To be continued...
What's beyond the beyond? What's just on the other side of the other side? What would you do with one of those unfolding origami fortune tellers that never stopped unfolding?
Sometimes, things aren't all what they seem. Surely, you couldn't fit more in that box. What's past the perceivable of the AC Noises CONTINUA? One thing's for sure – whatever it is, it just keeps going.
This is the AC Noises CONTINUA Dynamic Sampler and Multi-Effect.
The Continuing Story of AC Noises
Introducing the AC Noises Dynamic Sampler & Multi-Effect
For AC Noises, the preferred path is the one less traveled. Throughout their catalog, you get tastes of weirder, lovingly made effects never afraid to "go there." From their bit-crushing reverb AMA to their digital fuzz URLA, AC Noises unabashedly embraces the discordant and deconstructed to speak their truth.
Enter their newest effect, CONTINUA, a dynamic sampler and multi-effect. Those two descriptors undeniably welcome plenty of questions and clarifications – "What does 'dynamic' mean? What effects are included under this 'multi-effect' umbrella?" These are fair questions, especially concerning AC Noises' track record for otherworldly sounds and textures. There is a good bit of decoding to be done with the CONTINUA, but that's why we're here! All in the service of something truly different, powerful, and musical, the AC Noises CONTINUA is a truly unique experience to fire up a vivid lo-fi soundscape. Let's talk about it.
Continuation Unknown
AC Noises Dynamic Sampler & Multi-Effect Design and Controls
Across the CONTINUA, AC Noises balances a fairly straightforward front-facing interface with buckets and buckets of digital mysticism under the hood. Though it might take a minute or so to decipher, once you're on the path with the pedal's bit-crushing, sampling, glitching, and reverberating base building blocks, CONTINUA becomes easy as pie. The CONTINUA captures input audio signal, chops it into playback samples, and treats it to a smorgasbord of lo-fi effect textures. Easy. Let's lay it out.
The CONTINUA's design as a dynamic sampler and multi-effect boils down to three of its smaller black dials. Looking past its bigger top four knobs for a minute, we can turn our attention to its smaller black knobs arranged below. We'll get back to those in a minute, but for now, let's talk about these effects.
AC Noises CONTINUA Dynamic Sampler & Multi-Effect Effects
Starting at the leftmost dial, the CONTINUA introduces a two-way effect mix control. This remains true for the following three dials. Using these dials, we can mix in different effects on incremental scales turning each dial one way or the other. Starting with...
- Glitch/Dimension – Our leftmost dial, the CONTINUA introduces our first effect path between randomized glitch failures or rhythmic glitch stutters.
- Lo-Fi/Crush – Moving on, CONTINUA shapes samples texturally with distorted low-fidelity saturation or sample-reduced blockiness – moving left or right on the dial, respectively.
- Reverb/Smear – Finally, we've got our third baseline effect flavor. Counterclockwise, CONTINUA fills the signal with a digital reverb. In the other direction, sample playbacks become blurrier.
With these baseline effect types, CONTINUA establishes a melting pot of lo-fi effect textures that can be mixed to taste. Clash the Dimension's rhythmic delay stutters and Crush's signal-simplifying crunchiness and you get a pseudo-8-Bit sequencer, you catch our drift? CONTINUA blooms with these kinds of effect mixtures that quickly turn experimental and ambient. From here, we can talk about our top row of controls and how they shape our effects.
- Mix – A master level control for our effects. Easy enough, right?
- Tempo – The speed of our sample playbacks. Clockwise for faster, counterclockwise for slower.
- Pitch – The pitch of our sample playbacks. Clockwise for higher, counterclockwise for lower.
- Sustain – The length of our sample playback repeats. Clockwise for longer, counterclockwise for shorter.
The last baseline bit of control to be considered here is the fourth black dial, our low-pass/high-pass control. Turn this control counterclockwise to smooth over effects, turn it clockwise to highlight sharper, starker frequencies.
