Doepfer MBP25 Electronic with 2 Pedal

De behuizing bouw en kies je zelf, maar de geleverde pedalen en nokken van deze baspedalen zijn zo robuust (kunststof, hol) en relatief licht, vergeleken met massief kunststof, of hout.
De electronica is plug-and-play, zoals je van DOEPFER mag verwachten. Het PCB-bord biedt ruimte aan een 3e set pedalen, dus verder uitbreiden is mogelijk.
Om de beide sets pedalen aaneen te gebruiken moet echter 1 C in het midden worden geslachtofferd: PCB doorzagen en verbinden met 3 gesoldeerde draden. Beetje handigheid is dus wel een vereiste. Tip: verwijder de linker C van de "rechter" pedalenset, dan kun je daarvan ook de rechter C verwijderen als je wilt uitbreiden van 25 naar 37 noten.
[Suggestie: Een 3D geprinte kunststof behuizing met interne support is je meest draagbare optie. Metaal - ook aluminium. wordt al gauw zwaar. Denk aan de succesvolle Behringer kunststof stompboxjes: oerdegelijk, maar licht en goedkoop. En met een goed ontworpen 3D print kun je jezelf de metalen frontplaat voor de electronica besparen. Deze geeft je plastic behuizing echter wel stevigheid en smoel.] Veel plezier!

Out of the box it are just 2 pedals and a small PCB.
Easy to use, and works great but there are some cons.

You need to build a complete housing to make it work. You can't use is out of the box. This is because the pedals need to be elevated to kick them in. And it's way to fragile for live use. The conections between the pedals and the triggers come loose when the floor is vibrating. This makes the notes get stuck. You can hotglue them together to prevent this problem.

Nice product for home / studio use, but even with a proper made case it's not road proof.

I've had this product for 1,5 year now and I'm very happy with it. I bought this product since I was looking for a 2 octave pedal for a cheap price and all the finished 2 octave pedals are way to expensive.
Electronics wise it's very simple to build, the casing however does take quite some time if you wanna do it right. But I think this time is definitely worth it, considering the very cheap price.
I've only used these pedals at home so far and they work excellent. Never had any trouble with it. All the functions you need are present, like transpose and midi channels.
I think these pedals should also be good for live use if you make sure that you build the case in such a way that it can protect the pedals for transport. But that should be perfectly possible. I haven't yet tested this out myself though.

Overall I think this is an excellent purchase for any one who wants a two octave pedal for a cheap price.

Firstly, the DoepferMBP25 works well, and does exactly what it suggests - it converts keystrokes to midi. However, unlike other Doepfer units, it's midi sockets are on fly cables and not on the board, so be prepared to desolder these so that they can be mounted on the box and re-attach.

The Fatar Keybed is a workable unit, and easy to cut to length. But that also means it's pretty flexible. You need to anchor it very well to a very stiff base. It will need extra anchor points, I used the gaps in the missing black notes to add screw down points.

To remove the extra C, you need to cut through the tracks on the circuit board. That means you have to put fly cables in to replace the missing part of the circuit board. Best way is to scratch some of the green resin off the remaining track and 'tin' the copper, solder the wire from this to the underside of the corresponding component.

Lastly, you must be prepared to remake all the key contact joints on the circuit board. Don't chase individual faults, just resolder the lot. The soldering on both my sets were poor, but resoldering was a complete cure, there were no mechanical issues.Don't let this put you off!

So it's cheap and effective, and not difficult to build - but needs a bit of work.