Most RC-600 problems I get asked about are not really problems — they are an old firmware and a factory layout that nobody has customised yet. This guide covers the things I change first on a new RC-600: getting the firmware current, rebuilding the footswitch assigns so all six tracks sit under your feet at once, deciding whether loop quantise belongs in your set, setting up a clear command you can't trigger by accident, and saving all of it so it survives a bank change.
Update the firmware before you touch anything else
Depending on where you bought your unit, it may have been sitting in a warehouse for a long time with very old firmware on it. When this Loop Station first came out it was not the most stable — it was freezing, it was crashing, and some features simply didn't work when you enabled or disabled them. Even if your RC-600 looks brand new, this is an essential step. The latest firmware also introduced a whole load of new features and functionality on top of an already capable machine, so there is a real reason to do it beyond bug fixes.
Check which firmware you're actually on
Hold down the MENU button and turn the Loop Station on. The screen shows you the exact build number and firmware number currently loaded on the pedal. Take that to the official BOSS website and compare it against the latest release — that tells you whether you need to update or whether you're ready to rock and roll. Mine needed updating when I filmed this, and I use the thing constantly.
Run the update itself
Install the system program onto your PC or Mac first. Then hold down the EXIT button and power the unit on — that is what puts the RC-600 into update mode. Connect it to your computer via the USB port at the rear and the RC-600 appears on your desktop like an external hard drive. Drag and drop the new firmware onto it, then press EXIT and power the unit down. That's the whole process.
Understand what pedal modes 1 and 2 really are
Every time you boot the RC-600 it defaults to pedal mode 1, signified by the white LED on the track select button. In its default state pedal mode 1 only gives you the first three loop tracks — it is essentially a BOSS RC-300. Record/play, then a dedicated stop switch, for each of three tracks. Press the track select switch and pedal mode 2 is a second RC-300, giving you tracks four, five and six the same way. That's the design: two three-track pedals you swap between. It works, but you paid for a six-track Loop Station, and swapping banks mid-song to reach track four is not why you bought it.
Reassign the footswitches to reach all six tracks at once
The fix is to stop wasting a switch on stop. Go to Menu → Control Functions on the second page, choose Pedal Mode 1, and you can customise pedals 1 through 9 — pedal 9 being the start/stop switch. Select a pedal with the encoder and set it to a track's record/play. Set pedal one to track 1 record/play, pedal two to track 2 record/play, and so on. Do that for all six and every loop track is live in pedal mode 1, which frees all nine switches in pedal mode 2 to do something else entirely.
Pick the right record/play variation
Inside each pedal assign there are four variations of the play modes, and they matter more than most people realise. Out of the box you get Record Play 1 — record, play, overdub, and that's it, with stop on a separate switch. Record Play 3 gives you record, play, overdub, press-and-hold to undo, hold again to redo, double-tap to stop. Record Play 4 adds a press-and-hold clear on top. I use Record Play 3. Record Play 4 is genuinely dangerous live — press and hold at the wrong moment and you've cleared a track mid-song. I'd rather clear things off a different way.
Tip: Press and hold the encoder while scrolling the assign list and it skips between setting groups instead of crawling through every track parameter one at a time. It turns a long scroll into a quick one.
Read your effects from the display pages
Pedal mode 3 — press and hold the track select switch until it goes blue — puts your effects under your feet, with the LEDs turning purple and red to show what's selected and what's on. That's a lot of coloured lights to interpret at a glance. The two arrow keys page the display left and right, and if you keep going past the loop-progress view you reach Input Effects and Output Effects. Those two screens tell you exactly which effects are enabled and which track effects are on. The loop-progress view is my default, but if you're leaning on effects in a set, park the display on one of the effects pages instead.
Decide whether loop quantise belongs in your set
Loop quantise locks your loop to a grid, the same idea as quantising MIDI in Logic. It matters because the RC-600 lets you loop at different measure lengths — track one at four measures, track two at two, track three at sixteen. That's how you build up fast, rather than playing a drum part for thirty measures just to match your longest loop. The trade-off is that mismatched lengths drift, and quantise corrects the margin of error so a four-bar loop is genuinely four bars and not 1.96. You'll find it in each loop track's record settings, per track, on or off.
The reason it's per-track is the interesting bit. Turn loop sync and quantise off for track six and you have a completely free-time loop, unrelated to the onboard tempo. That is exactly what you want for a bridge, a breakdown, or a bit of audience participation — then you cut it and drop straight back onto the locked grid.
Set up an all clear you can't trigger by accident
Six tracks means six things to clear, and you want that fast on stage. Pedal 8 is undo/redo by default, which is a wasted switch once your record/play assigns handle undo with a press-and-hold. Go back into Menu → Control Functions, into pedal mode 1, and reassign pedal 8 to all clear. There are two variations: press, and press-and-hold. Take press-and-hold. If you hit the wrong switch on stage with the press version, your performance is simply over. With press-and-hold you get two seconds to realise your mistake.
Or just turn on quick clear
There's an easier route that doesn't cost you a switch at all. Go to Menu → Control Functions → Preferences — the final page — and at the very end there's a parameter called All Clear. It's off from the factory. Turn it on and press-and-hold on the all start/stop switch clears every loop at once. Same result, pedal 8 stays free for something else, and it takes a few seconds to set up. This is what I'd actually run.
Know which settings need saving and which don't
This is where people lose an evening's work. Your loop track settings (BOSS now calls that menu Loop rather than Track) and your rhythm settings are memory-bank specific — change bank without saving and they are gone forever. Most of what lives in the master menu is a system setting and applies across all 99 memory banks the instant you change it, saved or not. Quick clear is a good example: toggle it and it's on everywhere, immediately, regardless of what you've saved.
Save properly with EXIT and ENTER
Press EXIT and ENTER at the same time. You get the option to write or clear — clear wipes it, write saves it to the onboard memory. From there you can choose the save destination, so if you built the sound on preset 16 but want it on preset 6, change the write location before you commit. Watch that you don't overwrite something you want on the destination bank. Press ENTER to execute and it's written.
Run two external controllers, not one
Older BOSS loop stations gave you a single external controller — one expression pedal or one footswitch. The RC-600 takes two, in any combination: two expression pedals, two footswitches, or one of each. Use a balanced TRS cable, the kind with two rings, and you get function over both switches on a dual unit. Then assign them in the assign menu, where you have up to 16 custom assigns. The real reason to bother: you can scatter footswitches around the stage, so if you walk away from your board for a solo or move to another instrument, you still have loop control where you're standing.