FC-6/12: Any Thoughts On How You'll Configure Yours?

Warrior

Power User
I know we don't have many details to fully understand the functionality of these units but I'm curious if anyone has put much thought into how you might set yours up?

I'm planning to get the FC-12 but I must admit the smaller footprint of the FC-6 is very appealing.

To be honest, I just really don't know which one I would need and more is, well..... "better", right? LOL

The FC-12 is a pretty big unit. I'm admittedly not the most savy when it comes to midi-setups and complex configurations. I rely on the user-friendliness of the MFC to overcome my MIDI programming ADD and will do the same when the FC's ship.

I would love to see some video's illustrating some configuration/use cases to help me decide which one I really "need".

So understanding that I'm asking for a lot of hypothetical, perhaps some of the more advanced users could share some thoughts on how you might use/configure your FC.

Point being, there may be some examples that I have never considered that might help me steer one way or another.
 
Too many unknowns to really answer this I feel

For example, with 12 buttons maybe I’d want to have looper controls on some buttons and scenes on others, but, if it’s easy to toggle through pages, maybe I’d just switch to a looper control page easily and would instead have all the scenes on one page....

Just don’t know exactly what it can and can’t do, and that fact right there makes a big difference for the 6 vs 12 issue as well

6 buttons and long press short press functions or easy pages, per preset settings etc would change how badly I “need” 12 switches
 
Too many unknowns to really answer this I feel

For example, with 12 buttons maybe I’d want to have looper controls on some buttons and scenes on others, but, if it’s easy to toggle through pages, maybe I’d just switch to a looper control page easily and would instead have all the scenes on one page....

Just don’t know exactly what it can and can’t do, and that fact right there makes a big difference for the 6 vs 12 issue as well

6 buttons and long press short press functions or easy pages, per preset settings etc would change how badly I “need” 12 switches
Agreed.

Right now we don't know enough about how the layouts are implemented or selectable.

Cliff stated at one point that per-preset layouts were there (or at least, he thought they were) but that hasn't been confirmed that I know of.

The ability to change layout on preset or scene changes would be amazing, and hopefully can be implemented if it's not yet possible. That would drastically change how I would approach using it.

Personally, I'm getting the FC-12...

Some things I know I want on my main layout:

  1. Access to all 8 scenes
  2. NO access to change presets or banks
  3. Some IAs
  4. Some Control Switches
The reason for #2: I've been bit too many times by accidentally changing presets or hitting one of the bank buttons on the MFC. I never change presets mid-song... So, I plan to have a long press button that will load a separate layout just for bank/preset access that I only use between songs :)
 
Some things I know I want on my main layout:

  1. Access to all 8 scenes
  2. NO access to change presets or banks
  3. Some IAs
  4. Some Control Switches
Curious how you remember all 8 scenes for multiple presets?

I use scenes, and they are extremely powerful, but I come from a previous mentality of using 1 preset (patch) for whatever sound I want and/or stepping on a pedal.

Getting into the heads of others is a valuable learning experience for me. Not so I can copy what others are doing but so I can learn and think of things in ways I might not have.
 
Just remember scene one is clean, 2 has more drive, 3 has drive plus delay for leads etc

You can always work that way with your presets so you always know what will happen with scene 3 etc

Hopefully the scribble strip will reflex the scene name so you could call is “delayed lead” etc which would make things a bit easier to understand.


Keep in mind the fc6 likely allows 4 external switches as well, so those could be preset up/down etc, allowing 6 for scenes, since you could have ten switches total, which might be enough for many folks. At least save $200 and some space
 
Curious how you remember all 8 scenes for multiple presets?

I use scenes, and they are extremely powerful, but I come from a previous mentality of using 1 preset (patch) for whatever sound I want and/or stepping on a pedal.

Getting into the heads of others is a valuable learning experience for me. Not so I can copy what others are doing but so I can learn and think of things in ways I might not have.
How do you remember all presets? It's no different... I use the same scene "layout" in almost all of my presets. The advantage is seamless changes. Plus, less presets.

The bigger advantage with the FCs will be dynamic labeling of the buttons (via scribble strips), so remembering is less of a problem.
 
One thing I'm hoping for is that I can see and use the tuner on the footswitch, hopefully muting the sound while tuning.

That way I could place the rack containing my unit and wireless anywhere, probably close to the mixer with no real need to see it.

BTW I'm be using in ears for my monitoring.
 
One thing I'm hoping for is that I can see and use the tuner on the footswitch, hopefully muting the sound while tuning.

That way I could place the rack containing my unit and wireless anywhere, probably close to the mixer with no real need to see it.

BTW I'm be using in ears for my monitoring.
Both of those should be possible. Pretty sure the tuner will display on the FCs.

