The controls you will actually use
Not all of them — the handful that account for nearly everything you will do, plus the gestures nothing on the chassis mentions.
03 · 7 min
Learn three things: how to change what the footswitches do (step on the MODE switch), how to save (press SAVE twice), and how to reach more parameters than the knobs can show.
Click anything
Every control on the HX Effects, and what each press, hold and turn does.
HX Effects · Top panel · schematic, drawn from Line 6’s panel diagram
FS1 – FS6
Six stomp switches in two rows of three, each with a scribble strip above it and a colour LED ring that tells you what kind of effect it holds.
Worth knowingThe ring colours are not decoration. Orange is distortion, yellow dynamics and EQ, blue modulation, green delay, red reverb, purple pitch, synth, filter and wah. Learn six colours and you can work the board without reading it.
Modes are the whole game
The footswitches do not have fixed jobs. What they do depends on the mode, and to change it you step on the MODE switch.
This is worth internalising because almost every report of a Line 6 modeller “breaking” is a unit sitting in a mode the owner did not choose. Nothing is wrong with it.
Save, or lose it
Changes are not saved until you tell the device to save them — press SAVE twice. Until then, an “E” beside the preset name marks it as edited.
Change preset while that E is showing and your work is gone with no warning and no undo.
Get into the habit early. Losing an afternoon's work to a preset change is a rite of passage nobody needs.
HX Effects Cheat Sheet