Digital Music Corp Ground Control Pro

To be honest, if you have any trouble setting this thing up, the only trouble you would have would be from the other gear you are using it with. VERY SIMPLE to set-up! Straight forward. I was not familiar with MIDI at all when I first purchased this, and now that I have worked with quite a few of my friends MIDI set-ups, NONE COMPARE!!!

No sound travels through this unit - So I guess that could be a rating of a 10 (Pure Tone)!

Well, It's a 10 now because I have never had a problem with it, but if a problem does occur I suppose I would have to change the 10 I gave it. :-)
But for now this thing is tough and always ready for action.

Never had to use them... Which supports the 10 I gave for 'ease of use'.

I have all my pedals in a rack on an SKB sliding rack mounted pedal shelf! I also have this unit controlling my G-Major (TC Helicon). No more messof pedals on the floor with a million wires to organize. No more tone loss through crappy pedals and cheap patch cables. This beast is a dream come true for my TONE, and EASE of USE set-up. Everything I could ever want to have happen (as far as playing live, practice, or in the studio) at my feet!

This is a MIDI controller. Editing is straightforward and simple. The manual is well written. I think C.Dimella's reviews (below) are completely off base. It seems like he has an axe to grind. I saw Steve Vai recently and he used one of these.

I'm using this to control a Roland synth, a TC Helicon Voice Live, and a GCX switcher which controls all my (mounted in a rack) pedals. This unit switches silently and instantly. I'm able to change settings and switch pedals on and off with one stomp. I send my guitar signal to a Tech21 trademark 120 and the synth and Voive go to the P.A. I've gigged with it and had absolutely no problems whatsoever.

I do depend on it and I do gig without a backup.

This is a top notch company that are knowledgable and friendly. They will help out in any way possible. I'm very impressed.

I play classic and contemporary rock and I have to cover many styles. This is a perfect match for what I need. I would definitely replace it, but I take care of my equipment and I don't think it will be lost or stolen. It is pricey, but you get what you pay for. If it's good enough for Steve Vai it's good enough for anyone.

This product is extremely easy to use. If you cant find it in the manual then take a second and use your brain. Not hard to figure out.

Just for the previous post(er), when you said expiration did you mean expression? I just have to say that i've only built my rig, and even with my limited experience (compared to urs), i managed to figure it out. EXTREMELY easy to use is an understatement. You should have been able to figure it out.

No sound passes through this unit.

Also want to mention that Steve Vai has been seen using one of these live.

I gig three times a week minimum, sometimes more, as well as rehearsals and ive had no problems.

Ill depend on it. If it does fail then im screwed, but i dont see that happening anytime soon.

Never dealt with them regarding this product.

Seem ok tho.

Very easy to set up sounds, do wish there was the ability to expand the unit to add more instant access/function switchers (tap tempo and so forth).

Really like the naming the preset thing. I do alot of freelance work and my brain is normally fried from teaching (guitar) so i need that visual reminder of where thing are.

Only a 9 because there are other units that may be more extensive than this, but for what it is its great. Great value for money. And contrary to the previous review, many pro players use this unit, session and touring.

I wanted to add from my last review that if your a pro player there are better controllers and these are the ones I like:

Rocktron All Axess, CAE/RS-10, Axcess Electronics FX1.

This are better made units then GC-pro! The manual is a nightmare and not user friendly! Like stated in my last review the GC-pro is okay for Local and session work where you just want to turn loops on and off.

I wanted to add from my last review that if your a pro player there are better controllers and these are this ones I like:

Rocktron All Axess, CAE/RS-10, Axcess Electronics FX1.

This are better made then the GC-pro! You will have problems on down the road!

I wouldn't use with out a backup!

DMC has excellent Support

I wanted to add from my last review that if your a pro player there are better controllers and these are the ones I like:

Rocktron All Axess, CAE/RS-10, Axcess Electronics FX1.

This are better made the the GC-pro which I don't care for with road work

Overall the GC-pro is not happening for pro road player use something else as I have listed above. I have been build and designing racks for 10+ yrs and I must say this unit is very disapointing.

I just build a pro rig fora client and he went with the GC-pro. I'm also a pro player and have all CAE/Bradshaw switching sytem. I found the GC-pro easy to program if you you just want to switch loops of gcx in and out. Howerver when you start getting into the unit It is very unuser friendly. I started to program the GC-pro for expration pedals in ports 1 and 2 so I could control the rack effects vols. when reading the manual which sucks by the way,I had to flip from the front to the middel to the back to try and get this happening! The maual leaves a lot out when it come to programing the ports, I have called a lot of players who have this and they say the samething and don't use the ports.

