Re: Repairing worn-out FCB1010 kick-pads

[Per Boysen <perboysen@gmail.com>]

I opened up my old FCB1010 pedal yesterday to see if I could take out
one of the working button pads and use it to replace the bad one in my
younger FCB1010 pedal. But I had to give up, it seems just impossible
to get them out of that massive shell. Obviously that pedal was built
to force people to buy a new one when a part of it breaks down. And
that's what I'll have to do ASAP because I have time scheduled to
rehears with the pedal. Woke up too early today and sitting here
waiting for the stores to open up so I can pick up a new FCB1010 and
get going. That's going to be my third unit since 2001. Not too bad
sustainability after all, looking at the price.

When thinking about the time and effort needed to repair a FCB1010 it
actually comes out cheaper to buy a new one. That's because I'm a
freelance worker in my own company that pays for my working hours out
of my own pockets. Had I been employed I might have looked into
building my own controller in free time over a period of time. A truly
modular system of small boxes, each one with a button pad on the upper
side and connection jacks on the sides to hook up with other box
modules. Then you could set up variations of pedal control systems and
transport them very easily. MIDI expression pedals should also be
exclusive units to hook up with the rest. Hm, I wonder if each unit
has to offer a MIDI jack or if another system can be used and then
having one special "MIDI port in/out" unit at one end of the chain?

A cool alternative idea is to not use MIDI at all but to go for cheap
USB computer keyboards that you modify into "pedals". I could use that
as well, but right now there is not time enough to remap my system and
relearn the routines. Maybe table tennis balls can be glued to the
keys to make for a foot controllable device? Or some light weight cell
rubber material. But one thing is sure, be it table tennis balls or
cell rubber boobs, they have to go in as many bright colors as
possible! That would really look cool on stage. A Rainbow Micro Garden
planted right at the stage floor... ;-)

Greetings from Sweden

Per Boysen
www.boysen.se
www.perboysen.com



On Sun, Mar 8, 2009 at 3:58 PM, Travis Hartnett
<travishartnett@gmail.com> wrote:
> My first one has a button that started acting up around the two-year 
>mark,
> so I'm also interested.  Or has anyone ever taken one apart to clean it?
> TH
>
> On Sun, Mar 8, 2009 at 6:00 AM, Per Boysen <perboysen@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> Has anyone tried to replace a worn-out pad button with a non worn-out
>> on a Behringer FCB1010 pedal?