Toraiz Chordcat Is a Chord Generator Groovebox for Less Than $200
4,5 / 5,0 | 
Toraiz Chordcat generates chord progressions, has eight tracks for sequencing, looks and sounds amazing, and is super cheap. The only catch? It’s Japan-only at the moment…
Toraiz Chordcat
Remember Toraiz? The AlphaTheta/Pioneer DJ subdivision that made the Dave Smith-powered AS-1? The company recently broke with its own tradition to not show products before sales date by debuting a new groovebox called the Chordcat at the Tokyo Musical Instrument Expo 2024 at the beginning of this month. It then suddenly appeared on Japanese crowdfunding site Makuake at a price of ¥29700 (around $200). What is it, and why is it so cheap?
Chordcat Cruising
Toraiz Chordcat is a “chord progression generator groovebox,” to bluntly translate the Japanese explanation. Designed to help musicians come up with chord progressions, it came out of project lead Akihiro Furuya’s experience of watching musicians and producers struggle when they reached the chord composition part of making a new track.
“In the midst of this, I came up with something called Chord Cruiser, which suggests recommended chords, and decided to make it into an electronic instrument,” he said in an interview with Japanese site DTM Station.
The result was Chordcat, a chord-focused groovebox that’s something like Scaler in a physical device. It features a number of preset chord progressions based on genre, like drum and bass and ‘80s synth pop, and by type (major, minor, etc). In all, there are more than 10,000 possible chords included – that’s when you count voicings as well as shapes.
The heart of the Toraiz Chordcat is Furuya-san’s Chord Cruiser algorithm, which suggests a variety of chords to match what you’re working on. Based on the Cruiser’s suggestions, you can create your own progressions and save them as presets.
Chordcat Sequencing
Toraiz Chordcat is also a groovebox with built-in sounds (145 tones) including drums (16 kits) and an eight-track sequencer. Once you have your chord progression locked down, you can build up basic songs, including rhythm and melody sections. Each track can hold up to 16 patterns, each up to eight bars long.
The Chordcat also offers an arpeggiator, ducker and delay, with the delay being a MIDI effect rather than an audio one. It also allows you to alter playback direction for the chords.
Chordcat MIDI and Power
Toraiz Chordcat features DIN MIDI in and out plus MIDI over USB-C for controlling DAWs and other hardware. You can also export (and import) SMF standard MIDI files via an app (currently in development) to drop into your DAW.
You can power Toraiz Chordcat either via USB or six AA batteries.
Price and Availability
Here’s the kicker. Toraiz Chordcat is currently a Japan-only release and is going for ¥29700 (around $200) on Makuake. Why so cheap? Toraiz wanted to release it a price that was “actually affordable.” Good for them.
Furuya-san told DTM Station that Toraiz hopes to make the Chordcat available to the general public sometime after the campaign ends on December 10 although “it is completely undecided at this point.” However, the campaign has already been wildly successful. If I had to guess, I’d say that Toraiz will release this sometime next year.
As I live in Japan, I’m really tempted to get one. Chords are not my strong suit and it sounds pretty good too. However, Christmas is coming up and I don’t think the wife would appreciate me getting a Chordcat instead of a present for her…
What do you think about the Chordcat? is it something you’d be interested in? Let us know in the comments.
More Information
- DTM Station original article (Japanese)
- Toraiz home page
- All about AlphaTheta
- All about grooveboxes
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One response to “Toraiz Chordcat Is a Chord Generator Groovebox for Less Than $200”
one for me, please