Behringer FCB1010 Mod: LCD to show tuner and patchnames

[ethrbunny]

Some questions:
- are you working with the UNO chip, stock or have you completely removed the original board from the unit?
- is it still using a 5 pin MIDI cable?
- are you doing any EPROM programming in there?

I've always wanted to rebuild the UNO chip code but couldn't figure out how to get the original.

 

[mackatack]

Some questions:
- are you working with the UNO chip, stock or have you completely removed the original board from the unit?
- is it still using a 5 pin MIDI cable?
- are you doing any EPROM programming in there?

I've always wanted to rebuild the UNO chip code but couldn't figure out how to get the original.

Heya!
- Nope, as you can see on my Blog is that I have completely replaced the original PCB and replaced the chip with a Teensy++ 2.0 board so I can control everything myself.
- Yes, it still allows you to send midi messages over the 5-cable setup, however I used my earlier mod and send midi-in /out and power over a single UTP cable
- I'm programming the Teensy board myself, but at this time I don't see the need to create editors or have the board configurable on the road. If I want to change something in the programming I'll just edit the source code and upload as this gives me the most freedom. ...for now, perhaps i'll add this functionality later. :lol

 

[ethrbunny]

I'm programming the Teensy board myself,

Any plans to release the source?

Also - what is the switch on the upper left - tuner?

 

[ethrbunny]

.. Now that Im thinking more about this - could you use the MIDI in to accept messages from another unit and process them with your board? Im thinking things like tuner and tap tempo that are useful everywhere.. or the looper controls.. I keep thinking of buying an MFC just to have the real estate.. but if I can mod my FCB and get most of the way I'll certainly try that first.

 

[ethrbunny]

In your schematic - it looks like you have committed switches 4,5 and 6 to specific functions. Is this going to be optional in the future?

 

[mackatack]

Any plans to release the source?
Also - what is the switch on the upper left - tuner?

Yes, the project is entirely open source and everything can be found either on my blog or on my GitHub repository, the code I have so far is also available there. Of course, the code is nowhere near it's final state at the moment.

The switch I've added is to control the stompbox mode on the fly. The idea is to have 5 stomps, 4 preset switches and a X/Y switch using the original FCB buttons (the 1-10 buttons). The idea is to have the buttons do something different when I press the added button. For example, change all the buttons to stomp boxes so I can control more effects. So during a song that doesn't require preset switching, I can have more control over the effects. The LED just above the button is a RGB one, so it can display any color. I could have it cycle through more button modes, for example: a long press will transform the buttons to control the looper. The possibilities are endless, since the code is completely open.

.. Now that Im thinking more about this - could you use the MIDI in to accept messages from another unit and process them with your board? Im thinking things like tuner and tap tempo that are useful everywhere.. or the looper controls.. I keep thinking of buying an MFC just to have the real estate.. but if I can mod my FCB and get most of the way I'll certainly try that first.

Very much so, I now have the board connected directly to the Axe with midi in and out, but you could add another device in the loop and also control that. You can send and receive anything on any channel at any time, you just have to code it.

In your schematic - it looks like you have committed switches 4,5 and 6 to specific functions. Is this going to be optional in the future?

Any button I have added is completely optional, you don't need the stompbox-mode-switch, leave it out. You don't want tuner info? Leave it out. You dont want a toggle switch under your expPedal, leave it out. You want any of these additional buttons to make you coffee? You'd just have to program it (and send me the code! )

 

[Reincaster]

I see an update to add the CC0 message to keep it on bank A? I hope my tip on the blog helped out.

 

[mackatack]

I see an update to add the CC0 message to keep it on bank A? I hope my tip on the blog helped out.

I have added it to the code yes, but I havn't been able to test it yet. At the moment i'm coding in the dark since i'm not at home, haha Nonetheless thanks for the hint, it sounds very plausible that might just be the problem.

 

[Reincaster]

I have added it to the code yes, but I havn't been able to test it yet. At the moment i'm coding in the dark since i'm not at home, haha Nonetheless thanks for the hint, it sounds very plausible that might just be the problem.

I'm just curious as to why it was sending CC0 messages in the first place though. I'm curious, are there any more available pins for more buttons? I see #6 is open. I was considering rehousing the FCB before, but now I may just create a new controller, in a hammond enclosure.

A cool thing you could market would be a small box with patch and tuner display, with a through put so people you use any midi controller but still have patch and tuner display.

 

[mackatack]

I'm just curious as to why it was sending CC0 messages in the first place though.

Hehe, no clue perhaps it was sending CC#0 from some debug code of mine

I'm curious, are there any more available pins for more buttons? I see #6 is open.

Well, I have added room for 4 extra buttons on my PCB, and a single RGB led. Beside that, if you check the FCBInfinity schematic you can see PWM pin 26 is still available for you to directly solder a led to. If you check the Teensy pinout diagram you can see it also has 8 extra pins available on the inside. You can use these to add 8 extra buttons by soldering a connector directly on the Teensy.

The max chip can handle 8x8 leds, so with some soldering to the max chip you can control many more leds if you wish, but I wouldn't recommend this. Perhaps I'll design a new PCB that provides nice connectors to add 10 extra leds, for those who want to get wild

So in total you could easily add 12 extra buttons and the rgb led to the FCBInfinity-v3 board, adding extra leds is a little more work.

A cool thing you could market would be a small box with patch and tuner display, with a through put so people you use any midi controller but still have patch and tuner display.

