ADDAC311 Ultra Floor Control (2022)

Five footswitches, five expression inputs, and a cable thick enough to tow a synth—this is modular control taken seriously.

Overview

When your hands are full twisting knobs and patching cables, your feet are just sitting there, bored. ADDAC System looked at that and said: not anymore. The ADDAC311 Ultra Floor Control, announced April 27, 2022, is a deliberate, almost surgical response to a quiet problem in the Eurorack world—our feet are underemployed. Instead of cramming footswitches and pedal inputs into precious rack space, ADDAC did the smart thing: they moved the whole mess to the floor. What you get is a two-part system: a svelte 6HP Eurorack module and a hefty external pedal unit that lives at your feet, connected by a DB25 cable. It’s not just convenient—it’s a rethink of how we interact with modular gear. This isn’t an afterthought tacked onto a MIDI controller; it’s a full-body interface designed for people who want to *perform* their patches, not just build them.

Manufactured by ADDAC System in Lisbon, Portugal, the ADDAC311 Ultra Floor Control sits squarely in the "Expressive Controls" category of their ADDAC300 Series. The company had dabbled in pedal integration before with simpler interfaces, but this is their fullest realization yet—a system built for serious control, not just occasional sustain triggers. The idea was to minimize rack footprint while maximizing physical access, and they pulled it off by offloading all the foot-operated components to the external unit. That means no more dedicating 8 or 10HP to switches and jacks you only use occasionally. Instead, you install the tiny module, run the cable, and stomp away. It’s modular ergonomics, finally taken seriously.

And yes, that cable is chunky—reviewers called it “chunky,” and they weren’t wrong. It’s a DB25, the kind you’d see on old SCSI or audio interfaces, carrying all 10 signals (5 gates, 5 CVs) between floor and rack. But that thickness is a feature, not a flaw—it’s built to survive life on the stage floor. The system includes a 3-meter cable, which should cover most setups, though longer 3m and 7.5m options are available for an extra 30€ or 50€ respectively. You’re not just buying a module; you’re buying a physical extension of your synth rig, one that lives where your shoes do.

Specifications

Manufacturer	ADDAC System
Module width	6HP
Module depth	25mm
Power consumption	100 mA +12V / 50 mA -12V / 0 mA 5V
External floor pedal dimensions	32x15x6cm
External floor pedal weight	1kg
Number of footswitches	5
Footswitch output	0 +5v Gate
Number of expression pedal inputs	5
Expression pedal input output	-5v +5v CV
Module I/O	10 outputs (5 Gate, 5 CV) and a DB25 style connector to the external foot pedal
Includes	3 meters DB25 connector cable

Key Features

The Split Personality: Module Meets Floor Unit

The brilliance of the ADDAC311 Ultra Floor Control lies in its division of labor. The 6HP module does one thing: output. It hosts the 10 jacks—5 for gate signals from the footswitches, 5 for CV from the expression pedals—and the DB25 connector that links it to the floor unit. Everything else—the switches, the pedal inputs, the configuration options—lives in the external box. That box is solid: 1kg of industrial design measuring 32x15x6cm, built to handle stomps, cable yanks, and the general chaos of live performance. Each of the five footswitches has its own LED to show state, so you always know which one’s active, even in dim light. And for the expression inputs, each has *two* LEDs—one for positive CV, one for negative—giving immediate visual feedback on pedal position and polarity. That’s not just useful; it’s performance-critical.

Footswitch Flexibility: Gate, Trigger, or Latch

These aren’t dumb switches. Each footswitch can be set via slide switches to act as a gate, a trigger, or a latch. Want a momentary action? Set it to trigger. Need something that stays on until you hit it again? Latch mode. Or just a standard gate that follows your foot’s pressure? That’s there too. There’s also an Action Inversion toggle—flip it, and the gate behavior reverses, so the output is high when the switch is off. That kind of flexibility means you can use these switches for all kinds of functions: toggling sequencers, muting channels, switching between patches, or arming record functions. And because each has independent configuration, you can mix modes across the five—say, three latching for toggles, two momentary for triggers. It’s rare to see that level of per-switch control in a foot controller.

Expression Inputs: TRS Standard with Escape Hatches

All five expression pedal inputs expect TRS (tip-ring-sleeve) pedals, the standard for stereo or balanced control in modular. But ADDAC knows the world isn’t perfect. If you’ve got an RTS (reverse tip-sleeve) pedal—some older or specialty units—Channel 4 has a jumper to accommodate it. And if you’re stuck with a basic TS (mono) pedal? Channel 5 can be jumpered for that too. That’s thoughtful design: it locks into the standard but doesn’t lock you out of using what you already own. The CV output range is -5V to +5V, and each channel has an attenuverter, letting you scale and invert the signal. So if you only want to sweep a filter from 0V to +3V, or reverse the direction so heel-down opens the filter instead of closes it, you can. The pedal direction can also be inverted via controls, so “toe to heel” or “heel to toe” is your choice—perfect for matching your physical intuition to your patch.

Visual Feedback That Matters

Too many controllers make you guess what’s happening. The ADDAC311 doesn’t. Every footswitch has an LED that lights when active. Every expression input has dual LEDs: one for positive CV, one for negative. If you’re outputting +3V, the positive LED glows; if you’re at -2V, the negative one responds. It’s immediate, intuitive, and essential when you’re mid-performance and can’t glance at a scope. That kind of feedback turns a utility device into a performance instrument. You’re not just controlling voltage—you’re conducting it.

Historical Context

The ADDAC311 Ultra Floor Control arrived on April 27, 2022, filling a quiet gap in the Eurorack ecosystem. While pedals are common in guitar and keyboard rigs, their role in modular synthesis has been limited—often relegated to single sustain inputs or basic expression control. Pro Music News noted that pedal functionality is “vastly underrepresented” in modular, and ADDAC’s response was to go all in. This wasn’t their first foray into foot control; the company had previously released modules that used sustain and expression pedals for triggering and modulation. But the ADDAC311 Ultra is different—it’s not an add-on, it’s a system. Part of the ADDAC300 Series under “Expressive Controls,” it represents a shift from reactive to proactive interface design: instead of adapting your performance to the rack, you build the rack to adapt to your performance.