Yep- the smart pads are the only way to access the more "creative" effects- like the robot voice, pitch shift, and the voice disguiser. They can be set to "latching" which means after you press the pad to turn them on, they won't be turned off unless you press the button again. They can also be set to be "non-latching" meaning they're only on while you're pressing the button. You can use other smart pads at the same time, but for the "creative" effects (robot voice, pitch shift, voice disguiser) you can only use one of them on one mic at a time (this is because they are processor intensive)- meaning you can do pretty much anything you need except put a robot voice effect and a pitch effect on at the same time.