I also found that the switchs are just okay. They are no where near the true Carling switches that are on my RS-10. DMC says these are Carling switchs but to me if they are its a lower line switch. True top of the line carling switchs click when you step on them. This is because top of the line carling switchs have plugers in them and to me the GC-pro switch don't.

This unit is cool for local playing. but if your a heavy tour player I wouldn't recomend this. This is why. I know a lot of top name players and the switches fail. GMC service is excellent and they will replace the switchs no questions asked. But what do you do Now when this happens? This has happend to players I know who have had this unit. when you really get into programing the unit for all it's featchers which I do when building a pro/Bradhaw type rig programing the unit is a nightmare!

Like I said it's very simple if you just want to switch loops in and out and editing patch names other than that this unit is out to lunch!

My client has sold this Unit and we are know using a RS-10 very simple and why better built.

This has no sound quaily. it is very quite when switching and no hum when pwr up.

The GC-pro is cool for local and session players. But for road players I would not use it with out a tech and a backup.

I have dealt with the DMC people and they are excellent! very helpful, friendly and will do anything they can to get your rig up and going. They treat everyone like a star!

My client plays all styles and is a heavy road player. These unit if you have a pwr surge and for some reason it craps out, your toast! you will have to redo everything step by step! Like I said this unit is cool for local and session work but take a back up fully programed with you for road work.

This thing is incredibly easy to use. I have absolutely NO experience what so ever with MIDI until the Ground Control. I was a bit overwhelmed at first because i didn't understand the different language and channels and such that is associated with MIDI, but walking myself along with the manual made it a sinch.

Im using this to control a GCX guitar audio switcher. On the different effect loops are controlling my Mesa/Boogie Triple rectifier, chorus pedal, phaser pedal and delay pedal. Very easy to program the ground control to control everything on the GCX.

So far i've had no problems. It seems very sturdy.

I've never had to deal with them, but from what i've read they are great to deal with when needed!

This is hands down one of the best investments i've made in my rig. I was skeptical at first because of the price and if it would actually do what i wanted it to. It has absolutely takin care of any switching problems i've dealt with and no i can't imagine living without it. I used to play on Line 6 amps which i loved because it was easy to control everything with one button on a footswitch. But, it wasn't tube, so when i got my rectifier and went to stompboxes i had to deal with floorboard dancing, until i got the ground control and GCX.

Straight forward for set-up.

No sound passes through the unit.

I want to ammend my first posted review. I indeed did get a new one sent to me from DMC. It took longer than I would have liked but I did get one. As far as reliability I want to retract my first statement. The unit worked out of the box. A unfortunate set of circumstances lead me to believe as well as DMC staff that my setup was fine when in fact I had a comprimised MIDI cable. It worked perfectly with my old set-up (send AC down the line and transmitted data just fine...but wouldn't work with my GCP) apparently the GCP is very sensitive and any slight MIDI problem will throw it out of whack. So to DMC credit the GCP is good and it was my (well my MIDI cable) fault. I just wish I had of checked the MIDI cable anyway.

They were very helpful, a little slow on the shipping but overall very good. Friendly and helpful.

The manual is to the point. If you have experience with rack gear and assigning midi channels and continuous controllers you shouldn't have a problem. If you are new to this it might take a bit more work.

No sound- just a transparent switch, no audio goes through it.

I ordered it and was very excited to get it. I have read the reviews about the early switch problems and my research into this found that they had corrected it. Upon arrival I unpacked the unit, hooked it up to my GCX ,it powered up and that's it...it would go into set-up mode and then would hang...the software froze. I tried powering down and trying again the same thing. Out of the box and not working. To say the least I wasn't happy. I had my music store send it back for repair and I am still waiting to get it back. It has been only 2 weeks thus far. I can only hope that this was an isolated incident and that when I finally get it back I will have trouble free operation. If there is any more trouble I'll be sure and ammend or add another review.

I give an 5 only because I am not happy with DMC return policy in my case. I have called DMC a number of times and John Aycock and John Clarke were both great to deal with, friendly and extremely knowledgeable. My problem relates to my Ground Control Pro being DOA. Out of the box it did not work. I called DMC and spoke to John Clarke and we tried various different troubleshooting measures over the phone but it would not work. He suggested that I send it back and it would be repaired....fair enough it it wasn't BRAND NEW. I think that it is unfair to pay a substantial amount of $ for a pro product that NEVER worked out of the box and then pay more money to have it shipped back to the company the next day to have it repaired. What I wanted was to have my music store who ordered the product have it sent back and immediately (AT NO COST TO THEM - after all they are not responsible for the broken controller) have DMC send a new one to replace the faulty one being sent back (seeing that they could have one available to send in 2-3 days )That to me seems pretty reasonable... a relative no brainer as far as customer support is concerned. However they would not do this....I am still not sure why. The sales staff at my musicstore pleaded the OBVIOUS case but DMC would hold their ground. So I am waiting for my GCP to ship back to California get repaired and be sent back across the continent.

