Got my FCB1010 w/uno chip hooked up!

Chewie5150

Chewie5150

Fractal Fanatic
I can't believe how good a solution this pedal is especially given the price. I bought a used one locally for $100 with the uno chip already installed. I installed ripwerx and after looking at voes awesome website with a preset example along with some fooling around myself--it's actually quite simple to get it up and running. The only problem is I had to use windows to run ripwerx (off my laptop) the java app doesn't play nicely with my macs.

aside from that...this is great. i can't see why more don't use this solution! i have two expression pedals built in, that i can assign to whatever; along with my mission pedal w/spring option as dedicted wah.

now the only thing I need to figure out is to be consistent with my presets and the way i program the fcb. as some of my presets have, for example, delay block active and others: set as bypassed. the fcb (once switching to a preset) doesn't seem to 'know' which blocks are active/bypassed...i'm sure i'll figure this out eventually, the capabilities now seem endless. Also i need to adjust the way i have my effects blocks as the vol levels are drastic when enabling/bypassing. this is likely the way i have them setup in parallel and the mix/level settings.
 
I agree, the FCB1010 is a nice low cost option for control.

Keep in mind that the unit is used for only 1 way communication with your Axe. So, it has no way to know the status of effects in your presets. So, what you need to do is for instance you want delay and drive active on a preset when you select the patch on the FCB1010, then you make sure they are bypassed "off" in the preset in the Axe-Fx and then you program Ripwerx to turn them on state with the green check mark selections. Then when you call it up, those effects are on and the red lights will also be lit on the FCB1010.
 
mesaboog said:
I agree, the FCB1010 is a nice low cost option for control.

Keep in mind that the unit is used for only 1 way communication with your Axe. So, it has no way to know the status of effects in your presets. So, what you need to do is for instance you want delay and drive active on a preset when you select the patch on the FCB1010, then you make sure they are bypassed "off" in the preset in the Axe-Fx and then you program Ripwerx to turn them on state with the green check mark selections. Then when you call it up, those effects are on and the red lights will also be lit on the FCB1010.
Click to expand...

that makes sense.

also discovered the external controllers which are cool as any parameter can be assigned to one of my expression pedals. I just figured out how to control the drive (for amp) and assigned it to expression pedal b. i didn't want it to go from 0 to 10; so on the axe, very simple to tell it a %age for start / mid/ end (modifier screen). so basically start position (heel down on exp b) was set to 25 and toe down was set to 80 as max. very cool to set you min max values on the axe modifier screen instead of calibrating it via ripwerx to have unique values for that one particular preset.
 
Can't agree with you more Chewie, the FCB is a great low cost option for controlling the Axe. There's a nice SKB carrying case for it too for like $40 to keep it protected when traveling.
 
question: it was mentioned that the fcb is only one way communication with the axe fx and therefore won't know which blocks are active/bypassed for each preset--makes perfect sense.

a) i could just make all presets with my 5 stompboxes on bypass and allow the fcb to press each one i want. or,

b) could i not use ripwerx to tell the fcb which blocks are active/bypassed? it seems that under 'PRG CHG 1' column starting with 0-1, 0-2 etc..(preset changes) on the far right under 'Stomps' i could just check off which stomps i want active/bypassed for each preset? correct?

pic of voes preset example below--see how one box under 'stomp column' is checked off...

ripwerx1.jpg
 
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Yeah, my presets are all programmed so that the effects that I want to be turned on when switching are on. Kind of the only way to make it work right that I know of to be honest. :)

Just a couple of tips to throw your way; do what you want with them.

First I make groups of effects for my stomps. So for drive I have drive 1 and compressor 1 assigned to the same CC which is button 1 on the FCB1010. For modulation (button 3) I have like chorus, phaser, rotary, etc to the same CC....once again all effect block 1. All delays on button 5; all effect block 1 again. Reasoning behind this is that I only have 5 stomps and chances are pretty high that I won't be turning a chorus and phaser on and off in the same patch. I may want to use a megatap or a regular delay depending on the patch, but I probably won't use both in the same patch so any delay block one is turned on and off by the same stomp button. The reasoning behind making them all effect block 1 is because there are cases where I may want to have 2 of these effects in the same patch (say a compressor and a drive) but only want to turn the compressor on and off. I put the drive on block 2 and it's not controlled.

