Problem with Behringer 1010 on PA500

sfchunge · Post by **sfchunge** » Wed Dec 29, 2010 3:30 pm

I am a recent owner of a PA500 and I received a FCB1010 during Xmas. I spent days reading and trying out the1010 trying to get it to work but I could only get it to work partially. I am new to MIDI too.

What is working so far. The 10 preset switches are working. I am able to trigger the Fills and Vars, Stop/Start etc.

I am NOT able to get the Expression Pedals to control Volume.

I have gone thru the FAQs by Mountain Systems ie Idiots Guide etc as well as whatever info I can get from the forums here. I am using the FCB1010 Midi Editor and MIDI-Ox as well.

On the PA500, I have set Midi In to Channel 1 for Control Channel.

On the MIDI Editor, I have activated Expression Pedal A on Controller 7 Min=0, Max 127. On the Global Settings, PC 1 to PC 5 all set to Midi channel 1. Exp A set to Midi Channel 1. CC1, CC2 and Note also set to Midi Channel 1. (Actually , I don't really know what I am doing, but setting all to channel 1 helps me eliminate unnecessary permutations

) I have also tried setting Expression Pedal to Controller 8 as I noticed that the midi implmentation on the editor is off by 1. But both control change 7 or 8 didn't work.

When I press the Exp A Pedal up or down, I can see that MIDI-ox is registering the 0-127 values.

After days at it, and several re-calibration of the pedals I was about to throw in the towel. I tried one final test. I plugged the 1010 into my 20 yr old Ensoniq KS32 and the Expression Pedal worked perfectly! And all the time, I thought the 1010 was defective or I am an idiot or both.

I'd like to check with the folks here whether my setup on the PA500 is correct or not. Since I am a newbie on midi, I am not confident that my setup on the PA is working. Is it a setup issue or is my PA faulty is what i'd like to find out. It is strange that the 10 presets switches are working though but at least that indicates that the midi channels are communicating ok and the Exp Pedals work fine on the Ensoniq. Is there a way to test whether the PA MIDI implementation is working? Any freeware that I can use to test this out? Appreciate anyone here can help out. I am about to use the PA for church practice in a couple of days. I am hoping it is not a defective PA500, just my setup. I reinstalled the Korg OS as a precaution. I do have a Korg EXP-2 which is working fine but I don't really want to bring both the 1010 and the EXP-2

Peter J · Post by **Peter J** » Wed Dec 29, 2010 4:34 pm

Hi,
I am afraid that I cannot advise what the problem is with your setup but I can confirm that using my FCB1010 with my PA2X, I also have all 10 switches functioning properly but like you have been unable to get the PA2X to respond to the FCB1010 variable pedals for volume. I have also gone through similar alternative settings of FCB and PA as you but without success.
I would therefore also be keen to know the answer to this problem --- I suspect that it is probably an internal setting on the PA2X which needs to be configured correctly.

karmathanever · Post by **karmathanever** » Thu Dec 30, 2010 1:41 pm

I have this working perfectly but I use exp pedal A for UPPER 1 and exp pedal B for UPPER 2 volumes.

I do not have my configuration handy right now but will get your answer hopefully tomorrow.

I hope you are both using the free PC editor for the FCB1010 - it saves a lot of hard work.

Cheers

Pete

Peter J · Post by **Peter J** » Thu Dec 30, 2010 4:52 pm

Hi Pete,
Thanks.
I am using the FCB1010 software as I found that the pedal was a pig to try to set up manually.
I look forward to seeing your configuration as I wished to control Upper 1 and 2 volume also.

sfchunge · Post by **sfchunge** » Fri Dec 31, 2010 1:05 am

Hi Pete,

Yes I am using the FCB PC Editor. I am not sure what you mean about the Upper 1 and Upper 2 volume . On the PA500, I see Upper 1 ,2 and 3.. So controlling just Upper 1 and 2 won't be so good for me.

I also tried sending CC7 with value set at 0 using one of the preset switches. If the PA500 is receiving the cc messages correctly, it would have turn down the volume to zero? But that is not happening. It really is exasperating. I have yet to check out whether the PA is responding to other CC besides the volume (CC7). Perhaps it really is a faulty unit....

