How many buttons do I need?

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johey
Posts: 4
Joined: Tue Sep 22, 2015 3:19 am

How many buttons do I need?

Post by johey »

I'm looking into buy a foot pedal for looping. I'd like to have a setup comparable to a Boss RC-300 (regarding looping that is) but with four loop banks. How many buttons would I need to make it practical? Would it do with a Behringer FCB1010?

Please note that I am awfully new to this. I haven't even installed SooperLooper yet. :oops: Just want some pre-buy facts.
Freasy
Posts: 60
Joined: Fri Aug 29, 2014 5:37 pm

Re: How many buttons do I need?

Post by Freasy »

Hello,
first you need to know, what you want. Basically you need record of course, maybe overdub, mute and solo (stop at the Boss pedal). That would make 4 buttons per loop. Plus you need to undo it. But that could be done software-vice. So you would need 3-5 buttons per loop (record, overdub, mute, solo, undo). With the FCB1010 you would be able to do that, you would have only 2 loops per bank at the same time though (you can switch banks as you probably know from reading the specifications). If fast workflow isn't that critical it should be fine.
Another option is to build a "translator" as I did to be able to control SL with a Launchpad, so the commands will be run through a programm that triggers the wanted action in SL. So you could assign "overdub" to the "record" button after a loop is recorded and playing. Other modifications would be possible too.
If you just want to record, mute and undo everything, you need 2 buttons per loop and one for undo, so with the Behringer this should be no problem at all.

I hope I could help ;)
jesse
Posts: 554
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 9:46 am
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Re: How many buttons do I need?

Post by jesse »

SooperLooper also some "combo" commands built-in that you can bind to, for doing simple one button record/overdub/reset on a loop. So if you were doing fairly simple things you can have just one button per loop.

The FCB1010 is a big beast, but it could handle anything. The real question is if you want something smaller and still do what you want.
johey
Posts: 4
Joined: Tue Sep 22, 2015 3:19 am

Re: How many buttons do I need?

Post by johey »

Thank you for helping me!

I played around a few hours today using a midi keyboard with eight pads. Tried setting up combinations for those and realized i need four pads per track. That was excluding the undo.

I found the combination functions for record or overdub. However, is there any way to erase a loop which has been recorded, or force it to start over again? I mean, after a record has been created, I need to press the gui record button if I want to do another recording that is not just an overdub.

The FCB1010 is not too big. I like it when I have a chance hitting the buttons. :) Yes, I have considered the bank switching feature. Trying to picture the workflow. I'm very new to looping in general but I realize that page browsing will add up complexity. Can't tell if it is an issue or not.

I haven't played with the Boss RC 300 for instance, but that beast only have two buttons for each loop plus one global, and from what I can see on youtube people can control it quite well. Is Sooperlooper configurable to mimic the RC 300? I don't know if it would even be desirable, but if I knew that I at least can use the FCB1010 as I could use an RC 300 would help me decide.

If I really need five buttons per loop, I might end up building myself a matrix of arcade buttons and some microcontroller based midi interface. Though I don't believe I can come even close to the quality of the FCB1010.
jesse
Posts: 554
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 9:46 am
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Re: How many buttons do I need?

Post by jesse »

On the combo binding if you do a long-press of the button (held for about a second) then release it will reset the loop to empty so the next press will do a record. You need to use midi Note bindings to make long-press work.

I haven't looked in detail at the RC300 to know if you could exactly mimic it with SL.... but the FCB1010 can definitely be configured (although I've heard that is a minor challenge itself) to use note bindings which give you all the power SL can provide.
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