About Tone Empire
Built by people who record
Tone Empire exists for one reason: to put the sound of real analog hardware — and ten years of original DSP craft — inside every producer's DAW.
The founder
From Bollywood hit records to a residency at Motown in the Capitol Records Building — every Tone Empire plugin carries the DNA of a career spent chasing tone.
Gaurav Dayal's journey runs from engineering beats in India to crafting plugins in Irvine, California — spanning music in an Academy Award-winning film, over 10 million records sold, and years working alongside the vintage gear that built popular music.
Tone Empire grew out of that obsession: the racks, tubes and tape machines heard on those records, captured with neural modeling and original algorithms so they behave in your session the way the hardware behaves in the room.
The road here
Two decades of sound
Bollywood Sounds
Launched India's first beats-and-loops brand — pioneering production-ready Indian percussion years before anyone else.
The Beatfactory Academy
Founded one of India's first dedicated music production schools. Hundreds of graduates work across Bollywood and independent music.
Oscar-winning soundtrack
Music featured in the Academy Award-winning film “Gravity” — validation of an obsessive approach to sound quality.
Motown Records residency
Resident producer at Motown in the legendary Capitol Records Building, LA — absorbing the vintage gear that inspires every plugin.
Tone Empire is born
The first releases — Black Q and Goliath — set the mission: capture real analog behavior, not approximations of it.
25+ plugins & growing
Compressors, EQs, preamps, tape machines and strips — trusted by Grammy winners and working producers worldwide. Still boutique. Still obsessive.
The crew
Small team. Big sound.
Tone Empire ships plugins with the care of a studio, not a factory.
Navneet Bhatia
A 15+ year partnership — runs the digital storefront and keeps every purchase, license and download seamless.
Abhishek Midwal
Keeps the gears turning — from builds to releases to support, nothing ships without his sign-off.
Rohit Kakade
3D and interface specialist — the hand behind the faceplates that make every plugin look the way it sounds.
How we work
Built on three beliefs
Sound is everything
If it doesn't sound like the hardware, it doesn't ship. Every capture goes through hundreds of A/B tests against the original gear. No shortcuts, no “close enough.”
Real behavior, not snapshots
Neural engines trained on units in motion — tubes warming, transformers saturating, tape breathing — alongside original algorithms honed over ten years.
Producers first
Priced for working musicians, not corporate budgets. Support emails answered personally. Full 15-day trials on everything — decide with your ears.
Hear the obsession for yourself
25+ plugins and counting. Every one a labour of love.