Behringer FCB1010?

Ugly Bunny

Power User
I was SO close to buying one of these the other day but didn't... Should I have?

What are you guys using for control while we wait for an official controller? I am using my Helix for now, but since I don't have a case for it, I'm a little weary of bringing it along. I would rather use something more durable and cheaper, if possible. The FCB is less than $200 and has a huge number of pedals and two expression pedals.

Has anyone successfully and/or fully integrated this with their Axe III yet? Honestly, I can only get a few basic functions to work using the Helix - primarily because I'm a MIDI nOOb.

Would I be better off, for the time being, just using, say, my Strymon Timeline as a simple 3-button foot controller? Is that even possible?

I guess I'm just looking for either a simple short term solution or, in the case of the Behringer, a full-on fully featured solution - IF IT WORKS. I've heard all sorts of stuff about people having to purchase different firmware chips for those things and none of it makes sense to me.

What do you, my new and lovely Fractal Family suggest? Is the FCB1010 a worthwhile investment either temporarily or ultimately?

Do we know anything about the official pedal yet?

Sorry, I know it's a lot of questions, but I just joined the FAS family a few days ago and am overwhelmed with awesomeness and choices and my imagination is running wild - faster than my wallet or my available free time allows :)
 
I have one with the 2.0 eprom that I was going to hook up when I get my Axe 3 back. Curious to also hear what others have to say
 
I've been using my FCB1010 with stock prom ever since I got my III. Works fine. I use buttons 1-8 for scenes 1-8. Then the two expression pedals for volume, etc... I have button 9 set to mute the output block. Button 10 for tap tempo. The same layout works for every preset. If you want to select presets with the 1010, what I would do just program bank 01 to handle your presets. It's easier to do if you re-order the presets you use on the axe fx to slots 1-10 or something. Then the work flow is, bank up on the 1010, press button 1-10 to select preset 1-10. Then bank down back to 00, and now you have your scene layout again. If you want preset 5, bank up, press 5, bank down, then you again have the same scene layout. If you have more than 10 presets, you can then program those to bank 02, and so on. Once you understand how to program it, it's pretty easy.
 
That sounds perfect. I just need preset up and down and 3 scenes. I am used to playing 40+ songs a night and too many scenes confuse my old brain
 
Well, I bit the bullet and got it. For $150, how can you go wrong?

The learning curve was a little steep, and there was a lot of trial and error (still quite a lot of error) but I got it set up on the first bank to have pedals 1-4 operate the looper, pedal 5 as tap tempo, pedal 10 as the tuner (somehow figured out how to get it to toggle on and off, which took a while), and then pedal 6 to engage the preset, and pedals 7-9 as scenes. I'm still figuring out exactly what I need and I'll probably make some adjustments.

But, so far, no need to buy the UnO chip :)
 
Question for you experts (and I'll make a separate thread if this doesn't get enough attention):

How in the world can I set up the expression pedals? When you're in pedal setup mode, you choose the control number (whatever you have the volume block set to) then you choose the max value and min value. Easy peezy, right? Well, it just doesn't work. I can't get the expression pedals to affect the volume block at all no matter what.

As a side note, I was able to get them to affect the OUTPUT block, but it was wonky. I set them up to go from 0-127 just like any normal volume pedal. However, throughout the range, it jumped all around. Sometimes it would operate correctly, but then other times, there would be full volume in toe up position or no volume in toe down and all different variations along the way.

Has anyone here made a fool-proof and expert guide to programming it with the Axe? Or is the Axe III so different, MIDI-wise, that previous guides are probably useless? If I could just get the expression pedals working as expected, I'd be right where I need to be. The two functions I want are:

EXP 1: Volume block
EXP 2: Auto-engage wah

Thanks in advance, y'all!
 
I've been using my FCB1010 with stock prom ever since I got my III. Works fine.

Thanks Chad! Great news. Thanks for the pointers too! Should be receiving my Axe III in the next few weeks and was assuming (hoping) it would be controllable from the FCB-1010 I've used for years. Always nice to have a familiar interface in unfamiliar environments!-)
 
Yeah, that works, too, but I've found an amazing setup with:

Bank 01
Pedals 1-4: Scenes 1-4 and (5-8) - that is, on first press pedal 1 will be scene 1, and scene 5 on second press, etc.
Pedal 5: Tap Tempo
Pedals 6 & 7: Preset changes (my main preset with all my electric guitar sounds on it and my acoustic preset)
Pedal 8: Delay toggle (always-on delay vs more dramatic delay for effect)
Pedal 9: Reverb toggle (similar to delay toggle)
Pedal 0: Tuner

This makes for an INCREDIBLY versatile setup. I have bank 00 reserved for the looper and bank 02 reserved for toggling on/off individual effects. But for the most part, I've found that if I include the on/off states into the scenes, then I never need to use bank 02.

In any case, yeah, this simple, cheap pedal-board is super versatile. So glad I got over my fear of MIDI programming and bought it. I was actually dissuaded from buying it the first time because the guy at the music store said it's got a really steep learning curve. Nah....
 
