Cooper FX Arcades Modular Multi-FX Workstation : Card Spotlight Series #9 : SATELLITE
It was great to get in on the limited 170 run of the Satellite Cards - Tom’s last roll of the dice for the Arcades - based on the much-loved DigiTech XP-300 Space Station. I had been aware that Tom was working on this for most of this year - but it was all up in the air when Tom folded his company at the end of October. Actually Tom had been due to send me both the Satellite and Ambient Endeavors Cards for free - but that all got somewhat mixed up in his move across to Chase Bliss Audio.
So I had to get a rush on for November 5th when these came on sale only about a week after Cooper FX folded. It was lucky that I was on Instagram at the right time and saw the announcement - even then I could not be sure I made the cut in time. And this tiny package took an eternity to get to me - so still not sure what's happening with USPS these days!
In any case this has just fairly recently landed and becomes the 9th in the series for me to do a review on.
It's a really eclectic mix of effects - something for everyone really - a synthy strings effect, a Tape-stop delay, Envelope-controlled pitch-jumping, Pixelating bit-crushing, Ring Modulation, Sample & Hold filter, Feedback Resonator and Pitch-shifted delay.
Tip 1 - Many of these effects work best with little or no Dry signal
Tip 2 - Several of these effects need an adjustment to Tone
Tip 3 - A number of the effects benefit from Clock tweaking - for more texture and nuance
Tip 4 - Use a looper so you can just concentrate on tweaking the knobs
Demos
1 : String - Ethereal synth-like string swell - dual tap pitch-shifted delay
Really cool pitch-shifted String sounds - best enjoyed with Dry level down - and in combination with a Chorus effect! Needs a bit of tweaking to get just right - but some due diligence results in incredible results - really cool effect to start off this selection.
Note that ATTK is a complex control with Manual Settings to the left - Quite > Loud, and Auto Settings in the right hemisphere - Slow > Fast.
- A : ATTK - speed / length of Attack / Onset
- B : DCY - speed / length of Decay / Fade-out
- C : PIT - Pitch Interval : 4th / 5th / Octave
- D : PMIX - Pitch Level / Mix
Example / Preferred Settings :
'A' 'B' 'C' 'D'
(9) (2) (5) (10) o'clock (7 is min, 5 is max)
2 : Tape - Cool Tape-Stop Delay with Direction and Feedback
A very simple Tape-Stop effect where you manipulate the 'B' parameter to slow down and stop the delay. Seemed to have quite a lot of bass initially - which I tweaked via Tone control on secondary screen. DIR controls reverse/forward direction of delay and Feedback controls Repeats / Trails.
- A : LEN - Length / Delay Size
- B : STOP - Tape Stop Effect - start FCC and then move clockwise to slow down and stop effect
- C : DIR - Direction of Tape Reverse / Forward
- D : FBK - Feedback amount / Trails
Example / Preferred Settings :
'A' 'B' 'C' 'D'
(10) (%) (11) (4) o'clock (7 is min, 5 is max)
3 : Warp - Envelope-controlled pitch-jumping with sensitivity and portamento
A cool sort of disjointed pitch-jumper where you set START and END Positions of Intervals to jump between - using the PORT / Portamento control to set the speed of the transition / pitch-glide.
- A : SEN - Envelope Sensitivity
- B : START - Starting Position of Shift
- C : END - Ending Position of Shift
- D : PORT - Portamento / Speed of Pitch Glide
Example / Preferred Settings :
'A' 'B' 'C' 'D'
(9) (12) (5) (12) o'clock (7 is min, 5 is max)
4 : Pixel - Sample rate reduction with depth and ambience / space
A quirky sort of Bitcrusher with LFO and Delay for some actually really musical bitcrushing with my settings.
- A : SPD - Speed of LFO
- B : DPTH - Depth of impact / manual Sample Rate Control when SPD is fully CCW
- C : DEL - Delay Time
- D : SPCE - Space / Ambience
Example / Preferred Settings :
'A' 'B' 'C' 'D'
(7) (5) (2) (3) o'clock (7 is min, 5 is max)
5 : RingMod - Unique Triangular Waveform Ring Modulator
Sort of similar-is to the Pixel - but with more of a RingMod feel - I'm not typically a fan of Ring Modulation - but with my preferred settings here I actually get something I really like - beautifully textured - and yes very musical indeed!
