The RC-500's three onboard switches cover the basics, but the moment your performances get ambitious you run out of feet. External footswitches are the cheapest meaningful upgrade you can make to this pedal — here's the setup.
What you need
The RC-500 takes external control through the CTL 1,2 / EXP jack on the back panel. Pair it with a BOSS FS-6 or FS-7 dual footswitch (two extra switches from one jack) or a single FS-5U, connected with a TRS (stereo) cable — that last detail matters, because a standard mono guitar cable will only carry one switch of a dual unit.
Connect and check the polarity
Plug the TRS cable from the footswitch into the CTL 1,2/EXP jack. On the FS-6/FS-7, check the polarity and mode switches on the unit itself — if your footswitch seems to trigger on release, or behaves latched when you want momentary, these little side switches are almost always the reason.
Assign the functions
Head to Menu → CTL 1 / CTL 2, where each external switch gets its own assignment. The mappings I recommend first:
| Switch | Assignment | Why |
|---|---|---|
| CTL 1 | Track select / track 2 | Move between verse and chorus loops without a double-tap dance |
| CTL 2 | Undo / redo | Kill a bad overdub instantly, hands never leaving the strings |
Other popular assignments: all stop, tap tempo, and rhythm on/off. Like most things on this pedal, control assignments can be saved per memory patch — so a stripped-back busking patch and a complex arrangement patch can carry different footswitch layouts.
Tip: Assign the function you fluff most often under pressure. For almost everyone, that's undo.
Test it like you'll use it
Before the next gig, run the full loop of a real song: record on track 1, switch to track 2 with the external switch, overdub, undo, redo, stop. Five minutes of deliberate testing at home saves the on-stage discovery that a polarity switch is backwards.
Going further
The same jack also accepts an expression pedal for continuous control. The video above shows the whole process on camera, and the full RC-500 course below covers every control assignment on the pedal — including the MIDI options when two extra switches still aren't enough.