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    Introducing Tonal: A Minimalist Music App for Collectors and Audiophiles

    Editor's Note: A few weeks ago I was contacted by Baoshan about his application named Tonal. With several hundred messages perpetually in my inbox, I'm unsure why I read the entire unsolicited email. There was something about him and what he had to say that really drew me in. The more I read the more I liked what he had to say and I liked his project. Undoubtedly, Baoshan's humble demeanor and ending sentence spurred me to want to hep him.

     

     

    "Please let me know if you think the concept is promising. Your valuable opinion will help me a lot! If you think the great community of Computer Audiophile may enjoy the concept, do you mind me introducing the Tonal app to the community?"

     

     

    After reading three of Baoshan's previously published articles about Tonal, on Medmium.com, I knew his application would be of interest to the CA Community and I was 100% positive that this community could help him take it to the next level.  In our exchanges he continually asked for feedback in order to improve upon his years-long effort. Thus, I offered to publish an introduction to Tonal, written by Baoshan. 

     

    There's no better way to obtain positive feedback, negative feedback, and constructive criticism than to ask a group of opinionated, yet very dedicated, audiophiles what they think. I close this introduction to the Tonal introduction by saying Baoshan's app isn't perfect, but his ideas and thought process about the app and where he wants to take it are excellent. My request of this community is that we offer constructive feedback. We all love competition and options. This is our chance to help improve upon a software application / option and our own hobby. 

     

    Chris 

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Tonal: A Minimalist Music App for Collectors and Audiophiles

    A Gift to the Computer Audiophile Community

     

    community is, at its very essence, a place where stories happen. If one more story about how an audiophile endlessly pursuing a better music collecting experience still sounds interesting to members of Computer Audiophile, it would be my honor to share mine.

     

    Prelude

    I bet you can easily recall the first few albums you’ve ever collected in your early years as a collector. Do you still enjoy playing them? As a collector, things usually go smoothly for the first years: more albums were added, in both physical and digital formats, scattered in IKEA CD racks and hard drives. In a summer weekend, you decided to start ripping all your physical albums into a lossless format to take all the digital advantages. An expensive 5-bay Synology NAS was on its way. You were very, very happy: “Hooray! Technology!”, you yelled.

     

    It seems a music player is the last byte required to connect you to your private digital collection. You’re absolutely right: for collectors, the music player IS their digital collections.

     

    When it comes to the choice of music players, I wish you don’t mind me take portable players and those fancy chassis with built-in SSDs off the table: they usually have a relatively short lifecycle. At least, they can not be my only choice. Well maintained software, on the other hand, greatly eliminates such concern.

     

    As for the Holy Grail of music player software, different collectors hold different definitions. Prejudice may probably be the biggest enemy of creativity. In most realms, masters continuously seek innovative but natural approaches to tough problems. So, let’s dive into the music player issue more deeply.

     

    Question the Status Quo

    As a product lead, when I work with clients on an open project, I usually start from harsh questions, questioning the status quo. If you don’t mind, we can play the same game together:

     

     

    • Will streaming services finally replace music player software?

     

    My answer is a resounding yes, with some fine print. In the foreseeing decade, there’s no chance that any streaming service could offer a decent coverage for hard-core collectors. I believe music player software focusing on private digital collection have a lifespan of 10+ years from now. In the meantime, things evolve and boundaries might be blurred.

     

     

     

    • Do audiophiles need to keep their collection locally?

     

    My answer is no. Audiophiles keep their digital collection in internal SSDs, external HDDs, SD cards, or NAS. They not only pay for the devices but are also responsible for the durability and accessibility. Have you ever lost an album due to an unintended operation or failure of spinning magnetic media?

     

    Amazon S3 can provide 99.999999999% annual durability. I doubt my manual backup or a RAID 5 configuration can score higher. I guess external hard drives and home NAS may become history someday. With the invention of decentralized storage systems, your digital collection could be further secured from failures caused by any 3rd party.

     

     

     

    • Can music players touch the audio files?

     

    Most music players do not touch a single bit of your audio files (unless you edit the metadata). But an extra pre-processing stage for your digital collection could be benefiting:

     

    1. Ripping errors can be fixed (the best case) or detected (the worst case). Hats off to AccurateRip and CUETools.
    2. Transcoding via a natively supported encoder (FLAC is natively supported by macOS, iOS, and Windows) eliminates 3rd party decoders when playing music. This not only minimizes the software footprint but also reduces the unpredictability of audiophile performance.
    3. A new file format could be designed to further optimize streaming performance and enhance privacy.

