About

Who’s behind Chromatose?

Chromatose is indepentendly made with ♥️ in Berlin by people who have been places and seen things.

Ed Rooth - Founder / Engineer / Digital Artist

Ed has a B.S. in Computer Science and 25+ years of software engineering experience. Hekuli is his alter ego for A/V creations and performances.

Franziska Eichler - Marketing / PR

Franzie is a music industry & event management professional with over 20 years of experience.

Our Mission

Put real‑time, audio‑reactive graphics in everyone’s hands by creating a mobile‑first instrument - fast, approachable, and affordable - so everyone can craft and perform original visuals anywhere.

Background: how Chromatose started

I came to graphics through music. As a long‑time hobbyist DJ and electronic music producer, I wanted audio‑reactive visuals for uploads and live sets - distinctive, not the same tired presets everyone uses. I explored the usual software options and nothing truly resonated.

Then I dove into analog circuit‑bent hardware (YOVOZOL has a solid overview of video glitch / synth gear on YouTube if you want a peek into that rabbit hole). The possibilities are exciting, but the gear is bulky, expensive, and based on vintage systems that are hard to source. The results also tend toward a specific aesthetic. My studio is already full of analog modular audio synths, so I had to pull back before I started drowning in more gear.

I shifted to professional graphics tools. I spent a year learning TouchDesigner and teaching myself shader programming - tiny GPU programs that create imagery in real time. The immediacy of generative art was addictive: organic, complex forms evolving from simple building blocks without the wait of offline rendering. I started building my own live‑performance visual tools, crafting distinct artworks with parameters I could adjust on stage without losing the original character.

That workflow is powerful, but it comes with trade‑offs:

• steep learning curves
• lugging a laptop everywhere
• hard to share or distribute my custom tools
• expensive licenses
• hard to use casually

I wanted to perform at small events without bringing a whole computer. I evaluated some dedicated digital hardware systems - fun, yet often running shaders on chipsets less capable than a typical smartphone. They’re also cumbersome for data management, connectivity, and sharing (which is half the fun).

So I asked: why not run everything on a phone and solve most of this at once?

After all, smartphones are:

• ubiquitous - most of us already carry one
• powerful - capable of complex real‑time graphics
• connected - reliable external display support and plug‑and‑play MIDI
• evolving - they get faster every year

With my UI engineering background, I could make it approachable - democratizing visual creation for people who don’t have a programming background or time for learning complex tools or the budget for racks of gear.

I spent six months learning to build for Apple platforms, then another year heads‑down building Chromatose.

Chromatose started with - and still follows - these guiding principles:

• Mobile‑first
• Real‑time & audio‑reactive
• Fast & performant
• Native look & feel
• Small, composable building blocks for infinite combinations and unlimited possibilities
• Empower users to create unique art from scratch
• First‑class sharing experience
• Easy to learn; assumes no prior experience
• Built sustainably and affordably - no ads, no selling your data
• Frequent updates
• Professional quality

Building on these principles, Chromatose is continuously evolving – with regular updates, new features, and direct community feedback.
👉 See the Changelog

The result is a full-power visual instrument that’s always with you. Now anyone can have fun exploring real-time graphics. We hope you enjoy using it as much as we do.