AutoTonic

Technology evolves at an alarming rate and this brings major additions and changes to every domain of activity. For instance, making music is not just about having solid knowledge and knowing how to play an actual instrument anymore, with an abundance of computer applications allowing music to be made with ease. As such, AutoTonic comes as a MIDI transposer to keep you playing and experimenting with new sounds.

The application takes little time to install and you can launch it right afterwards. Its features are wrapped around a modern interface, with highly-detailed elements, intuitive design, and clear display of input and output panels, as well as the configuration console in the center.

Although it’s capable of accepting input from the mouse when interacting with the input section, it’s meant to be your MIDI keyboard assistant, especially helpful in a live performance. It’s designed as a general MIDI transposer, but can quantize any note you play on your actual MIDI keyboard to a scale of choice.

It’s recommended to disable the regular MIDI input in order to leave AutoTonic as your only active input. Some virtual cabling may be required in your VST host application or editor to make this work, but it’s generally not a hassle.

You notice there are a couple of keyboards on display. Output shows what the actual note on a keyboard is, whereas the input is what keys on your MIDI controller represent and do. A little getting used to might be needed here, because you only need to use the white keys on your MIDI controller.

This isn’t an inconvenience, but rather an efficient method of helping you quickly change scales without leaving your MIDI controller. As such, black keys become toggle switches which can be customized with well over 400 built-in scales.

Bottom line is that modern music making depends less and less on actual instruments. However, tools like AutoTonic encourage you to explore new patterns and methods to push your inspiration to the limits. It’s easy to use and configure, with intuitive key configuration for quick switching and selecting of scales.