Tonic Pad Player (MainStage)

Tonic plays an ambient pad in the key you choose. Use it to glue your band's sound together, smooth transitions between songs and keys, and underscore quieter moments.

The basics

• Turn it on or off: press On at the upper left of Tonic.
• Choose a key: click a key button. Tonic fades smoothly to the new key. The smoothest changes are to keys a 4th or 5th away (or sometimes a minor 3rd). For a minor-key song, try the relative major too and see which feels better.
• Volume: halfway up is a good starting point. Tonic fades in and out on its own, and you can use the volume control for a slower fade.

Shape the sound

Tonic generates its pad live, so you can shape it as it plays.

• Transform pad: drag the blue dot. Up adds shimmer, down reduces it. Right is brighter, left is darker. Each corner has its own character. The center works well for most songs.
• Shift Up: raises the whole pad an octave.
• Drone Center (top right): moves the pad down up to two octaves, or up a 5th, an octave or two octaves. Click and drag, or swipe up and down with two fingers.
• Drone Preset (top left): choose from eight pads, from subtle and airy to more aggressive. Click and drag, or swipe with two fingers.

Newer versions of Sunday Keys build motion, fifths and octaves into the presets themselves:

Set Drone Center and Drone Preset before the service. Changing them while Tonic plays can sound abrupt, and some presets make a small noise when you switch. That's a MainStage limitation. If you need to change them live, turn Tonic off (or fade it out) first, change the setting, then bring it back, or let Tonic Automator do it on your next Patch.

Control Tonic live

• From your phone or tablet with TouchOSC. It controls everything except Drone Preset and Drone Center. See Control Sunday Keys from your phone or tablet.
• From any MIDI controller. In Layout mode, assign a knob, button or pad to any Tonic control, including Drone Preset and Drone Center. See Map knobs, faders and buttons.
• Automatically when you change Patches with Tonic Automator.

Using drum pads? Set them to send MIDI CC (ideally on a different channel than your keys), using CC numbers that aren't commonly used, like 14 to 31. Your controller's manual shows how. Then assign them in Layout mode.

Send Tonic to its own output

If your audio interface has at least four outputs, you can send Tonic to the soundboard separately so the sound team can mix it on its own.

1. Make sure your audio interface is selected in MainStage > Settings (or Preferences) > Audio.
2. Click your concert's name next to the orange folder at the top of the Patch List.
3. In the channel strip area, scroll right to the Tonic Output channel strip (purple bar at the bottom).
4. Click its Output 1-2 and choose Output 3-4 (or another pair).

Use your own sounds in Tonic

You can load up to three of your own sounds into Tonic:

Tonic makes no sound

1. Make sure you're on a current version of MainStage.
2. Restart your computer.
3. Still silent? Download a fresh copy of Sunday Keys from My Purchases, or contact us.

Tonic turns on but won't turn off

This is a MainStage mapping glitch.

1. Click your concert's name to go to the concert level, then click the Tonic On button once.
2. In the Inspector, click the Latch mapping.
3. Make sure its Scale Parameter is a diagonal line. If not, click the box shown to set it.