Behringer FBC1010 Foot Controller

I use my Behringer V-AMP PRO with the recomended footswitch controller BEHRINGER FCB1010.

Bad, very bad, i bought it in Spain, and the translation of the user manual was not right, i had to go to my behringer dealer, and they gave me an internet actualization. Its not easy to setup and configure it, i have it once one year ago, and I still havn't used the expression pedals A and B for Wah and Volume.

I use a japanese Les Paul style guitar, Epiphone explorer and fender mustang with an Marshall 6100 30th Annyversary with V AMP PRO.
It's easy to switch the effects in the A B C D E channels, and 25 banks. But when I change the effects there are a less-second retard, thats not useful for live concerts.

Hard as fuck, metal chasis, hard pedals, and it doesnt slide thru the floor. no problem. I take away and there is no problem. Its very big, so behringer could think in a transportable safe case.

I play Hardcore music, buy often i play soft rock and other musics, its really versatile.
So if i have to buy other footswitch, i will buy other.
I like the midi interfaz, i like that its really hard. I hate that is fucking difficult to setup with VAMP.

My FCB1010 came with firmware 2.4. My biggest problem after purchasing the FCB1010 was getting my head around MIDI, and the concept of controlling the patches on my Yamaha DG80-112 via the patches on the FCB1010. I'm a prototypical guitar player: twiddle the knobs and stomp on a switch. The light finally came on after reading the manual over and over and checking out MIDI info on the Internet. In my opinion the manual is geared more towards someone with previous MIDI experience. It could use a "Setup for Dummies" section with examples and diagrams. One reviewer commented that the FCB1010 only had 100 patch bays, while his device had 128 patches. I, too, wondered about this. Even in "direct select" mode I was only able to select patches 1-100 on my amp. In reality it's not that big a deal for me ... I only commonly use about half a dozen patches live, and I grouped them together in bank 9 and marked the switches with masking tape and a marker. This is not to say you can't access patches above 100 on your device, but you need to assign them to a patch between 1-100 on the FCB1010. As far as editing goes, there is a couple of editors available on the Internet so you can avoid the patch setup tap dance.

As I mentioned above, I'm controlling my Yamaha DG80-112 guitar amp with the FCB1010. I have the "A" revision model and so far I've never experienced the E1 error, even if I power up the foot controller after the amp.

It seems to be well built. It has a metal case, two heavy plastic expression pedals on metal flanges, and plastic switches. I like the built-in power supply, and the power cable is one of those universal three prong cables that your computer, printer, etc uses. It should be very easy to replace. I'm not rough on my equipment, so I'm not expecting any problems, but I'm not making an opinion on reliability until I've used it for a while.

Never dealt with Behringer.

I've been gigging since I was in high school back in the mid 60s, but it's not my real job. However, I do play live, not in my bedroom, so I need equipment that's reliable. I'm not a pro; I can't afford to waste my money on gear that doesn't work. I wanted a floor controller that would change the patches on my DG80, and hopefully allow me to toggle effects on and off in a given patch. The Yamaha MFC10 would have cost me $450CAD, which at the time (2000) was almost half again the cost of the amp! I initially set up the FCB1010 in "direct select" mode, but although the DG80 recognizes MIDI program changes from 0-127, the display on the amp shows the program change number + 1. In a live situation I knew that having to select '54' on my FCB1010 to get patch '55' on my amp wasn't going to work. I decided to stick with "bank select" ... select bank "5" with the up/down switches, step on "5" and voila: patch 55 on my amp. And as I mentioned above, I have all my commonly used patches grouped on bank 9. Each patch is one stomp away. I even experimented with effects toggling by repeatedly selecting the same patch. All in all, considering the simplistic MIDI implementation of my DG80, this pedal does everything I want, plus should I get something more complex like a POD or a V-Amp, I have two expression pedals to assign... bonus!

