tonecraft

Tonecraft

Everything a guitar cover needs, in one place.

The tab, the song, the tone and the take, played through ASIO at your interface’s lowest latency. No plugin, no DAW, no account.

Free

  • ASIO · CoreAudio · ALSA
  • Windows · macOS · Linux
The GUILT amplifier head in Tonecraft, with its purple stained-glass window

Overview

From the first bar to the finished cover.

A cover takes five tools: something to read the part, the song to play over, a tone that fits it, a way to work the hard bars, and a recorder. Tonecraft is all five, on one screen, on one clock. Your settings stay on your computer. A tone is shared as a link.

  1. Readopen the tab, the band plays along
  2. Soundpick the amp, the cabinet, the boost
  3. Practiseslow down, loop the solo
  4. Recordplay over the song, export a WAV
The Tonecraft studio: global controls, amplifier head and session tools
Tonecraft audio settings with the ASIO choice

Tonecraft Engine · ASIO

ASIO. Minimal latency.

Tonecraft Engine opens your interface’s ASIO driver and runs the chain at its lowest buffer: the note leaves the amp as the pick leaves the string. A small free program by the clock, offered from the studio’s audio settings. Everything is still set in Tonecraft.

The same chain, bit for bit, as in the browser, which stays available on a computer where nothing can be installed.

ASIO · WASAPI · CoreAudio · ALSA

A guitar tab scrolling above a lit fretboard

Tab reader

Open the tab. The band plays along.

Guitar Pro, MusicXML and more open right in the page. The score scrolls under a fixed playhead, the neck below lights the notes, and the band plays with you: slowed down, looped on the hard bars, or with your part muted. Write your own tabs too: type a fret, hear the note.

Looper and recorder with a take waveform

Backing track · Recorder · Looper

Play over the song. Keep the take.

Drop the song in as a backing track and record your part over it. The recorder keeps the dry guitar, so a take can be exported tomorrow through another tone, aligned to the sample with the song. The looper records what you hear and plays it back under you, to work a riff until it holds.

The GUILT amplifier head and its control groups

Amplifier

GUILT, and a shelf of captures

The lead amplifier is a neural capture of a real high-gain head. Four community captures of high-gain heads sit next to it.

Metal
tight, fast, articulate
The pitch, boost colour and reverb controls, in the chain band’s pedals panel

Around the amp

Gate, boost, tone, pitch, reverb

A short chain in a fixed order, tuned so that the first sound is already the right one.

Gate
silence between notes
Boost
a tighter low end
Pitch
drop tuning, no pegs
Reverb
room for the lead
Amplifier and cabinet selectors

Cabinet

Cabinets, or your own IR

Each capture comes with a cabinet. Load any impulse response from your disk to replace it: WAV, AIFF or FLAC, convolved inside the chain with zero added latency.

The chromatic tuner

Tuner

Chromatic, to the cent, unaffected by latency. Tune to the song before the first take.

The metronome

Metronome

Tempo, time signature, tap. The click is never printed into a loop or a take.

System requirements

  • A desktop or laptop computer running Windows, macOS or Linux.
  • An audio interface, with an ASIO driver for ASIO. A guitar-to-USB cable works too.
  • Headphones or monitors, plugged into the interface.
  • Tonecraft Engine for ASIO on Windows, CoreAudio on macOS, ALSA on Linux. Without it, Tonecraft plays in the browser.

Browsers

BrowserTonecraft EngineBrowser only
Chrome / EdgeYesYes
FirefoxYesYes, default output
SafariNoYes, higher latency
MobileNoNo

Questions

What do I need to record a guitar cover?

A guitar, an interface and Tonecraft. The tab reader, the backing track, the amp and the recorder are on the same page, and the export is a WAV.

How low is the latency?

With Tonecraft Engine and ASIO, as low as your interface allows. In the browser alone it depends on the system. The round trip is measured and always on screen.

Is Tonecraft free?

Yes. No account, no subscription, no trial.

Which tab formats can I open?

Guitar Pro 3 to 7, GPX, MusicXML, Capella and alphaTex. Files are read on your computer, never uploaded.

Do I need to install anything?

Only Tonecraft Engine, for ASIO, offered in the studio’s audio settings. Everything else is in Tonecraft.

Is my sound sent anywhere?

No. Audio is processed on your computer and never leaves it.

Can I share a tone?

Yes. A tone is a link: whoever opens it hears the same settings.

Your next cover starts here.

Open the studio, plug in, load the tab.

Open the studio

Language