Tonegrid Pattern Renderer

What it is for

The Tonegrid Pattern Renderer turns a Tonegrid project into a finished audio file without opening the app. You paste the project — the content of a .tonegrid.json file, the project object the Tonegrid Pattern Builder returns, or a Tonegrid share link — choose one pattern loop or the whole song, and get a 16-bit stereo WAV at 44.1 kHz.

It is the same renderer the Tonegrid app uses for its WAV export, so a file made here and a file exported in the app are byte for byte identical. That makes it handy for scripts and AI agents: build a pattern with the Pattern Builder, render it here, and pass the WAV on to a converter or a video.

It does not record anything, load samples or change the music. Projects longer than 120 seconds or with more than 3,000 notes and drum hits in the chosen range are refused here; the app renders up to five minutes on your own device.

Worked example

The first example uses the Lo-fi evening template with the reverb room set to Living room, a melody send of 0.35, a drum send of 0.08 and the drums panned to 0.3 (right). With Range set to the pattern loop, the tool returned:

• File length 2.93 s, a seamless loop with 24 notes and drum hits.
• Peak level −12.9 dBFS and RMS level −32.1 dBFS, crest factor 19.2 dB, no clipped samples.
• Per channel: left peak −17.5 dBFS, right peak −12.9 dBFS — the drums sit on the right, as panned.
• Strongest spectral lines at 293.3 Hz and 522.5 Hz, the D and C of the pad chords.

To see the headroom getting tight, I took the Shuffle blues template, raised volume, melody and drum level to 100 %, and panned the drums to −0.4. The loop peaked at −6.2 dBFS on the left channel, still with zero clipped samples. Any clipping would show up as a warning and in the clipped-samples count.

How to read the result

The metrics at the top give the file length, the number of events, peak and RMS level, crest factor and clipped samples. Peak is the loudest single sample; RMS is the average level; a large crest factor (around 20 dB) is normal for sparse, percussive loops.

The levels table splits peak and RMS into left and right, so you can confirm panning decisions. The spectrum chart shows where the energy sits, with the strongest lines marked; the waveform overview shows the shape over time. seamlessLoop is true for pattern renders: the ring-out of long notes and the reverb tail is folded back onto the start, so the file repeats without a gap. Song renders add at least 1.5 s of ring-out (longer with reverb) and a 10 ms fade at the very end.

Tips and common mistakes

• Render the pattern for loops in games, videos or DAWs, and the song for a finished piece.
• A reverb send only sounds if the room is not set to none; a send of 0 leaves the file identical to a dry render.
• Peaks above −1 dBFS leave little room for MP3 encoding. Lower the master volume before converting.
• The renderer reads share links directly, so you can paste the link the Pattern Builder returns.
• Live playback in a browser uses Web Audio; tiny differences from this file (oscillator tables, reverb length) are expected.

FAQ

Is the WAV the same as the app's export?

Yes. The app and this tool call the same rendering function, and the test suite checks that both produce identical bytes for the same project.

Why is my loop not exactly a whole number of milliseconds?

The loop length follows the tempo exactly and is rounded to whole samples, so it can be a fraction of a sample shorter or longer than the ideal length.

Can I get MP3 instead of WAV?

Render the WAV here, then convert it with the Universal Audio Converter, or match streaming loudness with the Audio Loudness Normalizer.

Which project versions are accepted?

Every Tonegrid project from version 1 to 3. Files without pan or reverb settings render centred and dry.