     

     

     

    • Is there still room for a new playback engine?

     

    Existing vendors usually treat the technical design and implementation of their playback engine as a “black art,” not willing to reveal the internals.

     

    A microkernel with less than 50 disassembly instructions is implemented. As a benchmark, the latest GPL version of a well-received audiophile-grade player has more than 1000 disassembly instructions serving exactly the same purpose.

     

    Also, zero-configuration is favored over a preference panel. All related parameters are automatically optimized for your exact environment.

     

     

     

    • Can we have perfect metadata without the need to make edits?

     

    Metadata is the foundation of collection management. I hate imperfect metadata. I hate editing metadata by myself in a music player. But, am I talking about contradictory requirements?

     

    Inspired by Wikipedia, can we invent a genuine innovative metadata engine which focuses on standard, quality, simplicity, and community collaboration?

     

     

     

    • Can we clearly define the minimum scope?

     

    For every designer, the seeking for the minimum scope means a lot: it’s the DNA of a product. High-end audiophile market accepts well designed and engineered gears with quite limited scope, but rejects poorly designed or engineered gears with many fancy features.

     

     

    Introducing Tonal

    From mid-2015 to early 2018, we were working quite hard on our (different) answer to the (same) music player question. We named the project “Tonal”. On May 13, the Tonal project finally came to her initial release. You can download it from here (currently, only macOS is supported).

     

    In short, Tonal is a minimalist music app for collectors and audiophiles. With Tonal, your complete digital collection is organized in one place and is ready to be streamed anytime, anywhere. That may sound unfancy, but there’re three foundational innovations which clearly differentiate the Tonal experience from the competition.

     

    Yes, we’re talking about three foundational innovations combined into one lean but integral experience:

     

    1. A managed cloud-based music locker service with audio quality verification built-in.
    2. An innovative metadata solution which focuses on standard, quality, simplicity, and community collaboration.
    3. A well-crafted playback engine which ensures highly predictable audiophile performance.

     

    We’ve prepared a series of articles for those who are willing to know more details about the design of Tonal. Read these articles on Medium.

     

    Below are some screenshots which could help you grasp the core concept before trying it on your own computer.

     

    1*vhFZ-chKS9VmR7Qr1S4fxA.png

     

     

     

    1*9egOsoxU82F_dX6J1QEX-w.png

     

     

     

    1*B-ywUjPwRbxqasgnyf6ldA.png

     

     

     

    1*DMrvyrOKXsmmCZVykWk92Q.png

     

     

     

    1*8bH-9Z5fCQ5a2cQsOciRtg.png

     

     

     

    1*cE7n5glC_YeETiAoQ3-_CQ.png

     

     

     

     

     

    Since her initial release, Tonal has received many feedbacks from the community:

    “Such an ambitious project!”
     — Member of Computer Audiophile Community
    “Beautiful design. Simple and elegant.”
     — Medium Member
    “The metadata looks all good.” 
     — Member of Audio Science Review Community
    “Amazing audiophile performance!”
     — Founder of Octavart Audio

     

     

    Up Next

    Frankly speaking, the designing of Tonal is an adventure full of fear to me because Tonal takes completely different approaches for basically all the sub-problems a music player faces. I wish members of the Computer Audiophile community could kindly offer comments and critics on different aspects of Tonal in depth. I’ll always be open to your opinions.

     

    Tonal is still in her infancy. Software needs maintenance, maintainers need to subsist. If we, the Computer Audiophile community, believe the concept is exciting and promising, I’ll do my best to find early-stage investors or business partners. A crowdfunding campaign may also be feasible to support the project before enough revenue could be driven by a subscription (or one-time payment) based business model.

     

    I would like to thank Chris Connaker for offering me such a great opportunity to reach millions of Computer Audiophile members. I would also like to thank Kirk McElhearn for supporting me since I worked on the International Classical Music Database initiative.

     

     

     

     




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    Recommended Comments



    3 minutes ago, baoshan said:

     

    Is the UPnP device shown in  > System Preference > Sound > Output?

    No, just headphones.

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    Just now, jaspal kallar said:

    No, just headphones.

     

    Thanks for confirming that. I also believe there’re not there. ;)

     

    Another output layer is required to render to these devices. It’s unscheduled yet and will not come fast because everything related to the playback engine needs long time proof listening.

