Superbooth 24: “Simply plug in and start doing what you do” - Chase Bliss’s Onward is a dynamic sampler pedal that responds to your playing

SUPERBOOTH 2024: Chase Bliss has added to its range of progressive effect pedals with the launch of Onward, “a dynamic sampler that creates living landscapes”.

The dynamism comes from the fact that Onward responds to your playing or any audio you put through it. “It moves when you do, capturing the sounds you make to create rich musical landscapes,” explains Chase Bliss.

It does this by way of two separate channels - Glitch and Freeze - that can be combined to create one “mega-effect” or split apart and made to interact (you can ‘lock’ one channel while leaving the other to respond dynamically, for example). Intelligent tracking, meanwhile, is designed to ensure that Onward remains responsive even when the loudness of  your playing varies.

There are effects, too, for adding texture, harmony and motion, plus a synth-inspired Shape section.

If you want to throw a sonic curveball, meanwhile, you can play with the Error settings. There are “three different flavours of malfunction” that can be used to play havoc with the timing, playback and condition of your audio, and there’s even a secret mode that enables you to throw in all of these things at once.

You can get a good overview of what Onward can do in the walkthrough video below. Our takeaway is that it looks highly tweakable (there’s support for MIDI, CV and Expression control, too) and has huge potential for experimentation.

Onward is available for pre-order now priced at €469, and will start shipping next month. Find out more on the Chase Bliss website.