Features
What ToneTrace does today
What ToneTrace does with a folder of audio, and how you get sounds back out of it. All of it runs on your own computer.
Drop in a folder, get a library
Drag files or folders onto ToneTrace, or pick a folder from the native dialog. Every audio file inside is queued and analysed in the background while you keep browsing.
- Files stay where they are. ToneTrace never copies, moves or renames anything.
- Live counts in the sidebar: analysed, pending, analysing, failed.
- Formats: MP3, WAV, FLAC, M4A, AAC, OGG, WMA and AIFF.
Drop a folder of 400 drum one-shots. At about a second and a half per file on a laptop CPU, they are all tagged in roughly ten minutes, and you can start searching the first ones straight away.
See it, hear it, loop it
Every card shows the real waveform of the file, drawn from the same decode the models listened to. Click to play, click the waveform to seek, loop it, set the volume.
- One player for the whole app, so you never end up with two things playing.
- Seeking works on any format the app imports.
- Duration and file size are shown on every card and in the detail view.
Hover a card, hit play, and the transport bar at the bottom picks it up with a scrubber, loop toggle and volume. Open the file for a full-width waveform you can click through.
Your folders, as they are
ToneTrace builds a folder tree from the paths in your library. Click a folder to filter the grid, include or exclude subfolders, and the tree updates as you add more.
- The library is remembered between launches and loads on start.
- Files that have gone missing are skipped rather than shown as broken cards.
- Remove files from the library without touching them on disk.
Import your Drums, Bass and Synths folders and the sidebar shows them nested the way they are on disk, with counts, and the grid follows whichever one you select.
Never analysed twice
Every file is fingerprinted with a content hash before anything else happens. If ToneTrace has heard that exact audio before, the tags come straight from the local database.
- The hash is of the audio file's bytes, so moved and renamed files are recognised.
- Edited or re-exported files have new content and are analysed fresh.
- Analysis results are versioned, so an improved pipeline can re-tag on request rather than silently mixing old and new.
Reorganise your sample folders, rename half of them, then re-import. Every file that was already analysed is recognised by its content and appears instantly.
Search names and tags together
One search box covers file names and every tag. Each word you type has to match something, so narrowing down is as simple as adding a word.
- Scope the search to everything, file names only, or tags only.
- Results are ranked: exact name matches first, then by tag confidence.
- Escape clears the search and returns you to the grid.
Type "kick punchy" and you get files whose name or tags match both. The results view also lists the matching tags with counts, and clicking one searches for it.
Dial in a feeling
A mood and energy pad sits in the toolbar. Drag the point toward bright or dark, calm or driving, and the grid narrows to files that sit near it. Scroll to widen or tighten the match; double-click to clear it.
- Every file gets a position from the language-audio model, not from its file name.
- Works alongside the search box and the folder tree rather than replacing them.
- The pad narrows what the grid shows, so it stacks with a text search or a folder rather than fighting them.
Looking for something warm and unhurried to sit under a verse? Pull the point down and to the right and the 800 files become the handful that actually feel like that.
Pick a sound, get its neighbours
Select any file and choose Find Similar. ToneTrace can rank your library by audio content, using the fingerprint the language-audio model produced, or by shared tags.
- By sound: how close each file's audio fingerprint sits to the one you picked, computed locally.
- By tags: overlap of tags, weighted by confidence.
- Results reuse the same cards, so you can play, select and drag from them directly.
Select a snare you like and ask for similar by sound. The rest of your library is ordered by how close each file's audio fingerprint sits to it, with a match figure on every card.
Lift one sound out of a long file
ToneTrace records where each sound occurs inside a file, not just that it is in there somewhere. The detail view colours those regions along the waveform, one colour per tag, however many times each one appears.
- Each region carries its own confidence, measured inside the region rather than averaged over the whole file.
- Cuts are sample-accurate and land on a new file: 24-bit WAV from a lossless source, 16-bit from a lossy one. The original is never touched.
- Regions come from the instrument model's own timeline, so they mark where it actually heard the sound.
An old four-minute project bounce turns out to hold eleven usable guitar moments. Click one to audition it, then drag it into your DAW as its own WAV without opening an editor.
Tags your other tools can read
Select files and choose Export tags. ToneTrace writes the tags into the files using standard metadata, so DAW browsers and sample managers that read it will show them.
- MP3: ID3 tags (genre, comment and a ToneTrace frame).
- WAV: Broadcast Wave bext chunk plus LIST/INFO keywords and comment.
- Everything else: a JSON sidecar next to the file.
- By default, up to ten tags at or above 30 % confidence are written.
Export a folder of WAV one-shots and each file gains a Broadcast Wave description and INFO keywords. The audio data is untouched, byte for byte, and exporting twice does not grow the file.
Drag straight into your session
Every card is a native file drag. Drop it into your DAW, a sampler, or a Finder or Explorer window exactly as you would from the desktop. No plugin, no bridge.
- Works with any application that accepts file drops from the operating system.
- Multi-select drags the whole selection.
- Nothing is converted or copied on the way; the DAW gets the original file.
Find the hi-hat, hold the card, drag it onto a drum rack. Select five and drag them all at once. The transport bar's Send to DAW button drags whatever is playing.
Runs where you work
ToneTrace is a desktop app built with Electron and React, with builds for macOS, Windows and Linux. Both models ship inside the app and run locally by default.
- macOS on Apple Silicon and Intel, Windows, and Linux.
- No sign-in and no telemetry in the current build.
- Installers are being finalised; beta testers get builds first.
Install it, point it at a folder, and the current build works with the network cable unplugged.
Try it on your own library
The beta is free. Pricing will be announced at launch.