TONO fact sheet

Key facts

Descriptions to quote

One line

TONO is the all-in-one audio and display control app for Mac.

About 50 words

TONO is the all-in-one audio and display control app for Mac. It puts a system-wide equalizer, 3D and 8D sound, a volume fader and an output for every app, recording and a noise-filtered virtual microphone into one window – plus a hearing test, a visualizer, brightness below the minimum and window snapping. Free to keep, with TONO Pro for everything.

About 100 words

TONO is the all-in-one audio and display control app for Mac. It shapes the sound of every app – Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, games, calls – with a system-wide equalizer of up to 24 bands, turns it into 3D or 8D sound with AirPods head tracking, and gives every app its own volume and output. It records system audio, a single app or a call, cleans your microphone for Discord, Zoom and OBS, tunes the sound to your ears with a five-minute hearing test, and dims every display below the macOS minimum. TONO uses Core Audio process taps, needs no kernel extension, and runs on macOS 15+ with Apple silicon.

Modules, Free and Pro

Details for each module: Features.

Technology in brief

• Audio: Core Audio process taps (the macOS 14.2+ interface for capturing other apps’ audio), processed in memory with a few milliseconds of latency. No kernel extension, no virtual output device for the sound.
• Virtual microphone: Mic Studio’s “TONO Mikro” is a small user-space audio driver, installed only when you set it up and removable in the app.
• Displays: macOS’s own brightness for built-in and Apple displays, DDC/CI for external monitors, a software overlay for DisplayLink, AirPlay and Sidecar screens.
• Windows: the macOS Accessibility interface, for position and size only.
• Updates: signed updates through Sparkle.

The full explanation, with the signal path and every permission: How TONO works.

Privacy

• No account, no analytics, no ads.
• Sound is processed live on the Mac, in memory. Nothing is recorded unless you press record, and recordings stay on the Mac.
• The app goes online to check the license and to look for updates.
• This website sets no cookies and loads nothing from third parties.

What TONO is not

• Not in the Mac App Store: TONO installs an audio driver for its virtual microphone and uses system interfaces App Store apps can’t (for example for display brightness), so it’s distributed directly.
• Not a medical device: the hearing test tunes sound and doesn’t diagnose anything.
• Not affiliated with Apple. Mac and macOS are trademarks of Apple Inc.

Names and spelling

• TONO in capitals, in every language; TONO Free and TONO Pro for the two tiers.
• The virtual microphone is TONO Mikro in every language.
• Modules in English: Equalizer, 3D & Space, App Mixer, Recording, Mic Studio, Visualizer, Brightness, Windows, Hearing Profile, Auto Rules, Stream Mode, Sleep Timer, Monitor, Tools.
• Modules in German: Equalizer, 3D & Raum, App-Mixer, Aufnahme, Mikro-Studio, Visualizer, Helligkeit, Fenster, Hörprofil, Auto-Regeln, Stream-Modus, Sleep-Timer, Monitor, Tools.
• Please don’t write “Tono app”, “ToNo” or “T.O.N.O.”, and don’t add a ® – TONO is not a registered trademark.

Brand assets

• App icon, PNG 512 × 512: icon-512.png
• App icon, Alu and Graphit finish, WebP 960 × 960: icon-alu-960.webp, icon-graphit-960.webp
• The mark, SVG: favicon.svg
• Social image, 1200 × 630: og-en.jpg (German: og-de.jpg)
• The main window, Alu and Graphit, 2400 px: window-alu-2400.webp, window-graphit-2400.webp

The mark is a machined knob with one orange index at 70% of its travel. Please don’t recolor the index, rotate the mark or set the name in another typeface.