FCB1010 module

Design Concepts
1

Hi,

as everyone who bothers to read at least a little in this amazing site i’m blown away by the amount and quality of information available here.

I own a FCB1010 midi controller. I changed default firmware to UnO firmware, which adds stomp-box mode and other stuff.

http://www.ossandust.be/

I’m pretty happy with the pedalboard but I’d like to make it even more flexible.

Right now when I go back and forth through patches the stompboxes have inconsistent behavior.

For instance, when a patch is selected each stomp box may be turned on, turned off or left unchanged, but they don’t “return” to the values I had when I left the patch. I’d like them to be independent of what I do in other patches so when I go back to a patch.

There’s this device made by the same guys that made the UnO firmware called Little Giant.

http://www.gordius.be/midi-footcontroller-products.php

That seems to do what I need, but ordering one of that products is not an option right now.

Is it possible to make a midiBox that may interact with fcb1010 in such way?

Thanks in advance!

2

Hi Coma,

have you already discovered the “Pedal box”? that might be exactly what you want. it took me some time to understand what it can do and what is the difference between pedal box and pedal board. pedal box seems to be quite similar to this LG-Module, although they differ in features. best you see and read yourself  :wink:

ah, welcome aboard btw :smiley:

(somehow strange to say that, as im registered for just 2 weeks myself :slight_smile: )

Cheers,

Alex

3

That’s exactly what I’m talking about.

Thank you very much! I¡ll try to build one as soon as I get the parts.

edit: I see there’s pretty much programming involved to get it working as needed.

I think it would be better to make myself a simple core+ain+din midibox first to familiarize with MIOS and all that stuff and then see how far can I get with the pedalbox.

I’ll oder the parts asap.

4

I didnt look too much into details there. but anyway, as soon as you have a core you can try out whatever you want and then use it for the pedal box :slight_smile: btw., it really helps to have a lcd for the beginning. and i just discovered, that pedal box isnt using the standard 18f452 pic. i hope you saw it too? just that you can switch to pedalbox later.

good luck and have fun with the parts :slight_smile:

Alex

5

Hi,

yeah, I’ve noticed it is written for PIC18F4620. Thanks for the heads up.

I don’t want to run before I know how to walk, so I’ll get a core with DINs and AINs running and then try to work this out.

I’m also interested in making a MIDI interface to use as a controller for line 6 VST. Something similar to Axe-FX but running on a PC and with Line6’s software instead of Axe-FX’s.

So first thing first I guess.

edit:

I’ve just discovered something (rather important) in Little Giant Manual.

In order to work as a slave controller for the Little Giant module, the FCB1010 needs to be upgraded

with a GORDIUS specific firmware EPROM, which  is included in the LG-M package. This special

firmware indeed turns the FCB1010 into a “dummy†controller which does nothing but forward the foot

clicks as a simple MIDI message to the LG-M, and receive simple MIDI messages from the LG-M

which are used to control all LEDs. This way,  there is no more need to do any programming on the

FCB1010. All preset programming is centralized inside the Little Giant MIDI engine.  

So there’s a special firmware to enslave the FCB1010 to the Little Giant and I would need another firmware to make a pedal/midibox work with the FCB1010 properly. Does anybody have any experience programming firmware such as this? Where should I start? I have some programming experience but none with assembler nor firmware stuff.

6

So there’s a special firmware to enslave the FCB1010 to the Little Giant and I would need another firmware to make a pedal/midibox work with the FCB1010 properly. Does anybody have any experience programming firmware such as this? Where should I start? I have some programming experience but none with assembler nor firmware stuff.

for a midibox-project an altered firmware isn’t essential. i just looked into the manual: the altered firmware is to control the leds and the display on the fcb. seems, they can’t be accessed via midi-in. if you can get over this, you needn’t do anything with the firmware. but having the right leds lit up, might be important. especially, when you switch to an earlier patch, so you can see which switches are on.

if you could get hold of this gordius firmware, you might be able to find by trial and error, what are the commands to change the leds and the display. but this seems rather viewless.

maybe one of the asm-gurus here could help you, but i guess, it’s also far too much work, to reengineer the software of the fcb. viewless as well.

if you get the gordius firmware AND find some nice ASM-Guru, it should be quite possible to find out, what they changed in the firmware and deduct the necessary commands. i’m moving on really thin ice here, though. never really touched asm in my life ^^

the straightforward option is, to rip the electronics out of the board and replace them with your midibox  8) this should be quite simple, if there’s enough space inside. besides, you end up with a single unit. however, it feels wrong, to strip a working unit. (at least to me )

i had to make a similar choice only a month ago and decided to have an external unit. now im quite happy about that. as i discovered, using buttons, sliders n pots on the midibox is far more comfortable to me than using the floorboard. so it’s in the cellar now :slight_smile: but thats certainly special to me.

to come back to your problem, i think i would go the radical way. if they layed out stuff nicely inside, you might even be able to put the original electronics back in, if you regret it. (doubtful though :stuck_out_tongue: ).

cu, Alex

7

for a midibox-project an altered firmware isn’t essential. i just looked into the manual: the altered firmware is to control the leds and the display on the fcb. seems, they can’t be accessed via midi-in. if you can get over this, you needn’t do anything with the firmware. but having the right leds lit up, might be important. especially, when you switch to an earlier patch, so you can see which switches are on.

if you could get hold of this gordius firmware, you might be able to find by trial and error, what are the commands to change the leds and the display. but this seems rather viewless.

maybe one of the asm-gurus here could help you, but i guess, it’s also far too much work, to reengineer the software of the fcb. viewless as well.

if you get the gordius firmware AND find some nice ASM-Guru, it should be quite possible to find out, what they changed in the firmware and deduct the necessary commands. i’m moving on really thin ice here, though. never really touched asm in my life ^^

the straightforward option is, to rip the electronics out of the board and replace them with your midibox  8) this should be quite simple, if there’s enough space inside. besides, you end up with a single unit. however, it feels wrong, to strip a working unit. (at least to me )

i had to make a similar choice only a month ago and decided to have an external unit. now im quite happy about that. as i discovered, using buttons, sliders n pots on the midibox is far more comfortable to me than using the floorboard. so it’s in the cellar now :slight_smile: but thats certainly special to me.

to come back to your problem, i think i would go the radical way. if they layed out stuff nicely inside, you might even be able to put the original electronics back in, if you regret it. (doubtful though :stuck_out_tongue: ).

cu, Alex

Well, I mind the led stuff showing correct effects on/off state. For unconsistent led behaviour the FCB is pretty programable as it is, with the UnO firmware. I dropped a mail at the guys that make Gordius asking them for the firmware but they can’t release it or sell it by itself. I’m more than thankful with them for releasing the UnO firmware which is just awesome.

I’m walking on even thinner ice considering I didn’t even successfully assembled a single core module! But is nice to get a perspective of the specifics of what can be done with midibox and how hard would it be.

Ripping the electronics out of the FCB crossed my mind, but it is

8

I don’t know why I couldn’t complete that sentence.

Last night I assembled my first core from a KIT from Avishowtech and it worked perfectly. Now I’ll make a little controller for Cubase to test things out a little and then I’ll go for the FCB controller modification thingy.

One GREAT workaround would be to find a FCB with non working electronics and working mechanics because striping a perfectly working unit does seems wrong. Hard to find one of those FCBs around here but I’ll try.

I would like to know how hard/expensive would it be to make a custom firmware for the fcb1010, can someone point out any forum where I could find people that can give me some directions about EPROM programming?