The FCB 1010 eurkaprom and the Axe FX 2XL+ wha tracking conundrum

DalGuit

Member
So.... I've had my Axe FX for a few weeks now and it's the cats ass and a bag of chips... the tone is incredible! I've learned a lot about this thing in a short amount of time thanks to this fine community here. I was wondering.... I have been using the Beringer FCB 1010 as a midi controller and have the wha sourced to external 1, which is expression pedal A on the 1010. In the Modifier page, I also have the auto engage set to fast speed. But.... it still doesn't track as quick and responsive as a normal analog wha. Why is this so? And is there a better way to use a pedal for the wha section in the Fractal?
 
If you don't like the feel of the expression pedals on the FCB, you can add up to 2 additional ones directly to the Axe FX and use those for wah and perhaps volume, where the feel of the sweep might be more important.
 
Autoengage speed settings determine how quickly you have to move the pedal to make the block autoengage. It does not affect the tracking speed or sensitivity of the pedal when the block is active. Did you calibrate the pedals on the FCB1010? Do you get a full range of adjustment in the modifier (does the dot in the modifier graph move all the way from the top to bottom as you sweep the pedal its full range)? Also, make sure you don't accidentally have damping turned up in the modifier as well. That will slow the modifiers response to the assigned controller. I believe 10 ms is the default.

Part of the feel difference will be the sweep length. The FCB1010's expression pedals have a slightly longer sweep than a typical Crybaby style Wah pedal. At default settings, you'll have to move your foot a bit further to get the same amount of tonal shift compared to a Crybaby. You can cheat it a little by adjusting the parameters in the wah's control modifier to make the graph more steep. That makes the values go from min to max over a shorter part of the pedals full travel. The trade off is you lose a bit of pedal resolution in the process so the sweep could be a tiny bit less smooth between min and max.
 
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Slow/med/fast just sets the delay before disengaging once you're in the off zone. All 3 SPD types use the same speed threshold for engaging.
This.

Also calibrate the FCB1010 pedals. I have one with the rom upgrade and once I calibrated the pedals on the FCB itself it was much more fluid. I don't know what button you need to hold down on the FCB for your specific rom upgrade though.
Programming that thing was quite a task, like a game.
 
I also had this problem with the FCB. Everyone gave me the same advice as above but it did not help. You should still try everything they said, but I have a feeling this is just how the FCB works. I found a great deal on a used MFC101 and haven't looked back. Plugging an expression pedal into the MFC does not have this problem. And the programming on the FCB.... it was like a puzzle. I have no idea how someone would figure it out if not for youtube videos. I also had the Eureka chip, which helped a lot but it was still kind of weird.

All that being said, the FCB is still a great controller at a bargain of a price. It can do a lot of things. It was just once I got the MFC I saw what I was missing.
 
Everyone is talking about the FCB1010 specifically, but to me it sounds like you want the Axe FX to react quicker to your expression pedal movements? I think you'll want to mess around with the Damping parameter on the Modifier menu (when you right-click on the the Wah's block's "Control" knob.) The lower the millisecond value, the quicker the Axe FX will react to the MIDI being sent from the FCB1010 which will make the pedal feel more responsive.
 
Well, I tried all the above, calibrated, recalibrated, set the auto engage to fast (tried both settings), have the damping set to 0, messed with the slope in countless configurations and still can’t the EurekaPROM FCB 1010 pedals to track via midi like a real wha. I don’t think it is possible. But if it is, somebody please, for the love of god, tell me how to do this... arrrrrrrrggggggghhhhhh!!!!!
 
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