Frankly, it didn't live up to my hopes, but that may be entirely my own fault...i appear to be simply too stupid to get the thing to do what i had dreamed of; having two pedals with continuous controller capabilities...i could never get it to work, and i was bummed by this...also, it has a 100 program limit, as in, you have 10 banks of 10 and that's all...i was using mine with a v-amp 2, and the v-amp has (i think....i don't remember cuz i sold it) 120 programs, so you're gettin' chopped off some there...that sorta bugged me....

it worked as far as program changes went

frankly, i was pretty disappointed with it...i got this new, off of ebay, but i think it was a second or something....the first row of footswitches that number 1-5 were set up 12354....someone was drunk that day at the behringer plant...also, the pedals were a little crooked in relation to each other...just sloppy...as to reliability, no i didn't trust it...you know how you can "feel" solid, like when you heft something and it just reeks of quality build?...this thing doesn't have that...

i don't recall having any contact with them, but i wouldn't expect too much thses days.....

i play all sorts of stuff, but mostly rockish, bluesy, pop/this and that...you know...music stew...i've been playing now for 35 years, and i've seen a lot of things come and go...the prices that are getting paid now for the crappy old pedals i had when i was a kid just makes me laugh....anyway, midi foot controllers are a real cool idea, and a good powerful tool in the right hands...uh, feet...i did not realize my dreams with this one, and as i said, that could be more my fault...still, the slop in the build, and the general puss-like-ness of the whole unit causes me to withhold praise...in most cases, behringer gives you a chance to pick up something pretty cool and useful on the cheap, but this item could use some work.....


i did not use it much live, mostly tried to get it happening in my living room...i gigged with it a 1/2 dozen times, and it changed programs.....

i was using it with a v-amp2....sounded great, but the v-amp went away, as it was the desktop type, and too wussy for live work....anybody got a v-amp pro they wanna sell cheap?



ps....i do not any longer own this device, nor will i purchase another...........

takes a little while to get the hang of it, and reprogramming can be a bit of a pain.

Its really straitforward, but this makes reprogramming a lot slower than it can be. But it is possible to program.

The manual is pretty useless as well.

doesn't affect sound quality, its just a bunch of switches.

The chassis seems solid, as do the buttons. however, Im a little concerned about expression pedals, they're a little flimsy

haven't dealt with the company, but the yahoo group for this piece is very helpful.

if this where stolen or lost, Id buy it again if I were in the same financial situation Im in now. This thing is priced to move. If, however, I were somewhat wealthier, Id probably buy something I little more high end.

The best thing about this product is it's price. Almost as cheap as half the price for it's nearest competor, and still works great. Hell, when I saw King's X play, Ty Tabor was using this, so its got to at least be ok.

Once having read the manual and having understood the concept it's very easy to program the FCB1010. Can be made even simpler by using a Software Program Editor.

Sends Data from 0 - 127, so what can I say ... internal PSU doesn't affect midi signal quality.

As long as it's not raining :)

Website offers very detailed information. Never ran into trouble.

Experimental stuff
Best Price/Usage Midi Pedal for NI's Guitar Rag.
Check out http://scifi.pages.at/xpeace/FCB1010.htm

This unit is pretty easy to use. I would say that the manual is not particularly good. If I were new to this sort of thing I probably would have found it confusing.

Had this for a few weeks and haven't had any problems with it so far...

Since I haven't had any problems with it I haven't had to deal with customer service.

Overall its a very nice unit. Two realtime controllers and a good MIDI implementation for sending program changes and parameter changes. If you are planning to purchase one of these amps with built in effects it's almost mandatory to get a good MIDI foot controller and this one really fits the bill.

Oh one more thing thats pretty important. When I was trying to use the expression pedals to change parameters and setup the wah effect on my Behringer GMX210, it didn't work. If this happens to you calibrate the expression pedals (something they don't mention in the manual other than telling you how to do it). Once calibrated they work like a charm. Now I can wah pedal my arse off!

I just bought one, new, for EUR150. I found it difficult to connect to my midi-equipment (Behringer V-Amp Pro, DPS2024P, Roland GR-20) so I first made a little software MIDI-monitor that shows me what midi commands are sent by the FCB. This showed that there were "strange" presets, so I reset the board to factory defaults. Next I found out that I had to calibrate the pedals, (Yahoo fcb1010 group, it is a must!) now it is working like sunshine! With the shareware software (also from the yahoo group) programming is really easy. Still do not have all functions of the 2024P working though, I can't get the user presets to function.
Mine has firmware revision 2.4, that is the current version I think.

no sound quality

R U kidding ? This thing is built to last another WW...

Excelent board, best buy

Midi controlling this review...

Basicly this unit has 10 footswitches and 2 expression pedals. You can program them to control whatever midi-functions your other gear is cabable of transmitting. This is controller, it has not sounds or effects of it own. Look after your gear manuals ?Implementation charts? for midi-functions. Up to 5 units can be controlled thru this one.

