Create Tonic Synth patches with the help of an AI

You describe the sound you want — "a dark pad that takes its time to open" — and you get back a patch file that opens in Tonic and plays. The AI you already use does the work. What Tonic gives you is the map: how the file is built, what each control does and, above all, what each number means.

Why this is unusual

Most synths treat their patch format as a private matter: the file exists, but nobody outside can read it. In Tonic it is public — and the document is not written by hand. It is generated by the app itself, straight from the control list the instrument uses to play, on every release. In practice, the table never goes stale.

And there is a part that tends to be missing even when a format is open: what the number means. Knowing that Sustain runs from 0 to 1 helps nobody; knowing that 0.1 is twenty decibels down does. That difference is what separates a patch that sounds designed from one that sounds random — and it is all written in the kit.

Step by step

1. 1In Tonic, pick a patch close to what you want and export it: long-press its name in the preset browser (right-click on the Mac) and tap Export. You get a .tpr file.
2. 2Download the kit from the button below — it is a text file, nothing to install.
3. 3Open the AI assistant you use and hand it both: the kit and your .tpr.
4. 4Ask in musical language: "make this darker, with a very slow attack and a light wobble after half a second". Ask it to explain what it changed, too.
5. 5Save the file it gives back with the .tpr extension — that is what makes Tonic recognise the contents and merge it into your library.
6. 6Send it to the device (Files, AirDrop, email) and tap the file. The patch lands in your library. Open it, play it, tweak it in the app: your ear is still the judge.

Three things that save you a bad afternoon

Always start from a patch exported by the app, never from a blank page. A patch carries things that are not knobs — scenes, sound files, arpeggio, chord, MIDI filter — and a file built from scratch loses all of that in silence.

Keep the extension. A patch is .tpr; .tbk is a full library backup, and the app treats the two differently when opening.

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: "darker", "slower attack", "less resonance", "more air in the breath". And asking for variations in one go works very well: "make three versions of this patch — one softer, one more aggressive and one stranger".