Cooper FX Arcades

The Cooper FX Arcades is a multi-effects pedal with a twist: instead of packing every effect into fixed firmware, it loads its effects from small swappable cartridges, in the way a Nintendo handheld swaps game cards. Pull one cartridge out, push another in, and the pedal becomes a different effects unit entirely. JHS Pedals described it plainly: "It's literally a cartridge-based multi-effect pedal. You can swap out the cartridges (A.K.A. the reverb effects) like games"¹.

One pedal, many personalities

At its heart the Arcades is a digital pedal built on the Spin Semiconductor FV-1, a programmable effects chip whose programs live on external EEPROM memory. In the Arcades, that memory takes the form of cartridges. Each cartridge comes with eight effects algorithms in a single category, so the pedal is never a generalist box: a delay card makes it a delay pedal, a reverb card makes it a reverb pedal, and so on².

The first batch covered four categories²:

That is 32 effects across the launch set, which Cooper FX made available in limited quantities². Guitar World reported the same structure at the unveiling: "each of the Arcades' four cartridges contains eight effects in a category, delay, reverb, pitch and lo-fi"³.

The controls and control pages

The hardware control set is one screen and four knobs⁴. What those knobs do depends on which of several control pages you are on, navigated from the screen.

• Page one (global): Dry Blend, Wet Blend, Tone and Clock, the system operating frequency. These parameters apply to all programs, and the clock control can be quantized⁵.
• Page two (cartridge): Controls specific to the currently loaded cartridge⁶.
• Footswitch page: Maps an external footswitch⁶.
• Expression page: Supports additional parameter shifts from an expression pedal⁴.
• Preset and MIDI page: Stores and loads presets on each card, and handles quantization and MIDI information⁴.

Guitar.com summarized the split: "the first, to global controls such as dry, wet, tone and clock", with "the second displaying controls specific to the current cartridge"⁶.

The cartridge specific parameters are where each card's character lives. On the Pitch card's Grains program, for example, the Fbk control is additive feedback for ascending or cascading feedback shimmering; on the LOFI card's VHS program, Flut is a random, faster, crinkly modulation⁵.

Two footswitches sit on the pedal: one for BYPASS, and an AUX/TAP switch whose function changes depending on the loaded cartridge⁷.

What reviewers said

Pedal of the Day reviewed the full 32 program set across the Delay, Reverb, LOFI and Pitch cards in July 2020, covering the parameters, expression, presets, tap tempo and MIDI features, and called it "a pedal with seemingly endless sonic possibilities"⁵².

The cartridge format itself drew mixed reactions. Gearnews' reviewer liked the concept but worried about the physical cards: "I'm also concerned that being a klutz, I would probably lose them, as they are so small!"⁷. Delicious Audio reached a similar conclusion, that the format makes sense for studio and sound design work but is less than ideal live, where tiny cartridges get easily lost².

Prices and availability

GuitarPlayer reported in August 2021 that the Delay/Reverb combo cartridge was available for $329, while the Lo-Fi/Pitch combo was sold out⁴. Four cartridges, delay, reverb, pitch and lo-fi, were available at that time⁴.

The Arcades and its cartridges are found on the secondhand market.

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