Second suggestion is to not to forget about the NC (no change) option in Ripwerx's stomp section. This will let you change patches, but whatever state a given stomp is in on the FCB1010 will remain on the next patch selected. So say you have two patches with delays in them, but you turned it off on the pedal. Once you change to the other patch it will stay off and vice versa if you had it on. I haven't really gotten into this aspect because I just didn't know about it, but it's a neat way to make the stompbox pedals act a bit more like they would in real life I suppose. And you can do this on a patch by patch basis so if you've got something that absolutely has to have certain effects on to work you just enable them in the preset in Ripwerx.
 
hey shasha, this area seems to be your expertise:) i;ve read a number of threads where you've helped out. this is total noobish, but how do you reassign the cc numbers on the axe so that various effects/stomps (as you group them) can share the same cc value to be selected on the fcb pedal? I like the idea of grouping things e.g. 'modulation' would affect chorus and/or ringmod etc...you said you can have ,for example, chorus/phaser/rotary to all have the same cc number. do you alter this on the axe itself?
 
Yep, right on the AxeFX via the front panel.

Go to the I/O menu, CTRL tab and go down the list and you'll see every effect block in there. Just cursor down to the block in question and use the encoder wheel to change it.

I broke mine down into drive, delay, pitch/misc, modulation and reverb.
 
i'll give it a whirl...thanks. do you ever use control 2 as an additional 'stompbox'? say instead of using it as a tap tempo. so when you step on the prgram change (change preset) and hit the same switch a second time it enables whatever you want....
 
I've thought about using it as a boost or something; you know for rhythm and lead, but honestly I just haven't found a need to do it yet. But I've modded the crap out of my FCB1010 so there are two extra buttons on it that plug into the 1/4" jacks on the back of the AxeFX itself and use one for tap tempo and one for the tuner. It's also on phantom power and I made a custom break out cable so everything was kind of done to fit my needs and after that I kind of lost interest in going beyond.

I did mean to ask if you knew how to access banks B and C. This one stumped me for a while and took a bit to work out. It's really easy, but if you get really far into programming in Ripwerx without using PGM 5 you're going to have a lot of work to do later on.
 
hmm no haven't thought about banks b and c yet..at the moment I'm only really using 1-20 presets to keep me busy. So what's the trick with PGM 5? sounds like some inherent limit with how many presets can be accesed with the fcb...I figured as much as there are like 300+ presets.
 
It's not an FCB issue really, it's a MIDI thing. In order to access the other banks you have to use coarse bank selects which are 00 for A, 01 for B and 02 for C. The secret I found is that the PGM change has to occur AFTER the bank select so you have to use PGM 5 for all your presets. It's not enabled by default in Ripwerx so you have to go into the Tools -> Presete View Options and select it.

Inside of your presets now you'll use CNT 1 for the coarse bank selection. PGM CHG 1-4 are not used for anything.

You know what, here's a screen shot of how I have mine set up. Presets in the 1 series are all bank A, presets in 2 are all bank C. I have my stomp CC's set for 11 to 15 just so that I can remember and keep track of it and I have my stomps on the bottom row and presets on the top so it may look funny.

Ripwerx.jpg


It should give you an idea of what I'm doing though.

Heck, here's my sysex so far, you can take a look at it in Ripwerx and probably see what's going on.
 

Attachments

  • FCB1010-shasha.syx
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Thanks shasha

Thanks for posting your file shasha, I am going to start on my uno hook up later this week or so. It is so nice coming into something and seeing what others have done. I find often times it easier to modify something than to start from scratch. Thanks again.
 
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