Muting the tuner is already there as far as I remember.
 
Yeah im already calling up the tuner in silent - mute mode with my MiDi controller whilst looking at the Axe display
 
It depends on whether or not you can program one of the buttons to change to different modes on a hold down like the AX-8. Then, it's just a matter of shrinking my AX-8 layout by two buttons.

Buttons 1-4 Scene Cues for scenes 1-4.
Button 5 Tempo, Hold for Tuner
Button 6 Bank down, Hold to switch between scene mode and effects mode.
Buttons 7-10 Effects mode: bypass on/off for specific effects, hold to switch between sides. Scene Mode: select between scenes 5-8.
Button 11- Special, self destruct.
Button 12- Bank up.

If you can double click, you could do even more.
 
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I gave it some thought. I’m getting the FC12 also. I know two on the far right will be page up and down, then the next two in will be global clean and soaring lead. Then the 8 remaining will be for pre and scenes....I guess. Each page will offer a variety of scenes with assorted clean thru crunch, effect. One page just for ambient. Can always grab a global clean or lead. Idk. Gunna be cool.
 
1st page: presets top row, scenes bottom row. Long press right buttons for bank up and down. Long press other buttons to access pages for looper, and IA pages (1 or 2 different IA pages). Long press another button to access tempo. Also hopefully tempo flash can be put on any button as I would put that on one of the presets buttons.
For the IA pages, long press should give the option to select the channel (by press 1 2 3 or 4) or toggle between 2 channels (for the rotary block for example).

I'll be disappointed if all that functionality isn't available when the unit ships.

And hopefully there will be the ability to individually label IA buttons as well. For example, if my drive is a ts808, I want to be able to label the button that

Austin
 
I wonder if you could have say, a preset with 8 scenes set to button, then when you select that button, it spreads all the scenes out across your other buttons 1-8. Select the ones to use, then hit button (preset) twice and go back to page one and select another preset and open another page with scenes. ...
 
I wonder if you could have say, a preset with 8 scenes set to button, then when you select that button, it spreads all the scenes out across your other buttons 1-8. Select the ones to use, then hit button (preset) twice and go back to page one and select another preset and open another page with scenes. ...

Very creative idea.
 
I rarely use more than 5 scenes -- in fact, rarely more than 4 scenes -- per song. (I use 1 preset per song, and any changes within a song are handled with scenes.)

Consequently, I was planning to use FC-12, with the bottom row set to scenes 1-5, with tap-tempo at the end. Put other functionality on the top row.

And then I'd use external buttons for program up/down. (I prefer external switches for this, set some distance away, so that there's no danger of accidentally switching program if I hit the wrong button on the FC-12. Also, program up/down doesn't benefit from a scribble-strip or colored LED.)

If I continue using the looper live -- there's some question about this because we're leaning towards using Ableton Live for controlling loops -- then I'll probably add on an FC-6, a Morningstar MC6, or some other similar.
 
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I rarely use more than 5 scenes -- in fact, rarely more than 4 scenes -- per song. (I use 1 preset per song, and any changes within a song are handled with scenes.)

Consequently, I was planning to use FC-12, with the bottom row set to scenes 1-5, with tap-tempo at the end. Put other functionality on the top row.

And then I'd use external buttons for program up/down. (I prefer external switches for this, set some distance away, so that there's no danger of accidentally switching program if I hit the wrong button on the FC-12. Also, program up/down doesn't benefit from a scribble-strip or colored LED.)

If I continue using the looper live -- there's some question about this because we're leaning towards using Ableton Live for controlling loops -- then I'll probably use an FC-6, a Morningstar MC6, or some other similar.

So if you use a looper live you would use an FC-6 instead of an FC-12?

Curious, are you using a looper in a full band context?
 
I'm hoping that scene names appear on the scribble strips - I've been working on a preset per song for the band, and have been naming scenes with that assumption...
 
Too early to say; we don't know what the FC will offer. But three key features that will affect the workflow for me are:
- customizable layouts per preset (i.e. like AX8)
- Scene names on the scribble strips
- as @Fractals said, the strips display actual block names and not just "amp" or "drive" - and maybe the Control Switches could be able to be named and displayed as well (for example "Boost + Verb") ?

Beyond that, we just don't have enough info. I could probably get by in most scenarios w/ 11 IA switches for fx/scenes/control per preset. (one would be left for tap tempo unless we can do that w/ an external switch). I hope to not have to do a lot of page flipping while playing... that's not a workflow I want to have to manage mid-song.

And I agree w/ @unix-guy about a long hold to switch into preset/bank mode - then two switches could be up/down, and 10 could be for the presets in the current group of 10 presets. (essentially that's like AX8 as well, and hopefully the preset names would then be shown on the scribble strips).
 
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