Continually Ever After
AC Noises Dynamic Sampler & Multi-Effect Tones
Okay, so we've got our effect ingredients and our sound-shaping tools. Admittedly, the CONTINUA's sound palette is expansive with so many tones possible. We may very well be here all day if we wanted to list every tone and every texture possible out of the CONTINUA, so we won't try that. Instead, let's cover a couple of our favorite sounds to illustrate the kind of musicality you're working with with CONTINUA.
Hallowed WindchimeLeaning into some more ethereal textures, introducing CONTINUA's Reverb, Lo-Fi, and Glitch effects together summon a blustering squall of interstellar wind with animation and movement. CONTINUA shows of its capacity to create effects that live and breathe all on their own with the unpredictability of Glitch's tempo start-and-stop randomization.
Haunted ArcadeTurning toward the CONTINUA's digitizing abilities, a mix of Crush sample rate reduction, Dimension stuttering, and Smear blurring can introduce rhythmic 8-Bit bleeps and bloops that freak out like a dot matrix sound chip on the fritz, possibly in need of an exorcism.
Granular GlossSuch is the way of dynamic sampling, CONTINUA shows its mettle as a granular delay effect. Ramping up on the pedal's Pitch and Tempo controls and mixing in a nice dose of Glitch repeats can make CONTINUA bump elbows with classic granular delay tones that gleam and glimmer with octave-upped harmony in a busy web of repeats.
CONTINUA brings the fireworks quickly. The power behind its sampling engine fires up effect mixes that get loud and unapologetic. If you're seeking to fire up your whole ambient operation from one pedal, CONTINUA will not disappoint. CONTINUA mixes discordant textural elements to beautifully disastrous and kaleidoscopic ends. Players looking to lay out soundscaping undercurrents of sampled repeats wandering off into oblivion will have a day at the beach with CONTINUA. Players wanting to look down at their pedals and imagine a green-screened scenic backdrop overtop their ambient resonations like the best Collector/Emitter video yet to be published have found sonic sanctum with CONTINUA. Suffice to say, CONTINUA is a Pandora's box in the very best way.
"Continue?"
AC Noises Dynamic Sampler & Multi-Effect Further Functions
With CONTINUA, AC Noises builds out its control and connection experience in ultra-modern fashion. Keeping its interface clean and seamless alongside its compact design, CONTINUA works its way into any studio-ready rig, if that's your cup of tea.
- Stereo Routing – A great plus hand-in-hand with its compact casing, the CONTINUA is outfitted with stereo-ready connections. Mono-to-mono all the way to full stereo routing expands CONTINUA's lo-fi universes along with stereo-forward effect tricks to bounce off the walls, off the headphones, wherever you can bring them.
- Auxiliary Control – CONTINUA's second footswitch opens up remote control with a few different capabilities. For one, tap tempo control, for another, its unique momentary "Tilt" function. CONTINUA offers plenty of chances for on-the-fly tone shaping that makes it a gift that keeps on giving. Not too even mention its 1/8" MIDI control connections.
- Bypass Options – Believe it or not, CONTINUA's effects snowball down the proverbial hill very quickly. CONTINUA's bypass options, from its snowballing buffered bypass to its "hard-cut" true bypass, insert more angles of attack for playability even after the footswitch is stomped.
AC Noises CONTINUA Dynamic Sampler & Multi-Effect Final Thoughts
So, what have we got?
At the jump, the CONTINUA is a mystifying, intriguing pedal. Under the hood, it's a mystical box of fireworks. Modern connectivity and control opportunities make it as welcome in mad scientist studio rigs as the humble mini-board. The pedal's quick jumps from expressive musical mode to expressive musical mode make it a skillfully designed creation that balances power and personality. CONTINUA's multifaceted design illustrates a long list of checked boxes on your prospective glitch effect to-do list. A bit-crushed pseudo-sequencer? Check. A glittery granular delay? Check. An otherworldly signal disintegrator? Check. All of the above at once?