- A : SPD - Speed of LFO
- B : DPTH - Depth of impact / manual Sample Rate Control when SPD is fully CCW
- C : DEL - Delay Time
- D : SPCE - Space / Ambience
Example / Preferred Settings :
'A' 'B' 'C' 'D'
(7) (9) (2) (10) o'clock (7 is min, 5 is max)
6 : S+H LP - Sample and Hold Filter Effect with Resonance and Ambience / Space
For sure my favourite mode here - with gorgeous trippy dripping sounds in a step-filter fashion. Just really cool sounds, while I'm not 100% sure how I would use it within a melody or song structure - possibly best used as incidental - intro / outro - really cool though!
- A : SPD - Speed of the Sample and Hold LFO
- B : DPTH - Depth of Frequency Sweeps
- C : RES - Filter Resonance : can clip, oscillate and get out of control if set very high
- D : SPCE - Amount of Ambience / Space
Example / Preferred Settings :
'A' 'B' 'C' 'D'
(12) (4) (10) (12) o'clock (7 is min, 5 is max)
7 : RESON - High Feedback Resonator and Drone Generator
This one took me the longest to dial in - I wasn't sure if this was supposed to be a Resonator Guitar emulator - but got a really interesting mix of clangy and sort of de-tuned sounds. Here the detail is definitely in the intersection of in-between knob tweaking - highly reactive and with just a quick blip of a sweetspot at the perfect intersect. Probably my least favourite here overall - but I was in the end able to achieve usable and useful tones after much perseverance.
- A : BLND - Blend Fades between Two Intervals - INT and ROOT
- B : RES - Filter Resonance : can clip, oscillate and get out of control if set very high
- C : INT - Interval of Secondary Pitch, quantised in selected octaves and fifths
- D : ROOT - Unquantized Primary Note / first Interval of BLND
Example / Preferred Settings :
'A' 'B' 'C' 'D'
(12) (3) (10) (4) o'clock (7 is min, 5 is max)
8 : ARP - Pitch-Shifting Delay with Input Control
Gorgeous shimmery arpeggiation along 11 different possible Pitch Intervals - so much fun to play with this - particularly on my favourite settings - for sure equal favourite with S+H LP.
- A : TIME - Time and Speed of Arpeggiation
- B : FBK - Feedback and Amount of Regeneration
- C : PIT - Pitch Interval : -Oct, -5th, -4th, -M3rd, -m3rd, +2 semi, +m3rd, +M3rd, +4th, +5th, +Oct.
- D : INPT - Input / Volume of Signal going into Delay Line
Example / Preferred Settings :
'A' 'B' 'C' 'D'
(10) (12) (5) (11) o'clock (7 is min, 5 is max)
Final Thoughts
A great way to end the run - where most of these are more incidental effects versus something you would use on a more regular basis - great for adding textures and interludes to songs. I would say this is an intermediary offering - not as tricky as some of the other cards - but not as simple as the Delay one either.
It's also a very hands-on Card - meaning that this particular Card is better suited to a tabletop environment versus floor-based stompbox. To get the most out of this you need to be constantly tweaking the knobs really - in fact the 2nd algorithm here requires that for the Tape Stop effect on Knob B.
My favourite trio here are the S+H LP, ARP and STRING algorithms - just really fun to play with those - and all easy to dial in. I didn't get on particularly well with the Resonator - but did find some tones in the end that I liked - it just took me a while to get there.
Best thing to do for sure with this card is to feed a loop into the pedal - so you can just concentrate on tweaking the knobs.
A really cool way to end the run for sure - not my favourite card by any means - but some really worthy additions here to the Arcades Sound/s Library.
Interestingly these are currently on Reverb.com for around 10 times or more the price of the original sale. I would say one for the completists only - a really nice addition - but more of a nice-to-have overall rather than an essential - certainly not worth anywhere near what the scalpers are asking for!
Did any of you readers snag one - if so - what are your impressions, and which are your favourite modes / algorithms?
