Mainstage Foot Controller: Line 6 FBV3 ?

[Simon Kennedy]

Does anyone have any experience using the Line 6 FBV3 with Mainstage? I'm looking to get a foot controller and it seems most peolple either use the FBV3 or the FCB1010.

The FCB1010 sounds like a pain to set up though.

[gacki]

11 hours ago, Simon Kennedy said:

The FCB1010 sounds like a pain to set up though.

Yeah, but you only do it one time...

I got myself a FCB1010 recently (for various purposes, among other things also Ableton Live), and it has indeed some properties that are tricky. There is a third-party librarian/editor for it; but SysEx communication is also somewhat tricky.

How exactly do you want to use a controller with Mainstage?

 

Edited August 31, 2023 by gacki

[Simon Kennedy]

I want to have a live digital solution for my guitar setup, so ideally I would like to be able to change presets and turn pedals on/off as I would with my regular pedalboard. 

[gacki]

I want to use the FCB1010 for something similar (but purely in a keyboard setup).

Sadly, detailed information for the FBV3 is hard to come by. The manual doesn't show what commands are sent; and the editor for it requires registration (and I'm not even sure whether the editor would run with an FBV3 connected).

As I wrote above: With the FCB1010 it's indeed tricky - not only programming-wise but also when it comes to an overall strategy. For some reason Behringer almost always includes some functionality that can't be turned off but is unwanted by myself.

Here's an example for such behavior: I want to use the controller with both Mainstage and Ableton Live. Mainly I want to change presets in Mainstage. My initial reaction is to use Program Changes for this since each Preset in Mainstage can have a Program Change assigned. But here's a problem: Ableton Live doesn't handle Program Changes properly. This is a long standing bug, basically there forever. Hrmpf.

So let's use Note commands instead: Ableton Live handles those just fine; and with a small script Mainstage can work with them as well. The problem here is that the FCB1010 in this case also sends (by default) Controller #7 - and this can't be fully turned off at all! The manual suggests to set the controller to an unused MIDI channel - meaning that I will have to take care in Mainstage that no onscreen controller receives on "All". It's a bit of a rabbit hole. I'm sure that in the end I'll fnd a solution that works both for Mainstage and Ableton Live but it's not exactly straightforward.

How the FBV3 compares to this I can't say. I generally like the LED rings and the overall mechanical build; but how the software/firmware works in the end I don't know.

[Maddcow]

If you get an FCB1010, you really should consider the UnO EPROM for it....this makes a lot of things much simpler, plus you get a bunch of extra functionality.

With this being said, I haven't used my FCB1010 for years (only because it's a heavy and bulky piece of gear that I don't want to shlep around) and I also haven't tried the FBV3.  However, when I used to use the FCB1010 with UnO, it was a fantastic addition to my rig.

[Simon Kennedy]

I want to have a live digital solution for my guitar setup, so ideally I would like to be able to change presets and turn pedals on/off as I would with my regular pedalboard. 

 

This is the only video I can see which uses the FBV3: