Roland FS-5U
A footswitch so plain it barely counts as gear. That is why it's on so many pedalboards.
Overview
In the owner's manual for the Boss GX-700 guitar effects processor, the FS-5U appears in the accessories and options list alongside the FS-5L and the EV-5 expression pedal — a small, unglamorous part of the ecosystem that the bigger boxes quietly depend on.
Per the manufacturer's documentation, the FS-5U extends control beyond the front panel. The GX-700 manual's test and setup procedures call for two FS-5U units connected to the CONTROL 1/2 jacks via a PCS-31 cable. They step through functions that would otherwise be buried in menus. That's the whole job: a foot-operated switch for a parameter a hand-operated button can't reach mid-performance. The manual also says to set the polarity switch on the FS-5U to the side opposite the jack, which hints at the compatibility fiddling that has always surrounded Roland's footswitch accessories.
Reception in the period press is thin, which is what you'd expect. A footswitch doesn't get a full review. The closest thing to contemporary coverage in the available record comes from Sound on Sound (July 1996, p.109), which covered the Boss SX-700 studio effects processor - a single-rack-space unit offering a full collection of 30 different effects, with access to as many as five simultaneously. The FS-5U's role there was the cheap, reliable switch you bought two of and forgot about.
That's the honest summary. The FS-5U is not a collector's item, it's not a design landmark, and it's not the sort of thing that generates forum threads about "the magic of the early ones." It's a utility part. What makes it worth a page in an archive like this is that it's the connective tissue of a generation of Roland and Boss gear — the thing that made a rack processor usable on a dark stage.
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