Tato Aline and ARA are new, hardware-performance-oriented sequencers for notes and drums that are currently being developed.
Developing a new product from scratch costs a lot of money, time, and motivation. The new Brazilian company, Tato Audio, is currently going through this process. They are developing not one but two new products for the electronic music market.
Tato has unveiled Aline and ARA, a new standalone sequencer for notes and a drum sequencer, focusing on performance.
Tato Aline and ARA
Aline and ARA are not yet finished products but are still in development. Their features and appearance may change until they are completed. Both products share the same concept of being designed for performance.
Tato Aline
Aline is a new standalone performance hardware sequencer with 16 layers, each powered by one of eight different engines. The latter offers four parametric and four imperative engines: grid, line, 303, arp, euclidean, call and response, play, and progress.
What the individual sequencer engines can do is unknown, but for some of them, you can tell where they are going from the name.
An exciting feature is the ability to blend the sequences creatively in Tato Aline. The developers promise it has a unique approach where each independent sequencer can interact with each other. For example, a layer could define velocity, and another could affect pitches.
Plus, they can have different lengths for even more complexity. Sounds like a fun concept, and if it can seamlessly creatively morph a sequencer, that would be interesting. So you could create a lot of output from a single sequencer.
The hardware has various buttons and six encoders for operation. The bottom row of buttons is for step programming. There’s also a display that visualizes everything.
On the connection side, it has six CV outputs (3 CV + 3 gate), sync in & out, TRS MIDI in/out, and a USB-C port on the side. A very classic I/O setup, but I would have liked one more 1 CV/gate. There would be space in the housing.
Tato ARA
In addition to developing Aline, the Brazilian developers of Tato are also working on ARA, a new performance-oriented drum sequencer.
ARA will feature eight tracks/8 instruments, each with 64 steps. Each instrument has independent accent, volume, and mute controls. The engine also offers polyrhythmic support so that each track can have a variable length.
There are no other details, but the Tato promises that ARA will have MIDI, USB, and CV connectivity for easily connecting with the rest of your setup
First Impression
Two intriguing new standalone hardware sequencers. I like that they put notes and drums in two separate products. Many sequencers mix them, and that often ends in a menu-diving fest.
I like the idea of less is more, especially when it comes to performance-oriented. Looking forward to more details. Stay tuned.
Tato Aline and ARA are currently in development—price and availability are TBA.
More information here: Tato Audio
