Audio Damage Releases Continua, a ‘Morph Everything’ Virtual Instrument

Audio Damage today announced Continua, a new software synthesizer plugin instrument for Mac, PC and iOS (iPad only).

Continua is a three-oscillator analogue-style synth with two filters, up to 16 unison voices, lots of polyphonic modulation sources and three onboard effects.

A key feature is that Continua puts highly-controllable waveform morphing at the center of its architecture and workflow. Continua’s oscillators shift from outputting sine through square to saw waves. Each of the four LFOs transitions from a double sine to square, via triangle waveshapes; and the dual independent filters morph continuously through low-pass, band-pass, high-pass and notch responses.

Skew and Warp controls enable further manipulation of oscillator and LFO waveforms, and all morphing controls can be modulated for pads and textures that evolve right at the oscillator/filter level.

Every single knob in Continua can be modulated, from those controlling the oscillators, filters and effects to the parameters of the modulators themselves. Four LFOs, two ADSR and two multi-stage envelope generators, a Sample & Hold generator, two XY pads and eight macros are freely and easily assignable by right-clicking any target control. And with every LFO and envelope being fully polyphonic, the user’s performances can be especially expressive when using an MPE-compatible controller.

Like the oscillators and filters, Continua’s three effects are also geared towards the production of sustained, ambient-orientated sounds. The Reverb houses a custom algorithm well-suited to long, dense, heavily modulated tails; while the Chorus and Delay modules bring voice-stacked thickening and evocative spatialization.

“We wanted to build a modern, more experimental virtual analogue instrument – one that departed from the current trend of wavetable synths,” notes Audio Damage co-founder Chris Randall. “A Our goal was for Continua to be simple to use and very smooth, with a ‘morph everything’ approach, and the end result is a synth with endless sound design potential, and a characteristic affinity for pads, soundbeds and atmospheres.”

Audio Damage Continua Features:

  • Three Flexible Oscillators: Continuously variable morphing waveform, with warp, shape, and skew controls.
  • Dual Morphing Filters: Filters can be used in serial or parallel modes, and morph from lowpass through bandpass and highpass to notch in 2-pole and 4-pole configurations.
  • Noise Source: Noise source features a “color” control that affects tonal characteristics of the noise.
  • ADSR x 2: Continua has two ADSR-style envelope generators, with curve on attack, decay, and release.
  • Flexible Envelope Generator (FEG) x 2: The two FEGs are arbitrary function generators, with up to 99 steps, curve and step level control, arbitrary loop points, and host tempo sync.
  • Flexible Low-Frequency Oscillator (FLFO) x 4: The four FLFOs utilize four controls (phase, shape, skew, and warp) to access a virtually limitless palette of waveforms, and feature host tempo sync and retrigger.
  • Sample And Hold: The S&H mod source can sample noise (random) or any of the other mod sources, at either a user-defined rate or a musical division, and includes built-in smoothing and distance limit (for a “walk” effect).
  • Modulation: Every knob in Continua is a mod destination, with a very fast and simple assignment matrix access with a right-click on the knob (double-tap on iOS).
  • Tuning Tables And Global Tuning Offset: Re-tune Continua to new intonations and temperaments using the open-source and easy-to-use TUN file format. A global tuning offset (default to A=440) allows you to easily retune the entire synth to match a different A frequency without using a tuning table.
  • MPE (MIDI Polyphonic Expression): Continua understands both “legacy” MIDI and MPE. Use your Linnstrument, Roli Seaboard, Haken Continuum, Madrona Labs Soundplane, or Sensel Morph (among others) to directly access per-note pressure, pitch bend, and modulation.
  • Per-Instance Settings: Continua utilizes a per-instance customization method: set MPE mode, aftertouch smoothing, pitch bend range override, tuning table, and global tuning offset for each instance in your DAW, with an option to save any state as your global starting point.
  • Factory Presets: Continua comes with a substantial collection of factory content, including Designer Presets from Red Means Recording, Glitch Machines, and Sonalsystem.
  • Cross-Platform Preset Format: Continua utilizes an XML-based preset manager. Work between multiple systems without troubles, make a preset on your desktop machine and paste it to the iOS version with Handoff, easily share your creations with your friends, or make a preset bundle to sell.
  • Fully Resizable Hi-Dpi/Retina GUI: Continua’s vector-based GUI is resolution-agnostic, and displays the same on every system and resolution. Easily resize the UI (per instance) to match your visual needs, from postage stamp to poster-sized.

Audio Demo:

Listen to the album “Continua Demo Tracks” by Audio Damage.

Pricing and Availability.  Audio Damage Continua is available now, at the introductory prices of $79 (Mac/PC) and $7.99 (iOS). More information is available on the Audio Damage website.

