RE: AW: Behringer FCB 1010 or Digital Music Ground Control?

["Dean, Hal " <HDEAN@wcupa.edu>]

I have a Nobels MF-2 which is very flexible and has a lot of features,
and seemed to be good bang for the buck. I would not recommend this
unit, however, as it is no longer distributed in the US, the battery is
stupidly soldered in, and judging from the comments online it has poor
build quality.

That said I was very happy with it in studio, until the moment when the
light indicating impending battery replacement came on. That sent me
looking for alternatives. I do intend to have a service tech replace the
battery and perhaps beef up the jack supports (one of the complaints).
If anyone can recommend someone to do this in the Philadelphia area, I'm
all ears. 

I've seen the All Access and it is amazing, but as noted very expensive.
I read a fair amount about the FCB1010, saw too many negative comments
about reliability, and began to look at the Rocktron MIDIMate. This unit
is well made and very easy to program, but appears to be less flexible
than the FCB. I'd be curious if anyone can share any experience with
both FCB and MIDIMate.  

Hal Dean

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Larson [mailto:Jeffrey.Larson@Sun.COM] 
Sent: Tuesday, August 09, 2005 10:44 AM
To: Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com
Subject: Re: AW: Behringer FCB 1010 or Digital Music Ground Control?


David Trenkel wrote:
> The Ground control looks very solid, and I like the size of it better.

I have both the Ground Control Pro and the Behringer and will be selling
the GCP on eBay soon.  For me, there are two crucial issues with the
GCP:

   1) you can only program 12 global momentary switches
      (8 if you also want program changes)
   2) the switches make noise

The GCP is extremely roadworthy but it makes noise.  If you're playing
live this may not be an issue but for recording with microphones it is
out of the question.

The GCP switches can be configured in two modes: to send program changes
or as "instant" switches which can send other things like notes and
continuous controllers.  For me, momentary switches that send both a
note on when pressed and note off when released is important.  The
problem is that these instant switch configurations are global, meaning
they send the same note regardless of what "preset" you have selected.
The only thing presets do is determine which program changes are sent
for the non-instant switches.  There 12 switches so you can send at most
12 notes.  If you also want to send program changes you have to reserve
the bottom row of 4 switches, leaving only 8 instant switches to send
notes.

This is the key difference between the GCP and the Rocktron
All Access.  The All Access can store different note assignments in each
preset.  It is also insanely expensive and hard to find.

With the Beheringer you have ten switches that can be programmed for
notes, and each "bank" can contain a different set of note assignments.
This gives you the ability to send all 128 notes. The only thing I don't
like about the FCB is that notes can only be sent on one of two global
channels.  But for controlling Live this should be fine.

If all you want to do is trigger clips, and Live can use program changes
for triggering (not sure about that), then the GCP would be ok.  But if
you want momentary switches, the GCP is very limited.

Jeff