I ordered mine recently and while waiting it to travel, I found out how to deal with this one... Like said more than once, the manual isn`t the best around. Still, if you know what you`re doing its worth reading, but if you`re not so familiar with MIDI you really can find it hard to swallow. In the other hand, it isn`t always manuals fault if one can`t program this unit... it just isn`t as easy as one-two-three. Fact is, that you have to do some studying to understand how Midi programming works. So there is a learning curve, I`m afraid.

So here`s what I did too: Yahoo has groups (links around in the earlier posts) for both Vamp and FCB users. In those sites there is lots of good information. Thanks to those guys, you can learn to use this unit very easily actually. I printed out (comes with manual too) table of two pages showing ?preset config and global config?. This is the most important piece of paper if you want to learn to use this unit, GET IT! So with it in another hand I read through other programming information and thats it, no huge problems!

Imo its good to learn about your gear before you have it, if possible, because when you got it, you just want it to work straight away and if it doesn`t, frustration strikes. I could see something like that happened to some earlier reviewers...What comes to programming this one, it takes time for sure, but now afterwards it`s rewarding. And with PC-program (downloadable from yahoo fcb-1010 group or from behringer.com) programming is much faster. I suggest that you learn to use this unit without shortcuts thou, you don`t always have PC around when programming needed, do you?

My fcb1010 has latest 2.4 chip (activates 100 vamp presets easily), but in need of it Behringer seems to send FREE EPROMs to users, at least if you`re in big need and you act polite in the phone...

This unit is the best midi-controller around in price-range under ?200. Or under... The main thing is the need. Do you really need a controller? Because you`re reading this, you probably need or already have one. Buying this one you`ll never ever gonna regret. It`s convincingly well made and it stands your normal and gig use for sure. Bigger LED screen could have been better (and more expensive). Theres midi in/out-thru connections and 2 mono or stereo plugs for not-midi connections. I have vamp2, Technics kn2600 keyboard and Vox pathfinder 15exr. These all can be controlled via fcb1010. I also have a Yamaha pac 604w and acoustic fgx-412c guitars.

In Yahoo fcb1010 group its adviced how to build Phantom power adaptor if you don`t like to deal with all needed cables, I hate cables! I wish I had a room only for playing so I could leave all the wires after me. FCB1010-group also advices how to do other things if needed, like calibrating pedals (my fcb1010 needed calibration). It seems like it really can`t harm you if there is a user-group (with over 2000 users) around!

Patches are very easy to edit, even to someone like myself who has never encountered MIDI before. Found the manual maybe took some peoples knowledge (such as myself) to be greater than it actually was, but after looking on the Behringer web site, where I found some very useful programming examples and the Yahoo FCB1010 user group FAQ section, everything fell swiftly into place.

Set up is Fender Strat Plus Deluxe, Columbus Les Paul Copy, Zoom 9150 Valve DSP, Marshall 8008 Valvestate Power Amp and Behringer FCB1010.
Without the MIDI control that the 1010 gives me over the Zoom the set up would be no use for live work, but the power and flexibility that the 1010 gives me now is marvellous. After using a Digitech RP7 for several years and getting used to one expression pedal, now having 2 expression pedals at my fingertips so to speak is fantastic, and there is also plenty of room for future expansion such as changing Keyboard Settings and other MIDI effects units.

Built like the proverbial Brick S*******e. Would give an A10 tankbuster a near impossible task. Cannot comment on sound quality because this only contols my effects processor (which it does superbly) and does not benerate the sounds

Excellent. With the rapid response to any issues that I had and also free Firmware upgrades it is unbeatable value for money.

I would recommend it to any Guitarist who wants to get the utmost flexibility out of their MIDI based effects Rig at an unbelievable price. Compared it with ART, Roland/Boss and Zoom MIDI controllers, but they all seem to fade into insignificance along side this!!!!!

I read the manual, and was lost. This is my first MIDI controller, so I needed more details. I got absolutely none. After being walked through it, it's pretty easy, but out of the box... I was afraid I'd never get it.

expression pedals are a bit on the flimsy side. I could see myself tripping over one when it's up, and breaking it. the rest of it looks very solid.

I couldn't figure out how to work this, so I emailed their support. Within 2 hours I had an email in my inbox with about 15 text documents walking through various programming methods. I got it working right away after reading those documents.

This is a great MIDI controller, I control 2 units simultaneously with it, and am having a lot of fun learning more about the midi features of some of my devices. It helps me be more creative, I can now switch my V-amp from dirty to clean on the fly, or enable some wiggy effect. I hadn't compared this to anything else, so something else could be better, I don't know.