i’ve been using an FCB1010 until i get round to fixing the ropey pots on my FC300.
the original firmware for the FCB1010 just isn’t that great for vst control. eg. the expression pedals stop sending whilst you click a button.
i tried out the UNO ROM and whilst it’s a big step up, you’re left with the top row of buttons that can never be momentary and the preset inc and dec buttons being useless. seeing as C3 can comfortably convert momentary to latch then to my eyes it seems that a bank of momentary buttons is the best bet.
enter the FCB505 ROM. this is by the same developer as the UNO. it’s tuned to the Boss RC505 looper. there is no programming (except pedal calibration). all the buttons (including the inc and dec) all send momentary on different hardwired cc: 127 for down, 0 when released.
to me it seems the perfect rom for Cantabile, but i’d be interested in any other opinions.
I use the FCB1010 with the UNO chip and am quite happy with it. I use two of the lower row of buttons as sustain pedals for my two keyboards. The two pedals I use for the Leslie of both keyboards (hardware & VST) or other modulations, depending on the plugin. The other lower button on the lower row and all the other buttons are song-dependent. I have yet to dive deeper into the almost endless possibilities of the FCB1010 but it’s working perfectly for my most immediate live-playing needs.
Is it not that case that the UNO allows notes to be issued? Switch down is on, switch up is off.
Then Cantabile can be used to transform the notes to any other values you want. I’m going from memory, so sorry if my info is off.
you could be right. i’d have to swap roms to check, though i’m pretty sure i experimented extensively.
i’d be interested to know. @hermanoantequera, could you have a look?
i’ve had a look in the uno editor and it does have a note setting for the upper buttons.
Huh. I was under the impression that with Cantabile’s routing and binding options none of the added functionality of those ROMs was really necessary. Could someone give a basic rundown of what you could do with an upgraded ROM that you couldn’t otherwise, because I was very seriously expecting to get one at some point.
UnO : what is it about?
The FCB1010 is an extremely affordable and robust piece of hardware. Unfortunately the original firmware contains a few nasty bugs and also misses some essential functionality. After diving into the FCB1010 internals and solving the most annoying bugs back in 2006, we decided to listen to the most frequent feature requests of FCB1010 users, and add them to the firmware while we were at it. This was the birth of “UnO” : an UnOfficial firmware version, because it was not developed by the Behringer team. But after more than 10 years we can say that UnO more or less has become a standard add-on, turning the FCB1010 into a very powerful MIDI controller.
Key benifits of the UnO firmware :
- Real stompbox mode! Stomp LEDs show the current effect states at all time
- Possibility to turn any stompbox into a sustain pedal (‘momentary’ instead of ‘toggling’ behavior)
- Flexible programming of stomp states for each preset
- Smoother behavior of the built-in expression pedals
- Much easier to do patchdumps from PC
- Corrected MIDI merge functionality, to get rid of hanging notes from MIDI keyboards
- Corrected startup memory check, to get rid of the “flashing 88” problem when using the MIDI IN port
- Possibility to disable the “Behringer taptempo” system, to get rid of unwanted extra CC messages
- …
the ‘smoother behaviour of the expression pedals’ is that they no longer stop transmitting when you press a pedal!
Is that an issue though? I would be using it with one foot, I’d never be able to move the expression pedal and hit a button at the same time…
I think whatever chip you are using in the FCB1010, Cantabile will let you use it on exactly the way you want it anyway. One of the things I like about the UNO is its stompbox option because it let’s the LEDs light up on press down and switch off when you release the pedal.
That’s what I’m thinking- it doesn’t matter what the Behringer thinks it’s sending with a button press, Cantabile can interpret any event the way you want it to.
those up and down buttons are a liability.
if you’ve not every bank set up identically then if you hit one of those buttons you’ll end up in a mess.
they’re also right in the way and completely unassignable without the FCB-505 rom.
yeah, if you’re standing it’s virtually impossible.
pretty easy if you’re sitting though.
To me that’s like someone that uses two feet for gas/brakes in a car. I don’t trust it. 
I’m standing up playing. It’s just a question of getting used to. At one point we all learn to play our instrument eyes closed or at least get a sort of intuitive sense of where all the keys are. It’s the same with a pedal board, as long as it’s placed well.
I actually got rid of the UNO chip and got one like the one @Neil mentioned in the original post on the basis of actually dumbing down the FCB to just a bunch of buttons that send control commands and having all the smart stuff in Cantabile.
The problem with the original ROM as well as the UNO ROM is that they are trying to be too smart with banks, program changes and stompboxes and so on. I prefer a mode that lets me simply receive a control change from every button and pedal and lets me send CCs to turn the LEDs on or off, depending on Cantabile states. No banks and programs and fancy configuration, simply a dumb controller with no internal states.
I use the Eureka Prom in simple Input / Output mode, which lets me do exactly that - I can receive CC messages from every button / pedal, and I can send out CCs to turn the LEDs on or off. Unfortunately the CC mapping to LEDs is a bit convoluted, but nothing that a bit of ReaJS programming can’t fix…
Cheers,
Torsten
Now that does sound good.
Major drawback of the original and UNO ROMs is no sync for LEDs
If your suggestion does that, I’m in.
BTW @Neil, you just turn on the FCB in factory mode by holding correct switches down. (Forgotten that foo 
). Don’t need to swap out the UNO ROM.
Hi Torsten,
With the stock FCB1010 I used FCBMan to assign note values to the numbered pedal/switches. At this point with the right expression pedal assigned to cc11 I was achieving my goal of using it for keyswitching the Wavelore Pedal Steel. After playing it for a while I accidentally hit the up button and decided I would like to reprogram it. You post above was very helpful in my decision to order the Eureka chip so I can do that. I’m hoping it will also allow me to send changes to the FCB1010 without all the toe tapping 
Woah-- Sorry if I totally missed this, but are you saying that the Eureka Prom would let me disable the program up and down garbage? Because as much as I love using the FCB, I swear I accidentally switch program banks at least once a set.
The built in preset they call I/O is as follows:
