Help me choose a midi controller

james...

Experienced
Alright here's the thing. I have an FCB1010 right now. It's fine and all, just not enough buttons. I'm the kind of guy who doesn't do bank changes. I just switch between the same 10 patches for a show. I would use stompbox mode but the FCB doesn't have enough buttons for me to make use of that.

The obvious choice for me is a Rocktron All Access. Relatively cheap compared the the high end stuff, and it has 15 switches. I think 15 will be enough for me. I don't use a lot of "advanced features." Stompbox mode is probably as advanced as I'm gonna get.

Are there any other controllers in that price range besides the liquid foot that I am leaving out? I would consider spending a couple hundred extra for the liquid foot, but I really don't think I'll need the extra 5 or so buttons and I definitely won't use the extra features. So I have a hard time justifying $200 extra for 5 or 6 extra patch buttons that I most likely won't need.

People here with an All Access, do you like it? Any other controllers like it that I've forgotten?
 
I've got the Big Little Giant and I'm very happy with it.
It has 13 buttons, arranges as a keyboard in a 1 octave + 1 layout.
I use the top 5 buttons to switch presets.
The bottom 8, I use for IA.
It has 2 Direct Banks that I use for extra IA - mostly for the not so common effect blocks.
I'm still finding new things I can do with it every day.
 
Oh I meant used prices.

I actually just found a like new All Access for $500 so I jumped on it. Hopefully I like it.
 
For $799 You can get a brand new Liquid Foot Pro. It will do a so much more than the All Access. It is the best Foot controller out there and for the money it can't be beat.
 
I have the Gordius LG with 12 switches. Just got it a few days ago.
So far its seems to be really good. Programming it can be a little
tedious though. Its a powerful little midi controller and once you get
it set the way you like, it's definitely worth it. It uses soft switches.
I really like the extra patch feature it has and the ability to program
any switch to be exactly what you want it to be. Still learning it
though. I wish they made one even smaller with say like a bank up
and down, 4 programmable switches and 1 direct switch. w/ a few
expression inputs.
 
wb4k said:
For $799 You can get a brand new Liquid Foot Pro. It will do a so much more than the All Access. It is the best Foot controller out there and for the money it can't be beat.

You are correct. But all I really need feature wise is 5 preset switches and 10 IA switches. The Rocktron does this easily. I have read up on both units and concluded that $300 extra is too much for a bunch of features I probably won't use.
 
lilbman said:
I have the Gordius LG with 12 switches. Just got it a few days ago.
So far its seems to be really good. Programming it can be a little
tedious though. Its a powerful little midi controller and once you get
it set the way you like, it's definitely worth it. It uses soft switches.
I really like the extra patch feature it has and the ability to program
any switch to be exactly what you want it to be. Still learning it
though. I wish they made one even smaller with say like a bank up
and down, 4 programmable switches and 1 direct switch. w/ a few
expression inputs.
Actually, you could go smaller in footprint by combining any small and cheap MIDI controller with the LG-M module. The simple PC or CC messages sent by the "slave controller" can trigger any of the more complex LittleGiant presets. Or if you want to go even smaller, you could simply use something like the M-Audio Blackboard pedal with the LG-M. It has 2 (non-MIDI) switches and an expression pedal. 1 switch can be used to cycle through a whole preset list, the 2nd switch can be a direct switch to control an effect (a different one for each preset, can be programmed through the use of data variables). I know, pretty limited, but you could get the maximum out of just 2 footswitches...
At the other end of the spectrum, when footprint is not an issue, and price is, I agree with rdomain: the FCB1010 + UnO firmware is by far the best buy.
 
I use a ground control. Not the newer one, the older version. I have two of them and they can be found quite reasonably. Very functional. It has internal mapping, it can send 8 midi channels at once to 8 unique devices, and it has two pedal/controller inputs. And you can use plain old volume pedals as controllers with it. (I use Ernie Ball pedals, and I reverse thread the pot so "down" is baselinie and "up" is expression). It accepts 7 pin midi cable phantom power.

No extra buttons, though, just ten per bank and bank up/down. So you can't toggle effects in and out other than with the two controller inputs. You access controller functions and programming by holding certain buttons longer or pressing two at once.
 
With the GCP you can so toggle effects in and out. It all depends on how you have it set up. You can either have it your way with the 10 presets per bank, or you could switch it to stompbox mode where each bank consists of 4 presets (36 banks total), and the 8 switches above that could be assigned bypassed effects in your patches. Its a pretty versitile controller.
 
The liquid foot seems to be pretty good.

I use an all access because it was the most bang for the footprint buck. 15 switches, plenty of functionality for me, and it's smaller than the LF, GCP, and most of the other controllers I looked at. Hell, even the midi mate I used to have was longer than the AA. (Although still smaller in all other dimensions.) My entire pedalboard (AA + 2 exp pedals) measures 2' x 4' I could even lose a few inches in the short dimension if I needed to.
 
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