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Tones

A tone is a reusable voice-behavior preset that shapes how a voice communicates — its formality, verbosity, and conversational stance. Tones let you configure voice personality separately from the system prompt, so you can mix the same role with different communication styles.

Built-in Tones

Polyphon ships five built-in tone presets:

ToneBehavior
ProfessionalFormal and precise. Cite sources where relevant. Minimal filler.
CollaborativePeer-to-peer tone. Think out loud. Push back respectfully when you disagree.
ConciseKeep answers short unless asked for depth. No preamble or padding.
ExploratoryOpen-ended and curious. Tangents are welcome. Brainstorming mode.
TeachingExplain your reasoning. I want to understand, not just get answers.

Built-in tones can be edited and deleted just like custom tones — changes take effect in new sessions.

Tones settings tab showing five built-in tone cards with names and descriptions

Creating a Custom Tone

To create a custom tone:

  1. Go to Settings → Tones.
  2. Click Add Tone.
  3. Fill in:
    • Name — a short label shown in dropdowns (e.g. “Socratic”)
    • Description — a one-line summary shown alongside the name
    • Instructions — the behavioral directive injected into the voice’s system prompt
  4. Click Save.

Custom tone creation form with Socratic name and question-first reasoning description

Editing and Deleting Tones

On any tone card in Settings → Tones, click Edit to modify its name, description, or instructions, or Delete to remove it. Changes to a tone do not affect sessions that are already in progress — they apply to new sessions only.

Tones tab showing built-in tones plus custom Socratic tone with Edit and Delete buttons

Assigning a Tone to a Voice

Tones can be set at two levels:

Per-voice override (Composition Builder)

When adding or configuring a voice in the Composition Builder, the Tone dropdown lets you select a specific tone for that voice. Select any built-in or custom tone from the list, or leave it at Use conductor default to inherit the default from your Conductor Profile.

Voice configuration tone selector showing built-in and custom tones

Conductor default (Conductor Profile)

The default tone in your Conductor Profile is applied to every voice that does not have a per-voice tone override. Set it in Settings → Conductor Profile.

See Conductor Profile for details.