new toy for my rack - some mods already

[gwEm]

This little beauty is a rebadged Boss FC50, which came out in the early 90s. I suppose as it was a good design they just left it. This particular one is ex-demo, and cost me £35 - bargain. Its a bit scratched up, but working fine. One of the rubber feet was missing, so I moved the ones that were left around so it balances on the floor.


Then I modified it for phantom midi, so it doesn't need to use a wall wart. the mod was simple - just moving the wires from the battery connector to the midi port. i can't use it on batteries now, but the mod is safe if i connect the midi and wall wart at the same time, which might happen i suppose.


still working


looks good with my theiles!

next step is to add foot switches for the bank up/down.

it already works well with the sansamp, need to work out how to configure the g-sharp to work with it.

[Will]

I was wondering why you hadn't been mentioning that Cyclone. Sounded great with Slowhands.

Are you 100% rackmounted now and no 2204?

[gwEm]

yes, EMGs in the cyclone now... not as nice as BKP, but still quite good I think, doesn't sound like a real strat pickup though.

i still have the 2204, i'm unlikely to sell it. the rack gives me another project to work on and mess around with. they sound different and i like them both. i still have some more work to do on the rack before i'm done with it.

i never use any of this stuff live unfortunately - i always go with a sansamp pedal then.

[Oli]

Nice :) I was looking at that controller, as the FCB1010 that i've got is just too big- i don't need so many buttons, nor expression pedals. £35 is a bargain too! Good job with the mod, phantom over midi is cool :)

[shaman]

ahh!!!!good to see another THIELE FAN!!!I use two ..one EV and one c-90....love them!!!rock on,my brother!

[gwEm]

ahh!!!!good to see another THIELE FAN!!!I use two ..one EV and one c-90....love them!!!rock on,my brother!

yes - they rule :) i have two EV ones. would like to try a celestion sidewinder in one.

[gwEm]

Nice :) I was looking at that controller, as the FCB1010 that i've got is just too big- i don't need so many buttons, nor expression pedals. £35 is a bargain too! Good job with the mod, phantom over midi is cool :)

the board is a nice compact size, without being too small, and it has the legendary boss sturdiness.

but i can only recommend the pedal with reservations - the plugin expression pedals only work on fixed midi controllers. and if you do a bank or A/B change the patch changes instantly, rather than waiting for you to select a patch again (if you see what i mean). perhaps though this can be used in an advantageous way.

tomorrow i'm going to mod the board again for bank up/down on footswitches.

these mods are so simple you wonder why roland/boss didn't do them.

this post sounds negative, but overall i'm still happy with the board. its worth the 2ndhand price (usually 60/70 pounds on the bay) and the mods make a nice usability improvement.

[Johnny Mac]

Nice bargain!

[gwEm]

last night i modified the midi foot controller to include internal footswitches for band up and down.

as you see, i cunningly positioned the switches on the 'o' of Roland and the '0' of GFC-50

problem is i just scr@ped the circuit board which is slightly underneath '0' of GFC-50. it was no sweat to repair it, but annoying anyway.

its much easier to use with these switches - no need to reach down to change it anymore. roland/boss should do this as stock :)

with the mods its quite a nice convienient midi foot pedal.

i also got a mains lead (ooo!!! exciting) for the rack too:

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=228747

i think its quite good - i just need to plug one thing in now, and its surge protected. not quite a power conditioner, but its fine ;)

looking at the digitech gsp1101, and i need to get some decent audio cables to patch it all together.