22 thoughts on “Audio Damage Releases Continua, a ‘Morph Everything’ Virtual Instrument”

  2. I really wish they’d focus on bug fixing their old products before releasing new ones. Eos2, Grind, Quanta etc are full of issues and they seem to be uninterested in fixing them. I won’t be supporting AD anymore until they do.

    2. You are so right, I have updatet to win 10 and a lot of their plugins wont work anymore. I think this is a shame only win 7 support!!!

    3. Oh man… I was thinking the same thing the other day when they first poked it out of its hole… Good to see other people feel the same. Mayyyybe Chris will eventually get a clue, fix his shit, or maybe at least answer customer service emails…

      1. I had the same problem after updating to win 10 and the really strange part is I mainly updatet to win 10 because of EOS2 which was very buggy and unusable under win7. I contacted audio damage and they told me to upgrade to win 10 to use EOS2 and now I have problems with old the old plugins which I really often use… Its such a shame for such a great software company. Normally when they have released something I instantly buyed it but today I think twice about their product care…

        I hope someone from Audio Damage will read this.

  3. I wish they had migrated my account from the old website to the new one that was to be done “soon”, 2 or 3 years ago now …

  4. I’ve got it on iOS and hooked it up to Roli.. routing of modulations is well made and truly opens MPE programing. Truth is, that they need to fix some bugs on older products, yet this one is deep with modulations. No way to be “boring” if you know what to do.

    1. As a user of Nanostudio 2, every AD app malfunctions in it, crackles, crashes etc even the fx. They very rarely update them, roughly once a year. I’ll just wait for Bram Bos’ Mononoke for my next synth fix as it will definitely work in all hosts and DAWs. Continua does indeed sound very nice in the demos and the price is right. It just may end up in my arsenal for the price alone.

      1. I am interested in mononoke too – the sound samples on this just don’t get me – I’ll keep my eye on it though and think it over

  5. I hate modern app pricing. $79 on a computer, only $8 on my iPad. I’m an amateur musician with a family (which means I’m on a tight budget). So I’m forced to run yet another app on my iPad, when I really just want it on my computer.

    Perhaps they should offer a special upgrade deal once the software is a bit older — after 12 months, anyone who owns the iPad app is eligible to get the PC version for just $10. Or something.

  6. Sounds great but have similar problems with AD plugins in Nanostudio as mentioned above. Since that’s my home on iOS I’ll wait to see if they get that stuff sorted.

    1. I decided to buy it as it is so cheap and it is a really nice sound design synth. Great for drones and atmospheric pads. The UI is very well laid out and easy to get going. Yes, the NS2 issue is unfortunately present but it will be great for AUM jams. AD could stand to reach out to Blip Interactive to sort out the NS2 problems and I hope they do. But as it stands, for the price this is an excellent synth and the macros are a huge plus, great UI, and definitely a signature sound. If it were $20 I’d pass but it’s $8 usd and that’s not even introductory price.

    2. Interesting, have no issues running it in Cubasis. Don’t use NS very often, but will check it out. Maybe it’s NS related problem?

      1. AD plugins have problems in all iOS DAWs, especially Grind. I think it was explained that the NS dev tried to work around the plugins’ problems but couldn’t. Aren’t AD plugins built on Audiokit? Because that’s a can of worms. AK’s dev promised an update that would fix the crashing and silent treatment etc. But it hasn’t happened yet.

  7. The last product I bought from Audio Damage was Quanta, and it is still crashing my Cubase randomly when i use it. I reported it to AD, but got no answer at all. So it may be the last product I bought from AD final.

  8. I’ve sold all my AD licenses a few years ago, went to other small developers instead and never looked back. AD have some serious issues with fixes, updates, customer support, emails, attitude & ego…

  9. Interesting to read about Audio Damage neglecting all their apps. I remember when Chris Randall released Phaedra on iPad, which I bought, and I remember it became neglected very quickly. Looks like his business model hasn’t changed much.

  10. Wow! I’m surprised to hear all this trash talking of Chris Randall and Audio Damage.

    I feel the need to report that my experience with Audio Damage has been the exact opposite.

    Regarding quality and performance: All the Audio Damage plugins I have (both free and paid) perform consistently and have excellent sound quality on the multiple MacOS systems I’ve used them with.

    Regarding support: Chris has been helpful and responsive whenever I’ve emailed him about authorization or feature questions.

    While I can’t speak to Windows performance, I can speak to consistency.

    I just checked my email, and found I purchased my first Audio Damage plugin, EOS, on April 24, 2010.

    Since that time, I can affirm that every Audio Damage product I have works smoothly on each of my MacOS and iOS devices.

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