What is Tone Circle Drone ?
Tone Circle Drone is a lightweight, sophisticated drone-producing accompanist, useful for intonation training for Western and Indian classical music, and for passage practice and improvisation. With its high precision timing, it can also serve as a metronome.
More than a single-note drone:
- supports playback of up to twelve drone tones
- can be used to build chords
- can be used as root notes for chord progressions
- drone tones can be tuned using a range of tuning methods
- equal temperament
- perfect-ratio interval tunings (e.g., Pythagorean, Just Temperament)
- Well-Tempered Systems (e.g., Werckmeister III, Vallotti)
- classical Indian Shrutis
- patterns can be transposed over the full range of a classical 88-key piano (A0 to C8)
- ability to adjust volume and tempo in real time
- a choice (Baker's dozen) of synthesized sounds: from pure sines to synthesized keyboards, and rich string- and brass-like textures
- flexible choice of nomenclature: absolute note names, relative intervals, relative functions, flexible Do solfege and classical Indian Sargam
Quick Start
A 3-note drone is loaded as the default drone pattern. Click the Start button on the Main Panel to start sequential play of the tones on the circle. The button will be renamed Stop. Hit the Stop button to end playing.
The volume can be controlled by the Volume slider on the Main Panel.
The tempo can be controlled by the Tempo slider on the Main Panel. Tempos can range from 6 beats per minute (one every 10 seconds) to 400 beats per minute (16th note subdivision for 100 bpm).
The pitch can be transposed by the Root control on the Main Panel.
To limit the drone pattern to a single drone note, select 1 in the Tones control in the Main Panel.
To change a tone to another note or alter its duration, tuning, volume, panning or timbre, click on the note graphic to bring up the Note Settings Panel.
For questions about specific controls, see Help.
For questions about how to accomplish various tasks, see the How To Topics.
For dozens of drone sets already made and ready to play, see the tonecircledrone tab.