Setting up a footswitch

A footswitch lets you trigger Record and other actions with your feet, so your hands stay on the guitar. Any Bluetooth MIDI pedal works, and a plain wired USB-MIDI pedal works too. There's nothing to install and no permissions to grant — this covers pairing it once and what each button does.

Pairing a Bluetooth pedal (one time)

1. Put the pedal in pairing mode (check its manual for the button combo).
2. On a Mac, open Audio MIDI Setup, then Window → Show MIDI Studio.
3. Click the Bluetooth button, select your pedal in the list, and click Connect.

That's the whole pairing. A wired USB-MIDI pedal skips this entirely — just plug it in.

On a Mac running macOS 13.5 or newer the pedal reconnects on its own when you power it on. Don't re-pair every day — just switch it on and wait a few seconds.

Once it's paired, Fret Beam finds it automatically. You'll see a green Footswitch dot in the top bar. If you have several MIDI devices connected, a dropdown appears next to the dot so you can pick the pedal (or leave it on Auto).

What the buttons do

Set your buttons to momentary — that's required for Hold to Dictate to work right — and use any MIDI channel. The current button map:

Using your modeler's own footswitches

A modeler's built-in footswitches keep working right alongside a wireless pedal. To drive Fret Beam from the modeler, map spare footswitches to send these CCs over USB MIDI — use toggle for Record (CC 20) and momentary for the rest. It's the fiddliest option, so a dedicated pedal is easier if you have one.

Auto-tempo only comes over a Helix USB connection. On any other setup, use Tap Tempo (CC 23) to set the beat.

If the pedal drops out

Work down this ladder:

1. Power-cycle the pedal.
2. On a Mac, reconnect it in Audio MIDI Setup.
3. Toggle your computer's Bluetooth off and on.
4. Last resort: Forget the pedal and re-pair it.

Fresh batteries help, and disabling the pedal's sleep timer stops it nodding off mid-lesson. For live use, a dedicated Bluetooth-MIDI adapter is more reliable than your computer's built-in Bluetooth.

You can also drive Fret Beam from an iPad or phone — see Using an iPad as a remote. More fixes are in Troubleshooting.