Blue Cat Audio Blue Cats PatchWork 2.7.5 — Mac version

Think of it as a sub-mixer for your plug-ins. Where your DAW gives you one insert slot, PatchWork gives you 64. You can load VST, VST3, Audio Unit or built-in effects, stack them in parallel or series, and save the whole lot as a single preset. It's a plugin host inside your DAW, which sounds a bit meta, but it solves real problems—like running a favourite Windows-only VST via a wrapper, or building a vocal chain you can move between sessions.

Building a channel strip or parallel bus that moves with you

• Chaining effects that belong together—your go-to channel strip, a parallel drum crush bus
• Loading plug-ins your DAW doesn't support natively, especially older VSTs or Audio Units
• Simplifying big projects by grouping processing into one tidy block
• Building and saving complex routings that go way beyond a simple serial chain

Searching hundreds of plug-ins and the VST3 editor quirk on Mac

• The plug-in browser has full-text search, which helps when you have hundreds of plug-ins to rummage through
• VST3 editor loading on Mac needs the interface to be visible first—no headless tweaking there
• It's 64-bit only, so really old 32-bit plug-ins won't load
• You get a handful of built-in plug-ins included, so it's useful right out of the box

Copying a plug-in with its settings across parallel chains

Once the routing grid is full, dragging cables between slots gets old. You can right-click a slot to copy or paste a plug-in including its current settings — handy when you want the same EQ on three parallel chains without loading it three times from the browser.

The preset browser responds as you type. Type "drum" and presets with "drum" in the name appear immediately, no need to hit Enter. The same search field also digs through saved plug-in names, so if you can't remember where you put that specific compressor, just start typing its name.

Another thing people miss: you can drag a plug-in's UI file from Finder straight onto a slot. No import menu, no scanner — just drop the .component or .vst file. Useful when you have a plug-in the scanner keeps skipping over.

Snags and how to get unstuck

Plug-in not showing up after install

The scanner only runs when you tell it to. Open the plug-in browser, click the rescan button, and wait. On macOS, Audio Units sometimes need a logout or a restart before the system registers them properly. If it still won't appear, check whether the plug-in is 32-bit — PatchWork is 64-bit only and won't see it.

VST3 interface stays blank on Mac

This is a known quirk. The VST3 editor only loads when the interface is actually shown. If you're automating parameters with the plug-in window closed, the controls work fine but the GUI won't draw until you open it. Not a bug, just how the wrapping works. Keep the window open while you tweak, then close it when you're done.

High CPU with lots of parallel chains

Sixty-four slots is plenty, but a dozen convolution reverbs in parallel will bring any machine to its knees. PatchWork doesn't do automatic CPU management — it just hosts what you give it. If the fans spin up, try freezing one or two heavy plug-ins by bouncing their output to a new track, or move the busier chains into separate PatchWork instances so your DAW can spread the load across cores.

MIDI control stops working after reloading a session

MIDI assignments are saved with the preset, not the session. If you tweaked a mapping and forgot to re-save the preset, it reverts next time you load the project. Get into the habit of saving the preset after mapping MIDI controls — the save preset button is right there on the toolbar.

Capturing up to sixteen processed channels with the built-in recorder

Version 2.7.5 brought a few things that make everyday use smoother. The built-in audio recorder is the big one — you can now capture up to sixteen channels directly from PatchWork's output, which means printing a processed chain without routing back out and into another track. Useful for sound design sessions where you want to grab a moment of happy accident.

Effects chains are now copy-paste-friendly across the whole plug-in. You can copy an entire chain — routing and all — and paste it into another slot or another instance. You can also save a chain to disk and reload it later, which makes building a personal library of processing blocks straightforward.

MIDI control got more flexible. Individual plug-in bypass now responds to MIDI, and you can open or close plug-in windows with a MIDI command. That's a small thing that speeds up live performance setups — map a footswitch to bypass a whole row of effects, or open a compressor's UI on your screen while your hands stay on the keyboard. Extra MIDI event types for parameter control mean more controllers play nicely without needing translation software in between.

• macOS 10.9 or later
• 64-bit Intel or Apple Silicon Mac
• English interface