Create Tonic AP sounds with the help of an AI

You describe the piano you want ("an upright against the wall, with the felt strip, very intimate, and a scene B that opens up the room") and get back a sound that opens in Tonic AP and plays. The AI you already use does the work. What Tonic AP gives you is the map: how a sound is built, what each control does and what each number means.

Why it works so well on a modelled piano

Tonic AP plays no recordings, not even for the noises of the action. Each sound is a set of numbers that says how the piano is built (a grand or an upright, how big, which soundboard wood), how the hammer strikes, what state the piano is in, where you listen from (microphones or your own two ears), the room around it and the effects after it. Change the numbers and you change the instrument, and the kit explains every one of them in a player's terms.

And the table is not written by hand: it comes out of the app itself, from the same control list the instrument plays with, on every release. That is more than 190 controls, each with its range, its factory value and the text you see on screen.

Step by step

1. 1In Tonic AP, pick a sound close to what you want. In the library, touch and hold it (right-click on the Mac) and choose Copy Sound.
2. 2Download the kit from the button below. It is a text file; nothing to install.
3. 3Open the AI assistant you use, hand it the kit and paste the sound.
4. 4Ask in musical language: "warmer, a softer hammer and a scene B with more room". Ask it to explain what it changed, too.
5. 5Copy the whole answer (it starts with TONICAP-PRESET-v1:) and tap Paste in the library. It comes in as a NEW sound in the bank that is open; nothing you already have is replaced.
6. 6Play it, tweak it in the app and save: your ear is still the judge.

Prefer files? Use Export Sound… instead of Copy Sound, give the .tap to the AI, save the answer with the .tap extension and open it on the device (Files, AirDrop, email). It is also the way to go for a sound whose keys you regulated one by one: Copy Sound leaves that regulation out, Export Sound… carries it.

Three things that save you a bad afternoon

Always start from a sound the app gave you, never from a blank page. A sound carries things that are not knobs, like its six scenes, the pitch-bend range, what the mod wheel moves and the key-by-key regulation, and a file built from scratch loses them in silence.

A scene is a photo of the whole sound. For a scene B that only opens the lid and adds more room, writing those two things is enough: the rest comes from the sound itself.

The AI gets the structure right, not the taste. It puts the numbers in the right place, fast and without misspelling anything; whether it sounds good is your call, playing.

What to ask for

Concrete requests work best: "warmer and rounder", "more presence to play with a band", "an upright with the felt strip, very intimate", "binaural for headphones, from the player's seat", "an ambient piano with a long reverb, almost a pad". Asking for variations in one go works very well too: "make three versions of this sound in scenes B, C and D: one softer, one brighter and one more open".