I cannot give an overall rating as of yet because I have not used the product. I will ammend this review when I get it.

"Easy to use" is an understatement with no manual I have been able to do anything I needed to do, it is inconceivable that someone would have a problem programming this device. It is identical in function to the original GC I like the visual impact of the device looks almost like an RS-10 Expanded unfortunately it uses PCB mounted switches with metal plungers to activate them, I would reccommend that DMC switch to carling switches instead if they continue to have switch problems as some have claimed, although these are the same switches used in the older model and just about every other soft switching device I have seen including digitech and etc. I have had a digitech pedalboard for quite a while and it still works fine.

N/A

Well I haven't had it long enough to form an opinion, but I have an old Ground control from them which has survived the beer and spittle for a few years now without so much as a hiccup I would have to say that I got the item used and returned the caveat on the tag stated matter of factly, "Display does not light up and something loose inside" I paid less than half the cost of new, five seconds after I opened it up it was working fine the PROM chip had come out of it's socket and was rattling around inside the case. I was a bit disappointed to find the switches are not carling but a nice looking metal plunger actuating a tiny plastic switch but it appears to be the same switch that was used in the original. but so far it has worked just fine. I am giving this a 6 because the PROM was loose inside.

I have dealt with them before and have to say I had a great experience I cannot imagine these folks being unhelpful they were very nice and courteous to me. perhaps it has to do with the attitude of the caller.

I give this a 7 due to the initial reason it was returned to the shop from which I purchased it, but since that time I have had no problems if I encounter the problems that others claim to have had, I will post a revised review.

I'm using version 1.01. The manual is a bit goofy at first, but once you get the hang of it, programming this pedal is a snap. Acutally the easiest MIDI pedals I've dealt with.

At this point, I'm doing what you might call "advanced" stuff with it (controlling multiple devices, expression pedals, using instant access mode, etc.) and it's absolutely a breeze.

Well it doesn't make any sounds, so what I'll talk about are it's features and general utility.

I'm using the GCP to control a Rocktron Replifex (multi-effects processor) and an Axess Electronics GRX4 loop switcher. Each is on a separate MIDI channel. I've set up the GCP in 'instant access' mode so the top two rows of buttons are send CC messages and the bottom row sends prog change messages.

The way I've programmed it, the top row is used to turn effects on/off within presets on the Rocktron. The middle row is used to turn loops on/off on the GRX4. I've got 4 stomp boxes in the GRX4 loops (Compressor, OD, Fuzz, Octave). This enables me to use the GCP kind of like stomp boxes. In the top row of the GCP, I can turn things like chorus, delay, reverb, phase shifting, etc. on/off within each preset.

My only complaint is that the GCP can't maintain the state of your instant access buttons when you switch presets. E.g., if I had my overdrive on when I was using preset 1, it would be kind of cool if I could optioanlly program the GCP to maintain the state of that button I was using for my overdrive loop when I changed presets on the Roctron. But, the way it works is no different from other floor boards, including stuff like the big Line 6 board. But really, this isn't a big deal to me, but it would be nice.

I got it used. The guy told me it worked perfectly but it didn't. I sent it back to DMC and they fixed it. MOre on this in the customer support section. But really, I haven't used it long enough to have an opion. I had a regular old GC and it always worked like a charm. Never had any problems.

I got it used. The guy told me it worked perfectly but it didn't. I sent it back to DMC and they fixed it. Note: It was used and they were under no obligation to do this work for me. But they did it free of charge. Two of the buttons were a bit flakey: couldn't depend on them to work 100% of the time. Well, w/o me asking them to do so, they replaced ALL of the buttons and upgraded the ROM--FREE OF CHARGE!!!

But they didn't stop there. I also own a Voodoo Lab Pedal Power II and needed a couple extra power cables of a certain type. I had told their CS rep that I would buy some. They sent me 3 of them for...you guessed it...nothing!

Boy, now this is a company interested in keeping it's customers happy!!

The GCP is a very easy to program, highly functional MIDI switching pedal. Mine now works flawlessly. It's easy to program and provides lots of advanced features. The manual is decent (definite improvement over the original GC manual) and you'll find it very useful, overall. There are a few programming quirks, but compared to a few other pedals (Pedal Power, Behringer, others) I've worked with, this is a snap. And having ALL THOSE BUTTONS to work with makes it highly, highly useful. I do WAY less tap dancing than ever before.