I could be cool yes, but that's kinda what the Gordius does. I didn't want to carry extra devices, I just want to dump one device on the floor, connect one cable and be done with it That's why I created this mod myself in the first place to be honest, because there wasn't a real nice solution off the shelve that was as affordable and flexible as the one I have now (if I'd exclude R&D cost of course :lol)

 

[mackatack]

So in total you could easily add 12 extra buttons and the rgb led to the FCBInfinity-v3 board, adding extra leds is a little more work.

Having that said, the ports are bi-directional. You can use them as input to connect buttons, but you can also use them as output to control a led. To control a led you'd just have to add a resistor so the led doesn't burn out. So basically you could add 12 buttons or leds using the 4 ports on the PCB and the 8 pins on the Teensy. I guess most of the time each button would have a led indicator, so I guess 6 buttons and 6 indicator leds. Sounds more than enough to me.

 

[ethrbunny]

I'd love to see the BOM when you get more settled. .. Now I have to find someone to etch / drill the board..

 

[ethrbunny]

(looking through your code)

Where are you setting the patch # transmitted for a given button? How about the value (in 'stompbox mode')?


(edit)
in https://github.com/mackatack/FCBInfinity/blob/master/Partlist.md

for the "R13-85A-05 Pushbutton" section: you have quite a list of items that you are adding buttons for. Are you planning to house these separately? (except for the one mentioned as 'under the expression pedal'). If so, how will they be connected to the main unit?

 

[mackatack]

I'd love to see the BOM when you get more settled.

BOM? I'm not quite sure what that means

.. Now I have to find someone to etch / drill the board..

Hah, just look for a PCB service near you. My board cost about 25 euros (30 dollar).

(looking through your code)
Where are you setting the patch # transmitted for a given button?

The exact line is here:
https://github.com/mackatack/FCBInf.../Teensyduino/fcbinfinity/fcbinfinity.ino#L198

How about the value (in 'stompbox mode')?

I'm going to code that part tonight, I didn't add that because I want the FCB to detect the current state after a preset change. I want the AxeFx to be the leading unit, so for example if I set Drive1 to be enabled for a preset I want the corresponding LED on the FCB to light up when I select that preset.

(edit)
in https://github.com/mackatack/FCBInfinity/blob/master/Partlist.md

for the "R13-85A-05 Pushbutton" section: you have quite a list of items that you are adding buttons for. Are you planning to house these separately? (except for the one mentioned as 'under the expression pedal'). If so, how will they be connected to the main unit?

As said before, I dont want extra devices or cables on the floor, it's just this unit. All the buttons listed will be integrated into the FCB. Don't worry, I have found a nice place to put them

 

[mackatack]

I see an update to add the CC0 message to keep it on bank A? I hope my tip on the blog helped out.

I'm just curious as to why it was sending CC0 messages in the first place though.

For some reason I had "Mapping mode" set to custom instead of none in the AxeFx > IO > Midi setting. Sending the CC#0 didnt fix the PC#2 mapping to 384, but setting mapping to none did fix it. Good to know

 

[ethrbunny]

BOM? I'm not quite sure what that means

Build Of Materials


I was asking about separate housing for additional switches as I have big clumsy feet. Putting too many switches close together makes it too easy to 'miss'.

 

[Baz]

This is awesome!! really interesting read as ethrbunny mentioned how easy would it be to add extra buttons to give more cc controls

 

[tubetonez]

Nice work, I'm wondering why you didn't just go with a custom enclosure instead of gutting the FCB? How did you interface the expression pedals? I did this project a couple of years ago, pretty much the opposite of what you are doing - put the guts of FCB into a custom enclosure. I wanted a smaller controller with external expressions. It worked well, but for some reason the expression jacks started having intermittent glitches which caused the unit to reset. I suspect it's a grounding issue, after troubleshooting it with no success I ended up running my expression pedals directly to the AxeFX.

 

[mackatack]

Just wanted to tell you folks that im progressing quite nice with the programming of the unit, had a few MIDI glitches but all that went away with a library update.
On my blog I've explained what the various button-modes are and it might be an interesting read.

Check it out: https://mackatackblog.wordpress.com/2012/08/07/fcbinfinity-stompbox-modes-explained/

Nice work, I'm wondering why you didn't just go with a custom enclosure instead of gutting the FCB? How did you interface the expression pedals?

To the opposite of what other people say I think the FCB1010 has quite a nice enclosure with the two integrated expression pedals. It just missed a couple of things that I could 'easily' add: LCD, couple of extra buttons and leds. That's why I chose to gut the FCB1010 and just redo it's internals. The expression pedals in the FCB are just a led, a photoresistor and a piece of plastic that is painted transparent to gradually opaque. Moving the expression pedal just moves this piece of plastic between the LED and the photoresistor. The Teensy board has a couple of Analog input pins to which the output of the photoresistor is directly connected. Reading the current value of the expression pedals is quite easy, just an analogRead(expressionInputPin) returns a value between 0 and 1024.

I did this project a couple of years ago, pretty much the opposite of what you are doing - put the guts of FCB into a custom enclosure. I wanted a smaller controller with external expressions. It worked well, but for some reason the expression jacks started having intermittent glitches which caused the unit to reset. I suspect it's a grounding issue, after troubleshooting it with no success I ended up running my expression pedals directly to the AxeFX.

That looks quite good! But I would miss the integrated expression pedals too much. Having external expression pedals means having more cables and devices on the floor that would easily break. Cable-wise, less is more, IMHO

 

[Dutch]

BOM = Bill of Materials. A list of all parts needed to assemble the product.

I'm very curious how it's coming along. Do keep us posted!