Yeah, that works, too, but I've found an amazing setup with:

Bank 01
Pedals 1-4: Scenes 1-4 and (5-8) - that is, on first press pedal 1 will be scene 1, and scene 5 on second press, etc.
Pedal 5: Tap Tempo
Pedals 6 & 7: Preset changes (my main preset with all my electric guitar sounds on it and my acoustic preset)
Pedal 8: Delay toggle (always-on delay vs more dramatic delay for effect)
Pedal 9: Reverb toggle (similar to delay toggle)
Pedal 0: Tuner

This makes for an INCREDIBLY versatile setup. I have bank 00 reserved for the looper and bank 02 reserved for toggling on/off individual effects. But for the most part, I've found that if I include the on/off states into the scenes, then I never need to use bank 02.

In any case, yeah, this simple, cheap pedal-board is super versatile. So glad I got over my fear of MIDI programming and bought it. I was actually dissuaded from buying it the first time because the guy at the music store said it's got a really steep learning curve. Nah....

I just bought a FCB1010 the other day to use with my Axe-FX II. I used this editor:

http://host.mtnsys.com:81/faq-fcb/PCEditorBeta.htm

And it has been super simple to set up, once I got all the cables and such connected. Now my hardest part is figuring out how I want to arrange presets in the Axe, and if I want to use Scenes or FX Toggle. I also had a similar idea of using one bank for scenes, and one for toggle, just for the heck of it. I am also debating on trying to create one mega-preset, vs. using a few of them.

This seems to be working great with no special chip, but I can see that the only annoying thing is that you cannot have more than one LED on at a time (for FX toggle, like a virtual pedalboard), so that could be annoying, and reason to buy an upgrade chip.
 
Yep. That’s the ONLY thing that makes me want to install my UnO chip or get the Eprom. But i’m fine as it is. I use the one massive preset so I have plenty of options for scenes, toggles, etc all on one bank of the FCB.
 
Which chip is best for controlling Mobius (on Win 11) using FCB1010?
Is it:
.) the latest stock chip as of Dec 2021 (just bought a new FCB1010)
.) TinyBox
.) UNO
.) UNO2
.) FCB-505
.) Eureka
 
Which chip is best for controlling Mobius (on Win 11) using FCB1010?
Is it:
.) the latest stock chip as of Dec 2021 (just bought a new FCB1010)
.) TinyBox
.) UNO
.) UNO2
.) FCB-505
.) Eureka
May not be a bad idea to start a new thread; here and TGP, so your question doesn't get lost. I don't know how to answer it, though, since I only use the stock chip lol.
 
Can some one explain what the firmware and e prom .. will do for me ? Does the stockwork ?
I've only ever used the stock chip, though I did buy one of the other aftermarket ones. The problem is that the FCB1010 does not receive any useful information from the Axe Fx, so if you hit a switch on the FCB several times in a row, the light will turn on, then off, then on, etc. Unfortunately, this does not necessarily correspond to the bypass state of the associated block in the Axe Fx, so it's more or less a crapshoot; and the stock chip doesn't allow multiple lights on at the same time; that is, you press switch 1, then 8, then 6, etc., and only one will be on at a time. The aftermarket chips change some of this behaviour, but not enough to make it useful to me. I more or less just set mine up a particular way and knew what each switch did.
 
ok i mostly do studio type of stuff i just wanted to have a wha wah and assign an on off to the buttons .. button 1 distortion on button 2 echo ..etc

just so im correct if I set up button 1 for distortion and press it your saying I might have to press it multiple times for the sound to distort.. or i have to press several times for the button to turn on the light but it will still distort as it should with out the light on (on the first press)?
 
ok i mostly do studio type of stuff i just wanted to have a wha wah and assign an on off to the buttons .. button 1 distortion on button 2 echo ..etc

just so im correct if I set up button 1 for distortion and press it your saying I might have to press it multiple times for the sound to distort.. or i have to press several times for the button to turn on the light but it will still distort as it should with out the light on (on the first press)?
No, all I'm saying is you can't rely on lights being on to tell you what effects are engaged. It works like a charm to turn effects on and off and do anything else you want with MIDI, but it's not going to show you ANY information about the state of things on the Axe Fx.

Let's say you have your Drive 1 block assigned to footswitch 1, and Delay 1 block assigned to footswitch 2. If you step on 1, the drive will come on and the light will come on. Great. Now you step on switch 2; the delay comes on and the light goes on (and the light on footswitch 1 goes off). Great. Except now you want to turn OFF the drive. So you step on switch 1 again. The drive goes off but now the light is on... see what I mean? When you stop on a switch, the light goes on and turns off from whatever one it was on before.

Everything will still work, you'll just have to use your ears to know what effects are on and off, etc.
 
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Everything will still work, you'll just have to use your ears to know what effects are on and off, etc.

Kind of like when you're playing on-stage with a classic pedal-board. You do not rely on watching the pedal LED to know if it is engaged or not (if the stage light is red you won't even see it) but you normally know which effects you have turned on or off at each time.

I have been gigging with the FCB1010 for many years, controlling the Ax-FX Standard, the Axe-FX Ultra, and and the Axe-FX II. Before the Axe-FX it was controlling a refrigerator with multiple rack units.
 
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