Some producers start with drums. Some start with a melody or a bassline. Somedays you can’t get started at all, and for those times when you’re staring at a piano roll in your DAW there’s a product called Catalyst.
Catalyst is a MIDI sequencer, arpeggiator and harmonizer made by Toneworks. These are not rare but Toneworks puts them together in an interesting way. They say it’s a tool to “kickstart your creative flow.” It is, actually, a catalyst for creativity.
When you start up Catalyst for the first time, it scans for any virtual instruments you might have on your work computer. What’s cool is that it loads them directly into Catalyst. Any of them can then be used as your arpeggiator or harmonizer or sequencer.
At the top of Catalyst is a visualization called the “Interactive Block Diagram” that illustrates what Catalyst is doing. The “blocks” are greyed out but light up as they’re turned on, and you can combine the sequencer, harmonizer and arpeggiator leading ultimately to the virtual instrument for your output. You can also set the key and “swing” in this interface. It sounds more complicated than it is, but I just started toying without it out of the box and rolled out a few nice things.
Catalyst is $49 from toneworks.io, there’s a free trial that times out but restarts with a reboot of your DAW.
5 Mag Issue 213
Released: May 2024
ROOTED: This was originally published in 5 Mag Issue #213 featuring electronic music pioneer Laurent Garnier, Monty Luke, Petals In Sound, Henna Onna, Paul Johnson and more. Become a member for $2/month and get every issue in your inbox right away!
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[…] Screen Grab: Breaking Out with Catalyst. Toneworks’ combo sequencer, arpeggiator and harmonizer inspires creativity for music […]