Using the Behringer FCB1010 MIDI Foot Controller with a Korg Pa2X ArrangerI received the Behringer FCB1010 MIDI Foot Controller from Sweetwater and decided to try this on a Korg Pa2X Pro 76 Key Arranger.
As usual Sweetwater carefully double boxed the unit and shipped it via FedEx and it arrived in pristine condition.
There are two free editors available for the FCB1010 device.
1.
FCB1010 Managerhttps://mountainutilities.eu/fcb10102.
PC Editor for FCB1010http://www.mtnsys.com/?path=faq-fcb/PCEditorBeta.htmI tried both.
The FCB1010 Manager is far easier to use and has a sleek interface.
Each of the 10 Pedals on the FCB1010 can be programmed to send out 5 Program Change messages, 2 Continuous Controller messages, a single MIDI Note, as well as control the Expression Pedals A and B along with 2 Foot Switches.
Each of these messages can be sent on their own MIDI Channels 1-16 which is set globally.
The FCB1010 Manager makes it a child’s play to program the 10 Pedals by presenting a spreadsheet view of all the Controls as columns and all the Presets as rows.
The FCB1010 devices can store 10 banks, each bank containing 10 presets for a total of 100 presets.
The device communicates with the FCB1010 Manager via SysEx Send and Receive.
You can add a short description for each of the 100 Presets and name each of the 10 Banks.
They are stored as a companion .FCB file along with the matching .SYX file.
The FCB1010 Manager comes with a good MIDI Monitor. However, it is far more elegant and useful to install MIDI-OX to visualize your MIDI traffic and make internal MIDI port connections.
Please download and install
MIDI-OX 7.0.2http://www.midiox.com/This is an invaluable tool to help you program any MIDI Controller and verify that you are sending and receiving the right Program Change and Control Change messages.
You should also install
loopMIDI http://www.tobias-erichsen.de/software/loopmidi.htmlThis allows you to create internal MIDI pipes on the fly. This is the ideal tool to create virtual loopback MIDI cables. They get removed when you log off.
Normally you would need to open the back plate of the FCB1010 device to check which version of Firmware you have. The PC Editor for FCB1010 makes this unnecessary. It can query your device and return the Firmware version.
My unit came with
Behringer 2.5.1E. This is the latest version. This EPROM is guaranteed to work with the FCB Manager software.
I chose a Pa2X Pro to run my initial tests because Korg Arrangers are the easiest to set up with external MIDI Foot Controllers.
You can download the Korg Pa2X Pro Owner’s Manual from:
https://www.korg.com/us/support/download/manual/1/186/2212/The essential Style Elements can be controlled by sending a Program Change message on the MIDI Control Channel.
They are listed on Page 280.
PC Style Element
80 Intro1
81 Intro 2
82 Intro3/Count In
83 Variation 1
84 Variation 2
85 Variation 3
86 Variation 4
87 Fill 1
88 Fill 2
89 Fill 3/Break
90 Ending 1
91 Ending 2
92 Ending 3
93 Fade In/Out
94 Memory
95 Bass Inversion
96 Manual Bass
97 Tempo Lock
98 Single Touch
99 Style Change
100 Start/Stop Style
101 Start/Stop Player 1
102 Start/Stop Player 2
64 STS 1
65 STS 2
66 STS 3
67 STS 4
I decided to pick the 10 most useful functions to populate the 10 Pedals in Bank 0 like so:
Pedal Function
1 INTRO 1
2 INTRO 2
3 FILL 1
4 FILL 2
5 FILL 3/BREAK
6 VAR 1
7 VAR 2
8 VAR 3
9 VAR 4
10 ENDING
I decided to use MIDI Channel 16 as my Control Channel to send these Program Change messages.
You can download the SysEx file from:
http://davidapps.net/fcb1010/fcb1010_pa2x.zipNote: When you load the FCB1010+Pa2X.syx file into the FCB1010 Manager you will notice that Program Change numbers have been incremented by 1 from the table on Page 280. This is because the FCB1010 device is based on a 1-128 numbering scheme, whereas Korg Arrangers are based on a 0-127 numbering scheme.
Is it necessary to have direct control over of the Variation Buttons?
Not really.
You can program the Fills to increment or decrement the Variations. So I replaced the Variation Controls with Single Touch Setting Controls in Bank 1.
Pedal Function
1 INTRO 1
2 INTRO 2
3 FILL 1
4 FILL 2
5 FILL 3/BREAK
6 STS 1
7 STS 2
8 STS 3
9 STS 4
10 ENDING
This bank of 10 Presets turned out to be the most useful in practice.
To make the Korg Pa2X work with the Behringer FCB1010 MIDI Foot Controller and the Roland RD-700GX 88-Key Stage Piano you need to make some critical settings, the most important being setting MIDI Channel 16 as your CONTROL channel and MIDI Channel 1 as your GLOBAL channel.
I have explained all the setup configurations with annotated screenshots in this PDF document.
http://davidapps.net/fcb1010/fcb1010_pa2x_setup.pdfDavid
Previous Topic
Index
