fiddly to squish and use. Small really sliders would have been so much better, perhaps with the lighting along the edge of the sliders. However, I don't think the rubber ones are that bad, I did manage some live recording and using them to bring in drums etc and they did OK if pushed hard enough.The rubber coating over all of the case is corroding and getting sticky in the last year. From 2014 to 2016 lots of midi/synth tech companies started coating everything with a rubber-like paint. I have several of these and the rubber is now breaking down and getting oily and sticky. This K-Mix frankly look rubbish and dusty within a few months because you can't clean them. Whoever thought it was a good idea to rubberise synth and midi kit was not thinking straight because they get dirty and corrode. My K-mix feels like it has been placed next to a food mixer and sprayed with sticky oil. I let it get dusty because the dust takes away some of the sticky feel but it looks rubbish now which is a real shame.What V2 needs to be:Some real sliders or better working rubber ones that are smoother to use.Independant mains transformer power and not USB4 sends rather than 3.A couple of mini 3.5mm inputs to cater for kit like Volca's or other small synths.USB C type connection for the audio interface.Stronger headphone socket.Some rotary dials for volume.Don't coat it in rubber material. So just a plain easy to clean plastic box would be ideal.Make it even smaller.

L'ho acquistata per le dimensioni ridotte, venendo da una pedaliera Roland in stile organo. Devo dire che è fatta bene nonostante lo spessore minimo risulta sufficientemente resistente. Ha un ottimo grip sul pavimento non l'ho ancora provata su altre superfici ma promette molto bene. La suonabilitá è buona una volta presa un po' l'abitudine (anche per me che ho un 46 di scarpa). Unica cosa a cui stare attenti è che se come nel mio caso serve l'uscita con il cavo midi va comprato un adattatore non compreso nel prezzo. Personalmente comunque ne vale la pena! È l'unico prodotto visto in giro per ora in questo formato molto più smart di quello classico a pedaliera d'organo. Direi Promossa !

I never write reviews but this one deserves it. I bought this for OBS to change scenes and control chrome/acrobat/logic at the same time while playing guitar. I tried first with midi commander, but it froze all the time, and only offered 8 buttons per bank. This has FORTY possible foot switch options per bank, and they are silent! I’ve never seen anything like it before. The recordings I did with the other pedal are almost ruined because of the noise it made switching scenes. The ease, speed and dexterity this allows in navigating was well beyond my expectations, I can feel exactly where am without looking, and without making mistakes. The possibilities this has opened up for me with streaming/recording are huge. As for the reviews about it being so hard to program, I took an hour to read the manual and had it done within the next. Downsides, expensive and was long to arrive, but when it did it was like Christmas. Recommended.

We love this little controller! Please note that it may NOT be good for instrumentation, in our opinion. As you really have to press to get a trigger to fire. That said, we are using it for live sound in improvisational theatre and it is AMAZING for that!

Verry cool 5 star

Pedaliera midi insostituibile. Massima versatilità.