TonautTonaut

Tonaut puts a complete little studio in your pocket, built to be played rather than programmed. Pick a sound, tap out a pattern, and record it to tape, all on one screen that feels more like a piece of hardware than an app.

Start with the sounds. Nine synth engines and over 500 sounds, from warm analog pads to glassy bells and growling bass, every engine drawn in 3D and moving as you play. Among them are 43 drum kits on three drum engines, Knock and Cinder kits moving in 3D with every hit, that you can play on pads or set running with a groove, and kits made from your own samples. Link your sample folders once and the SAMPLES browser plays any file at a tap, while the music keeps going, before you load it onto a pad, or drag audio straight in from another app. Star the ones you love and they're always first in the list. Shape anything you like, with four effects on every sound from sixteen kinds, among them a tape echo, a huge reverb, real distortion, an auto-filter, a beat pump, a phaser-flanger, lo-fi and tremolo, plus a master effect and EQ, and the scope shows you the real signal as you play.

Then play in key. Pick a key and scale, and LOCK keeps every note in it, or let one key play a whole chord. Switch on the chord pad and the keyboard becomes seven chord keys from your key and a stick that turns each chord into a 7th, a 9th, a sus or a dim, with a strum and a bass note if you want them. A MIDI keyboard plays it too, and the chords go straight into the arpeggiator and the sequencer.

Now build a song. Up to eight lanes run side by side, each with its own sound and its own step sequencer. Write a pattern step by step or play it in live, copy it to start the next one or move it up an octave, and switch patterns on the fly with Pattern Play, every lane moving to the next section together. Add an arpeggiator or a drum groove and the lane plays itself.

When it's ready, roll the tape, with up to 30 minutes of it in every project: eight tracks of 20 minutes, or six tracks of 30. Record every lane to its own track, or bounce several onto one. Wind it, loop it, reverse it, stutter it, slow it to a stop. Mix the tape on its own mixer, separate from your lanes, and zoom out to see the whole song at once.

It's made for playing live, too. The Perform page gives every lane two controls that reshape its sound while the sequence runs, then glide back when you stop, and an X/Y pad takes over a screen so one finger can bend and sweep the sound. Plug in a USB or Bluetooth MIDI keyboard to play notes, chords or the chord pad, or send its lanes out to your own synths and drum machines, with clock and transport so everything starts together.

Tonaut runs on iPhone, iPad and iPhone Duo, with a layout made for each. On iPhone Duo there's a layout for folded, half folded and fully open, and folding never stops the music. There are six looks. A new install opens in TN-SIGNAL, midnight blue with cyan and coral, one of four housings in the style of desktop hardware with an LED in every key, alongside TN-1, TN-1 Dark and TN-XY. Light and Dark are a setting away. From version 1.5 it runs on iOS and iPadOS 17, back to the iPhone XS and the iPad (6th generation), and on the oldest iPads a lighter performance setting turns itself on to keep the music in time. One purchase covers iPhone, iPad and iPhone Duo. Turn a tape loop into a vertical video ready to post, share a whole song with a friend, samples and all, or keep your projects in step between your devices with optional iCloud sync. No account, no subscription, and your music stays yours.