AW: Behringer FCB 1010 or Digital Music Ground Control?

[David Trenkel <improv@peak.org>]

I'm looking into a foot controller for hands-free operation my 
laptop/Ableton Live setup. I actually have an FCB 1010 on order from 
Audiomidi.com, but it's been backordered for several weeks, and I'm 
having 2nd thoughts. I have been pretty staunchly anti-behringer for 
years, I've justified this purchase by saying to myself that at least 
I'm not passing audio through it. But I am worried about sturdiness, I 
play about 100 gigs a year and need stuff that is reliable and doesn't 
break. The good side of the Behringer is that it's almost unbelievably 
cheap, and seems to be very flexible as far as MIDI programmability.

The Ground control looks very solid, and I like the size of it better. 
I am redesigning my pedalboard to accommodate the foot controller, and 
it seems easier to design around. It doesn't have built in MIDI CC 
pedlas, but accepts input from 2 passive volume pedals, which I have, 
to use as CC's. I'm concerned about the responsiveness of the switches, 
it has stompbox-style switches like the Line-6 DL4, which, wile very 
sturdy, take more effort to trigger in time. Since one of the uses of 
the pedal will be to trigger clips in live, I need to have pretty exact 
timing. I haven't actually used either unit. The GC is also about $250 
more than the FCB, which is an issue right now, but if it will be more 
reliable, it's worth it to me.

So, any opinions from owners of either or both? I've downloaded and 
pored over the owner's manuals for both, and subbed to the FCB user's 
group on Yahoo. It seems like the FCB has a large and pretty active 
user base, which is a plus.