     

    BTW, bluetooth devices and virtual devices such as Devialet Air are currently supported.

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    23 minutes ago, baoshan said:

     

    Thanks for confirming that. I also believe there’re not there. ;)

     

    Another output layer is required to render to these devices. It’s unscheduled yet and will not come fast because everything related to the playback engine needs long time proof listening.

     

    BTW, bluetooth devices and virtual devices such as Devialet Air are currently supported.

    Ok thanks for the reply. 

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    Hello Baoshan,

    I have installed Tonal in my iMac (late 2015) and MacBook Air (late 2010). No problem

     

    1. Interface: nice and clean, I feel quite comfortable with it.
    2. Sound is good. I would like to compare Tonal with my present player and my reference system but I cannot because the DAC only works with Yosemite or previous versions (driver problem). I expect that in the near future I will be able to listen to music played thru Tonal in a proper system.
    3. I like very much the amount of information that you include with every disc
    4. I miss some way to organize the "discs" because sometimes I like to browse thru my library and choose any disc among the ones from some composer or from some director or some orchestra or with clarinet or if I tagged it as relaxing or anything .... Also I do not understand the way or criteria used to order the discs: aparently it is not alfabetic neither based on upload date.
    5. Curiouslly form me, the order in which the discs appear in my iMac is the opposite as they appear in my MacBook Air

     

    I have uploaded several "discs" whith the following results:

    1º File from my NAS (Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde): no problem

    2º File from my Mac mini (Dvorak): no problem

    3º CD's package (Giulini: The Chicago Years): no problem: I have used not a superdrive but another external DVD reader / writer

    4º File from Mac mini (flac + cue): Mahler: The Symphonies where I have uploaded only the files corresponding to discs numbers 8 and 9: it appears correctly but also has appeared another disc: Mahler VIII, (only the second CD of the case) that is the duplicated of the disc 9 mentioned before but with another edition.

    5º File from my iMac (aiff 32bits/44kHz): it appears as a disc of Ravi Shankar and other music, when played is only noise but is a file containing classical music captured from a live interpretation thru Internet (Alatriste, suite de concierto)

     

    Thank you

     

    Correction: I have checked again Tonal, three hours after posting the above written: the disc Mahler: the Symphonies has disappeared and remains only Mahler VIII, Chailly that is the wrong one.

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    On 4/20/2018 at 11:20 AM, corente said:

    Hello Baoshan,

    I have installed Tonal in my iMac (late 2015) and MacBook Air (late 2010). No problem

     

    1. Interface: nice and clean, I feel quite comfortable with it.
    2. Sound is good. I would like to compare Tonal with my present player and my reference system but I cannot because the DAC only works with Yosemite or previous versions (driver problem). I expect that in the near future I will be able to listen to music played thru Tonal in a proper system.
    3. I like very much the amount of information that you include with every disc
    4. I miss some way to organize the "discs" because sometimes I like to browse thru my library and choose any disc among the ones from some composer or from some director or some orchestra or with clarinet or if I tagged it as relaxing or anything .... Also I do not understand the way or criteria used to order the discs: aparently it is not alfabetic neither based on upload date.
    5. Curiouslly form me, the order in which the discs appear in my iMac is the opposite as they appear in my MacBook Air

     

    I have uploaded several "discs" whith the following results:

    1º File from my NAS (Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde): no problem

    2º File from my Mac mini (Dvorak): no problem

    3º CD's package (Giulini: The Chicago Years): no problem: I have used not a superdrive but another external DVD reader / writer

    4º File from Mac mini (flac + cue): Mahler: The Symphonies where I have uploaded only the files corresponding to discs numbers 8 and 9: it appears correctly but also has appeared another disc: Mahler VIII, (only the second CD of the case) that is the duplicated of the disc 9 mentioned before but with another edition.

    5º File from my iMac (aiff 32bits/44kHz): it appears as a disc of Ravi Shankar and other music, when played is only noise but is a file containing classical music captured from a live interpretation thru Internet (Alatriste, suite de concierto)

     

    Thank you

     

    Correction: I have checked again Tonal, three hours after posting the above written: the disc Mahler: the Symphonies has disappeared and remains only Mahler VIII, Chailly that is the wrong one.

     

     

    Hello corente,

     

    Thank you for your valubale information. I’m sorry for my late response.

     

    Re: Some way to organize the "discs"

    I truly agree with you. Your suggestion is top in the to-do list.

     

    Re: Order or discs

    It a nasty bug. Blame me hardly.

     

    Re: Mahler Symphonies

    I’ve fixed the issue. Please let me know if it’s safisfying on your side.

     

    Re: 32bits audio

    Not supported for now. In the to-do list.

     

    Once I figured out resources and time to take Tonal to her next stage, I believe not only above issues will be resolved, you’ll also see a much more fluid experience. More conceptual things is waiting.

     

    Stay tuned. Thanks again corente!

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    19 hours ago, baoshan said:

     

    Hello corente,

     

    Thank you for your valubale information. I’m sorry for my late response.

     

    Re: Some way to organize the "discs"

    I truly agree with you. Your suggestion is top in the to-do list.

     

    Re: Order or discs

    It a nasty bug. Blame me hardly.

     

    Re: Mahler Symphonies

    I’ve fixed the issue. Please let me know if it’s safisfying on your side.

     

    Re: 32bits audio

    Not supported for now. In the to-do list.

     

    Once I figured out resources and time to take Tonal to her next stage, I believe not only above issues will be resolved, you’ll also see a much more fluid experience. More conceptual things is waiting.

     

    Stay tuned. Thanks again corente!

     

    Issue with Mahler Symphonies is fixed

    Thank you Baoshan

    Is it possible to delete the file "Ravi Shankar / Alatriste" as it is only noise?

     

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    2 hours ago, corente said:

     

    Issue with Mahler Symphonies is fixed

    Thank you Baoshan

    Is it possible to delete the file "Ravi Shankar / Alatriste" as it is only noise?

     

     

    I’ve deleted the wrong album. Please let me know if it’s still there.

     

    In the future, you can do-it-yourself. Sorry for the trouble.

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    38 minutes ago, baoshan said:

     

    I’ve deleted the wrong album. Please let me know if it’s still there.

     

    In the future, you can do-it-yourself. Sorry for the trouble.

     

    Everything right now, thank you.

     

    Anothe comment: I see that it is not possile to create an upload queue or I have not been able to do it. Perhaps it would be a convenient feature

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    One last question, for the time being ;-)

     

    I have a back-up copy of all my CD´s: which option is better to upload: from the CD or from the extracted files?

    (Accurate Rip was used when possible)

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    11 minutes ago, corente said:

    One last question, for the time being ;-)

     

    I have a back-up copy of all my CD´s: which option is better to upload: from the CD or from the extracted files?

    (Accurate Rip was used when possible)

     

    For audiophile performance, they’re bit-to-bit identical. Use extracted files for it’s faster. Any error (detected by the integrated AccurateRip or CUETools) will be repaired (by the integrated CUETools) or rejected (when unable to repair).

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    Whilst importing a CD from my iTunes  i.e hard drive, I get an error:

     

    Step 2 of 3

    Verifying Disc

    Veryfing disc via CUETools

     

    Dialog box with:

     

    Some discs upload failed

    Disc could not be verified

     

     

    The CD I was uploading was (ripped to my Itunes account using XLD with AccurateRip):

     

    Tittle: Robyn Is Here

    Artist: Robyn

     

    Any idea why verifying with CUETools always fails whilst from AccurateRip it’s not a problem, since this has occurred with several CD's?

      

     

     

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    Is there a limit of 20 discs for the current version?

     

    No worries if that is the limit, it's  just I wanted to delete some discs, do you when deletion is likely to be implemented?

     

     

     

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    3 hours ago, jaspal kallar said:

    Is there a limit of 20 discs for the current version?

     

    No worries if that is the limit, it's  just I wanted to delete some discs, do you when deletion is likely to be implemented?

     

     

     

     

    Hi jaspal,

     

    1. The deletion feature will be implemented very soon. Tomorrow maybe.

    2. Please send me a disc you believe which is AccurateRip or CUETools verifiable but rejected by Tonal. I’ll dive into the case.

    3. Please PM me and I would like to discuss more on the 20 discs limitation. I would like to help you continue building your collection while the Tonal is in her early stage.

     

    Thank you again and sorry for the trouble.

     

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    12 hours ago, baoshan said:

     

    Hi jaspal,

     

    1. The deletion feature will be implemented very soon. Tomorrow maybe.

    2. Please send me a disc you believe which is AccurateRip or CUETools verifiable but rejected by Tonal. I’ll dive into the case.

    3. Please PM me and I would like to discuss more on the 20 discs limitation. I would like to help you continue building your collection while the Tonal is in her early stage.

     

    Thank you again and sorry for the trouble.

     

    HI again

     

    1.  Thanks for the deletion feature, and so quickly :-)

    2.  I will PM to ask you how to do this since one such disc (that can not be verified with CUETools is ~ 600MB). 

    3.  No, I'm fine with the 20 discs limit. It's just about 9 of my current discs are cd singles (which I don't want to listen to any more). Plus I can test your deletion function.

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    37 minutes ago, jaspal kallar said:

    HI again

     

    1.  Thanks for the deletion feature, and so quickly :-)

    2.  I will PM to ask you how to do this since one such disc (that can not be verified with CUETools is ~ 600MB). 

    3.  No, I'm fine with the 20 discs limit. It's just about 9 of my current discs are cd singles (which I don't want to listen to any more). Plus I can test your deletion function.

     

    Please use this build: http://binaries.ton.al/app/Tonal-20180423.zip

    Right click the cover art from the grid view, a pop-up will be shown.

     

     

     

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    3 hours ago, baoshan said:

     

    Please use this build: http://binaries.ton.al/app/Tonal-20180423.zip

    Right click the cover art from the grid view, a pop-up will be shown.

     

     

     

    Thanks, deletion works.  Now I can recommend Tonal to a few more people who are interested but wanted a deletion option first.

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    Hi again Baoshan,

    I have the following issues:

     

    • Two discs without cover (as minor issue, they belong to a collection of four discs: Brahms four symphonies by Giulini and they do not have exactly the same metadata)
    • Disc Bruckner Symphony does not play: I uploaded ALAC 24/96, not playing; deleted it and then uploaded FLAC 24/96, still does not play

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    5 hours ago, corente said:

    Hi again Baoshan,

    I have the following issues:

     

    • Two discs without cover (as minor issue, they belong to a collection of four discs: Brahms four symphonies by Giulini and they do not have exactly the same metadata)
    • Disc Bruckner Symphony does not play: I uploaded ALAC 24/96, not playing; deleted it and then uploaded FLAC 24/96, still does not play

     

    Hi corente,

     

    I wish the Giulini/Brahms boxset issue is fixed. Check it on your Tonal app and let me know if the result is satisfying.

     

    96/24 is supported. The source format of your audio is irrelevant. All music is stored in a proprietary format. If you click the play button and nothing happens, it may because your device does not support 96khz sample rate. Do you see a buffering animation? What device are you using?

     

    Sorry for the trouble, again.

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    I”ll check later if the Giulini / Brahms box set is fixed. If not, I will come again. Thank you.

     

    Regarding the other issue, no animation occurs when I try to play the 24/96 file. In fact, if I was playing another disc, the player remains in the other disc.

     

    Where I have this problem is in iMac, late 2015 if I remember well. I have to check if this problem happens also in my MacBook Air. Again, I”ll do that later.

     

     

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    Hi again,

    The issue with the 24/96 remains in iMac (late 2015): the feeling is that the app is an image when I click in the disc. No other disc has this problem.

     

    On the other side, it plays smoothly in MacBook Air (late 2010)

     

    Both Macs run 10.13.4

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    3 minutes ago, corente said:

    Hi again,

    The issue with the 24/96 remains in iMac (late 2015): the feeling is that the app is an image when I click in the disc. No other disc has this problem.

     

    On the other side, it plays smoothly in MacBook Air (late 2010)

     

    Both Macs run 10.13.4

     

    Hi corente,

     

    Why not collect another 96/24 disc on the iMac and see if it plays well?

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    Hello , I'd like try ....but only high Sierra ? I'm not ready to upgrade ...                             Thanks 

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    I´ve tried with another file with the same results: it plays in MacBook Air, it does not play in the iMac.

     

    I think the problem is the computer: in Audio Midi I have up to 96 kHz in MacBook Air and up to 48 kHz in iMac. I include screens :-(

     

    IMac.jpg

    MacBook Air.png

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    7 hours ago, corente said:

    I´ve tried with another file with the same results: it plays in MacBook Air, it does not play in the iMac.

     

    I think the problem is the computer: in Audio Midi I have up to 96 kHz in MacBook Air and up to 48 kHz in iMac. I include screens :-(

     

    IMac.jpg

    MacBook Air.png

     

     

    That’s unusual corente. iMac (late 2015) should support 192khz.

     

    https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202730

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