Each rendered file carries an acoustic watermark that can be recovered only with the original seed. By re-running the detection math anyone can confirm the mark's presence. The detector code and the full specification are published openly. No platform lock-in is required.
Listener tier (verifier) is free and available now. Studio (composition + signing + Live bridge) opens to the beta waitlist as the Live integration finishes.
| Track | Key | BPM | z-score | LUFS | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Engines Reply | C | 84 | 61.563 | -14.00 | verified |
| Velvet Algorithm | Dm | 68 | 43.639 | -14.00 | verified |
| The Mycelium Network | Bm | 68 | 32.938 | -14.00 | verified |
| Desert Transmission | Em | 72 | 24.352 | -14.00 | verified |
| Analog Heart | F#m | 118 | 23.135 | -14.00 | verified |
| Echoes of Syd | Em | 78 | 21.321 | -14.00 | verified |
| Signal Return | Em | 170 | 17.774 | -14.00 | verified |
Detection threshold is z > 3. The lowest score above (Signal Return, z=17.8) is nearly six times that floor. Unrelated seeds on the same audio land between -2 and +2. There is no ambiguous middle ground. Each row is reproducible from the attestation JSON in renders/master-demo/.
A deterministic walk over four phase states is derived from a SHA-256 hash of the seed. Each step samples one byte for the move (-2, -1, 0, +1) and one for phase amplitude. Twenty five thousand steps over a nine-minute track. The same seed always produces the same walk.
state = 0
for k in 0..K-1:
bytes = SHA-256(seed + "#" + k)
move = (bytes[0] mod 4) - 2
state = ((state + move) mod 4 + 4) mod 4
phase = (bytes[1] / 255) * 2 - 1
w[k] = STATE_AMPLITUDES[state] * phaseA sine carrier at 60 to 130 Hz, mixed about 36 dB below the noise floor of any modern release master, modulated by the walk. Below the listening range that masks heavily; above the band that lossy codecs aggressively cut. Inaudible. Survivable.
c[i] = sin(2π · Fc · i / Fs)
linear = 10^(-36 / 20)
for i in 0..N-1:
k = floor(i / 1024)
audio[i] += linear · c[i] · w[k]Verification re-derives the walk and the carrier from the disclosed seed, computes the normalized projection of the audio onto the reference signal, and tests against a null distribution of eight random seeds. A z-score above three is a verdict.
correlation = Σ (audio · c · w)
/ Σ (c · w)²
z = (correlation − μ_null) / σ_null
detected = |correlation| > 5e-3
AND |z| > 3"Talon does not own verification; arithmetic does."
· Master Provenance Whitepaper, section 5
d78db781689999b482c4327ede5c0670f35da9d6580250f9c87681165527bfcb
What works in this beta: the Verify tab is fully functional, ships with six signed Substrate clips, and runs the math entirely on-device. What doesn't yet: the Compose tab requires Node 18+ already on PATH because v0.1.0 has no hermetic runtime; the Max for Live bridge ships in Studio after beta. Signing: ad-hoc only; macOS warns on first open. Right-click the app and choose Open to bypass. v0.1.1 ships notarized.
crowetalon.pro/<artist>/<track><label>.crowetalon.proListener is free because the verifier is MIT-licensed code anyone can run, fork, or embed. Studio is in private beta while the Live bridge, hermetic-Node bundle, signing-key issuance, and attestation registry are finished; we'll email the waitlist when each cohort opens. Label engagements are scoped per-customer; reach out and we will scope it together.
….
The signed master WAV ships alongside the album release.
crypto.subtle.digest,
re-synthesizes the carrier, and projects the audio onto it.
Tests the result against eight random null seeds. Five to thirty seconds
depending on track length and your machine.
$ talon master verify path/to/file.wav \
--seed substrate-engines-reply-v1-2026-05-07 \
--carrier 130.81
Detected: YES
Correlation: 2.4406e-2
Null mean=-2.261e-4 stdev=4.001e-4 (n=8)
Z-score: 61.563
The file never leaves your device. All computation runs in
this tab via crypto.subtle.digest for the SHA-256
walk derivation and pure JavaScript for the carrier and
correlation. Closing the tab destroys the in-memory audio.
The verification primitives (walk derivation, carrier synthesis, normalized cross-correlation, z-score test) and the whitepaper are released under LICENSE-VERIFY (MIT). Re-implement in any language with SHA-256; the math will agree.
The signing pipeline (orchestrator, DSP stages, planner, manifest), the macOS app, and Substrate Volume 1 sources are all under LICENSE-ALBUM (all rights reserved). The signer is the product. The verifier is the proof anyone can trust the product.