Looking forward to your solution!

Regards,
Eric

karmathanever · Post by **karmathanever** » Fri Dec 31, 2010 10:17 am

Here is my set up:-

PEDAL SETTING
(Editor "Presets" tab)
Expression pedal A: Controller=7, Minimum=30, Maximum=127
Expression pedal B: Controller=7, Minimum=40, Maximum=127

(Editor "Global Settings" tab)
Expression pedal A: MIDI channel 4
Expression pedal B: MIDI channel 5

This gives me independent volume control for UPPER 1 and UPPER 2 sounds in STYLE mode.

I guess that if you want to control master volume you need to assign MIDI channel 1 but I have not tried that.

Hope this helps

Cheers

Pete

Peter J · Post by **Peter J** » Fri Dec 31, 2010 7:07 pm

Hi Pete,
I checked your configuration against mine and found them very similar. The difference being that I had the continuous foot pedals set to midi channels 1 and 2 for upper 1 and 2 tracks on the PA2X with a minimum value of 0 and maximum of 127. Nonetheless the continuous pedals were still having no effect.

In order to accommodate the above, I had set the Global midi in setup to default, with tracks 1 and 2 modified to Upper 1 and Upper 2 respectively, and Track 16 set to control channel. With this set up the FCB 1010 foot pedals were set to transmit on midi channel 16 and the continuous pedals on channels 1 and 2.

Based on your set up, I could not understand why my set up did not work so I decided to use an external keyboard to try to play the PA2X Upper 1 track over midi to check if Upper 1 was responding to MIdi channel 1. This worked fine so I reconnected the FCB1010 and to my amazement the continuous pedals were now working!!! My midi setup uses a 5 input midi in box into a 5 output midi out box so the FCB does not connect directly to the PA2X and I can only assume that some temporary connection problem here had caused a malfunction.

I can now adjust Upper 1 and 2 volume using the FCB 1010 and also I had setup one FCB preset to cc 1 and 2 for the continuous pedals which corresponds to Mod 1 and 2 [Y+ and Y-] joystick forward and back and this also now works though I am not too sure of the usefulness of this at present. What I would really like to do is to turn an effect e.g. tremelo, echo or vibrato say on or off rather than adjust say the depth or speed of the effect.

Thank you for your assistance

karmathanever · Post by **karmathanever** » Sat Jan 01, 2011 1:50 am

Hi PJ

I just used the default MIDI channels for the UPPER 1 & 2 (channels 4 & 5).

Also I used one of the FCB pedals as a "switch" and then connected the FCB's switch port to my PA1/2X's assignment pedal port - this way I could use the assigned FCB pedal to activate the Korg's pedal assignment (I used it for Joystick Y control to flip Rotary on/off for the organs). I also at an earlier stage used one of the FCB expression pedals to completely control the Rotary effect speed.

I have been lazy in NOT getting my FCB sorted out and back to the Korg settings. I re-configured it to use on my Tyros 3 to try and compensate for the Tyros's horrible OS - it partially worked but to really get the Tyros "performancable" I would need 3 FCB pedals.

Needless to say I no longer have the Tyros (why did I get it? - well it was a used model, very well priced, and I sold it for the same $$$ - so nothing lost and just experience gained - would never touch a Tyros as a professional board - nice sounds but the whole thing is for a very different market.)

Cheers

Pete

sfchunge · Post by **sfchunge** » Sun Jan 02, 2011 5:31 am

HI Peter, PJ,

Happy New Year. Last few days have been pretty unproductive. The FCB Midi Editor keeps on crashing out on me and just refuses to talk to the 1010 connected via USB Midimate II. Intermitently it would communicate though but most of the time not, even when it is not crashing. I just couldn't get the sysex sent/received. I was on Win 7.

Eventually I have to resort to Win XP and took out my old MPU-401 card with the serial midi cable. So far seems to be able to hang on the connection most of the time.

Still not able to get PA500 to respond to master volume. However, I could get it to respond individually to Upper 1 ,2 3 , lower etc. It looks like I have to live with this arrangement for the time being. I am sure there is a way to tell the PA that I want to work on the master volume and not on individual tracks. Anyone? Suggestions? Workarounds?

Eric