as far as the system - it's solid. we just got a beta that interacts with the axe even better and ron is quick with feature requests or bug fixes. it's not exactly plug and play like the mfc (though i've helped many people where it was complex still), but it's pretty dang close, and the computer editor makes it that much easier. i'd recommend an mfc for plug and play. but if you are ok with spending a bit of time easily programming, it's so much more flexible mostly because of the pages of buttons. having the lcd screens tell you what each button does is a complete plus of course - i assume someone could get used to blank switches and multiple pages, just remembering what is where. it also has axe-fx CC numbers programmed internally so instead of looking up what CC number Delay 1 is, you just choose from a dropdown in the editor, or a list on the unit itself. these are called "actions" and any button can do multiple actions at the same time, i think up to 20.
10 vs 16 vs 22 though is just a question of how much stuff at once do you want to control at once, on one "page." i considered the 10 due to price, but for only $200 more i got another row of switches. the 22 is too much for me, both price and size - i just don't need it. the 16 actually has 5 less buttons than an mfc (4 control switches + 17 IAs vs 16 total), but again, the pages and the fact that any switch can be anything really makes it more flexible.
so if you're considering the 10, you'd have 1 row of 6, then the 4 switches split by the screen. you'll definitely need a page change switch, possibly a page up and down, so that's 1 or 2 switches there with a global function i'd say. that leave 8 switches available at once for changing things at the same time. but then you have 16 pages of 8 buttons, so that's 128 things you can change!
other functions that do more with less buttons is a Hold function - a button can have a tap function (like normal) and then set it so if you hold a button, a different command (of any type) is sent. you can set the hold time too to 100s of milliseconds, so it's as short or long as you want - mine is set for 500ms. also there is a IA Mode, which is like a Reveal mode and changes Preset and other System buttons to IAs.
so you could do a page of 6 presets, then an IA Mode button which reveals Scenes. then next page is IAs for individual effects or something. you can limit the amount of button pages, so if you only have 2 button pages, a "Next Page" button basically toggles between those 2. really quick. the buttons are easy to push, no "click" necessary. the colors of the screens help you identify types of switches.
here's a quick look at my preliminary setup. it's in the early stages, so there's blank spaces. i'm not using preset buttons, i use 1 preset with scenes depending on the gig, solo vs band.
so my first page is a solo setup. most of the buttons here control a Infinity Looper controlled via MIDI. it's my Device 2 and has its own CC "actions" ready to go.
light blue are Infinity Looper buttons, the dark blue is a lead boost on the axe, i have 4 scenes there, a tuner (the tuner display works much better than the mfc and i don't need to use the axe screen to tune anymore!) and preset up and down for testing right now. the top right button is a system button that's a combination of "next page" on press and "ia store" on hold - this is for testing, but it was previously next page and previous page - it'll probably go back to that.
this one is my "what used to be on my mfc" page, kinda. the first thing i programmed just to get used to the mmgt. the record and play are the axe looper, and they used to be on the left side of my mfc. since i couldn't program the far right switch on the mfc (it's permanently a Down switch), i used the left side so the farthest switch was Record for my looper - always available, never need to go to looper mode. since you can make any button on the mmgt anything, i actually always wanted that function on the right, since my right foot is usually on a volume pedal right there, so not far to move. i have some scenes there and IAs for particular functions.
if you look at the delay and reverb switches, i have 2 functions there - tap turns on those things, hold changes XY state of those things. really killer function! also my tap button is a tap for tempo, hold for tuner.
not too much different here, but this is a first programming of my "with a band" page. i don't need the looper functions, so i added all 5 of my scenes (named to whatever i want) and different IAs. just wanted to show you can have similar yet different pages if needed.
if you're looking for a little bit more from a foot controller, you can spend some time programming, and especially if you want to control multiple devices, this is definitely the one to get. also get the phantom power box (the single midi box, not the double one) and a 7 pin midi cable.
it's funny, there's so much capability from the axe of course, but with my 1 preset setup, i didn't have enough switches to really access everything. now with this controller, i'm actually venturing out and using more effects and things in the axe since i can now control them. i'm also gonna setup some functions for my x32 rack mixer to turn on/off its effects, maybe mute channels or change scenes. so this thing is controlling my axe (with bi-directional messages), Infinity Looper and x32, all discreet messages - i'm using a Midi Solutions Quadra Thru to split things, just because the Axe sends so many SysEx messages from its thru. with the lcd screens saying exactly what each switch is for, and pages so i can arrange things nicely, it's so easy to have all this control. it even has 2 9v dc output for an analog tuner pedal or something. it should power up my P1 hardwired headphone amp for my in-ears, so i don't even need to run power for that anymore.
i guess you could say, i like it.
