Developer Tuğrul Akyüz has released TugPhonon, a free vintage rotating tape-delay plugin.
When plugins like those two come up, I often refer to them as something a little bit different, and that’s true. This time, we might have something very different: a delay plugin based on a weird and wonderful tape device from 1951.
TugPhonon is a free rotating tape delay plugin based on the Phonogène by Jacques Poullin and Pierre Schaeffer.
Jacques Poullin and Pierre Schaeffer developed the Phonogène for the Groupe de Recherches Musicales (GRM), primarily intended for the creation of Musique Concrète.
Musique Concrète is a genre that prioritises real-world sounds, such as street noise, over traditional instruments.
Composers like Pierre Schaeffer, Pierre Henry, and Lannis Xenakis pioneered the unconventional style.
The Phonogène featured multiple playback heads and allowed manipulation of recorded sound through speed/pitch variation. One model featured a single-octave keyboard for musically accurate pitch-shifting.
TugPhonon is available in AU and VST3 formats for macOS and Windows.
The plugin features eight independent playback heads positioned around a virtual rotating magnetic disk.
Each playback head has an independent band-pass filter and a dedicated delay position, along with volume, pan, and feedback settings.
Additionally, TugPhonon features eight physical modelling resonators per head.
With each head reading from a different position simultaneously, this thing is wild, in the best possible way.
You can adjust the length of the tape loop and have it in free-running or tempo-synced modes. You can also adjust the distance between the playback heads (Spread).
TugPhonon features two modulation modes: Global and Individual.
In Individual Modulation mode, each playback head has a dedicated LFO.
Basically, there are multiple ways to make this wild delay even wilder.
But, when I say wild, I don’t mean uncontrollable noise (although it offers that too), I mean it creates complex rhythmic results that aren’t typical of any standard delay plugin.
It covers all kinds of glitchy rhythmic effects, whether it’s more organic-sounding or extremely robotic. It creates beautiful textures and horrible textures equally well, making it suitable for a wide range of sound design needs.
The plugin comes with some very good factory presets, and the icing on the cake is that the GUI looks great!
The developer calls TugPhonon a sound transformation instrument, rather than a simple delay, and that sounds about right.
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Last Updated on April 21, 2026 by Tomislav Zlatic.
