Tonecraft

On a computer, playing guitar often means installing several programs and getting them to work together. I built Tonecraft to bring the sound and the practice tools together on a single page.

You plug your guitar into an audio interface, the box that connects it to the computer, then choose your sound. Without a guitar, a demo also lets you hear the result, without turning on the microphone.

You can open a tablature, slow it down and loop a passage. The tuner helps tune the guitar, the metronome sets the tempo and the looper repeats what you just played. The player and its instrument sounds only load when you open a score.

The recorder keeps the DI: the sound of the guitar before the effects. So you can change amps after playing, then download the take with or without effects, on its own or with its backing track. The looper, for its part, keeps the sound with its effects.

From the guitar to the headphones, the sound goes through a series of steps. Each one changes it a little.

What you see, what decides and what transforms the sound are kept apart.

Sound processing runs in the browser. For some audio interfaces, an optional program, Tonecraft Engine, gives direct access to the hardware. The page keeps the same controls and the processing stays the same.

The page waits for the engine to confirm the amp has loaded, and reports a failure. Before each release, tests check this loading, the demo without a microphone, playback and recording.