Hi Folks
Just sharing some recent experiences with the Behringer FCB1010 midi foot controller.

I have to say on paper the unit looks fantastic - very robust build, 10 buttons plus 2 expression pedals. Price is around £/$ 100 or so....

What I have found is the unit uses only 5 pin MIDI in and out which is absolutely fine, but certainly does not make it plug and play. I use a Nectar Panorama for all my keyboard duties and it has to be said this, like many other systems are a bit more user friendly.
Out of the box, the system was not exactly user friendly or intuitive. Reading a few posts around it seems to be you have to become pretty good at multiple steps to program things and honestly this was not intuitive to me. Others may find this easy, but I parked this for a week in frustration! There are a few editors out there from 3rd parties and I can now understand why.

The breakthrough moment for me was finding the UnO chip (thank you Mike) - a firmware upgrade from a third party that helps turn the unit into pretty much a stomp box through any presets that you might want to use www.fcb1010.uno This now makes everything rock solid and as easy as I first wanted....I can have 10 presets at the touch of a button which should be enough for most of us.

If you know what to do - certainly this is a great unit - but not exactly user friendly out of the box. The UnO update needs a change of the firmware chip (see enclosed image) this is not more than unscrewing the case and changing a chip over which I found pretty straightforward.

It is a great piece of hardware, just do not expect to be up and running in 5 minutes!

Cheers

DaveP

Hello DaveP,

Looks like the Behringer FCB1010 is very promising. It is selling in the US, for quite a bit more than the equivalent of 100 Pounds Sterling. It is closer to 145 Pounds, unless you are talking about buying it used.

Where were you able to purchase the UNO chip? And how much did it cost, if I may ask?

One last thing...for those of you who get "stuck" in the USB world, by way of 5 pin MIDI devices, there is a product that easily (and pretty cheaply) converts 5 pin MIDI, to USB. It is the ESI MIDIMATE eX. It has TWO 5 pin ends, that merge into a singe USB plug. Combined, you get a total of 32 MIDI channel capability, from two devices. It is available in the US for about $35.00. I can't guarantee that it would work with the FCB1010, but it works great with older Roland drum modules, that don't have USB! Link to the product home page here: www.esi-audio.com/products/midimateex/

I hope this helps someone.

Thank you,
t_b_o_t

www.eurekasound.com/eurekaprom is also a good option.

Thank you for the feedback!

Just ordered an ESI MIDIMATE eX (£25 here). Hoping this will help as my old Roland UM One unit is not supported on Catalina on Mac as far as I can see.

Jamsden - that Eureka unit seems good - just proves there are a few folk working out solutions that perhaps could have been integrated from the start!

The link for the UnO chip is here if anyone is interested - www.fcb1010.eu 24 euros for the standard chip plus a few options to support other devices.

Just did a quick look on prices and certainly here the unit is around £105 from the likes of Thomann UK

Hope that helps anyone else out there!

It is not a small unit - here it is with my Strat to give you an idea...

I've had my FCB1010 for 17 years! But it's finally got bad switches so I've semi-retired it.
It does seem like Behringer did absolutely no changes in this time. I ended up getting the UNO chip as well, which made configuring it a lot easier.

Thank you for the info DaveP. I live in the US, so buying from Thomann is not always cheaper, with the currency conversion, and shipping. But you probably have the Value Add Tax to deal with! I will check it out. OH! And you are right...the FCB1010 is HUGE!! That strat looks like a 3/4 scale...

I too have a Roland UM One. It hasn't been supported on a MAC for a while now, even prior to Catalina. Apple upgraded it out of support (like they did for a bunch of Presonus hardware.) I hope the MIDIMATE works out for you. It is such a simple device, at first I thought it was fake! But you can hook up TWO Roland drum modules to it simultaneously, and play them both through this device. Pretty cool in my book!!

Take care, and keep on playing!

t_b_o_t

Thomann's price, WITH SHIPPING, is still way cheaper than any US company. How can that be?? This company is really amazing. Thanks again for the tip!!

2020 now- is this still the best to use for live situations?

The FCB1010 is indeed still pretty useful, especially if you use the Uno or EurekaPROM ( www.eurekasound.com/eurekaprom ) chips. I don't use one live since I use Helix. But we have two of them in our rehearsal studio controlling Helix Native and S-Gear in Logic. I have also created setups with S-Gear and FCB1010 in MainStage. It takes some work to setup, but works great.

Thank you, I purchased used about £85.. I hope I wasn’t overprized. Will buy the chip as well today so hoping it can arrive when controller is delivered.

So what’s the best recommendation, Uno or Eureka? I see myself using this for S-Gear, MainStage, and maybe Logic in future.

Just to confirm the ESI MIDIMATE eX works well if you need a USB to MIDI connector.
It replaces my old Roland UM One on Mac seamlessly.

Dave

Glad to hear the MIDIMATE worked for you Dave. Pretty cool little gizmo for not very much money. No software to install...nothing. It just works on a MAC. Haven't tried it on a PC...

t_b_o_t