TugPhonon 1.0.0

TugPhonon — Vintage Rotating Tape Delay PluginA digital recreation of the Poullin / Schaeffer phonogène, 1951TugPhonon is a modern software recreation of the legendary rotating magnetic disk delay machines pioneered by Jacques Poullin and Pierre Schaeffer at GRM Paris in 1951. This is not a simple delay — it is a sound transformation instrument.A virtual magnetic disk spins continuously. Eight independent playback heads are positioned around it, each reading from a different point in time. The result is a rich, swirling web of echoes, textures, and timbres that no conventional delay can produce.Features• 8 independent playback heads — each with its own delay position, volume, pan, and feedback• Per-head band-pass filter — sculpt the tone of each echo independently• Physical modelling resonators per head — choose from 8 resonator types:Karplus-Strong, Comb, Bell, Pipe, Marimba, Beam, and Membrane(based on real acoustic physics: Bessel functions, Euler-Bernoulli beam theory, measured bell partial ratios)• Host-sync or free-running loop — from 1/128 triplet to double whole note• Modulation section — LFO with multiple waveforms applied to head positions• Animated disk visualizer — see the virtual disk and heads in real time• Preset system — save, load, and delete your own presets• AU and VST3 — Apple Silicon native (arm64), macOS 12+• Signed and notarized by AppleWhat is TugPhonon?TugPhonon simulates a rotating magnetic disk with 8 playback heads — a concept pioneered by Pierre Schaeffer and Jacques Poullin in the early 1950s. Audio is continuously written onto a virtual tape loop. The 8 heads read back from different positions on that loop simultaneously, each with its own filter, effects chain, and spatial placement. The result is somewhere between a tape delay, a granular texture machine, and a spectral decomposition tool. Preset Bar At the top of the plugin, left to right:• OPEN FOLDER — Opens a folder browser to choose where presets are stored. Your choice is remembered between sessions.• SAVE — Saves the current state as a new preset (you'll be prompted for a name).• Preset dropdown — Select a saved preset. The list reflects the contents of the chosen folder.• DEL — Deletes the currently selected preset from disk.Disk VisualizerThe circular display in the center shows the virtual tape disk rotating in real time.• The outer ring is the disk housing.• The 8 playback heads are shown as markers on the disk edge. Their spacing depends on the Spread knob.• The inner band shows the rotating tape surface with timing marks.• At the 12 o'clock position, two orange triangles indicate input signal level — they glow brighter as the signal gets louder.• The amber dot outside the ring shows which head is currently selected in the head strip below.VU / WAVE toggle (bottom of left column): Switches the disk display between per-head level meters (VU) and a circular waveform view of the recorded loop (WAVE).Left Column — Loop & Output ControlsLoop• Loop knob / Rate dropdown — Sets the length of the tape loop. • SYNC on: Loop length locks to DAW tempo. Choose a note value from the dropdown (1nd through 128nt — 24 options). • SYNC off: Loop length is set in seconds (0.05s to 4.0s). The knob has a non-linear curve — most useful range is in the lower half.• SYNC button — Toggles between tempo-synced and free-running loop.Spread• Spread — Controls how far apart the 8 heads are positioned on the disk. • At 0: all heads read the same position (unison/phase effect). • At 1: heads span the full loop length, evenly distributed. • Values in between give various comb-filtering and echo textures.Output• Feedback (0.0 – 0.95) — How much of the output is fed back into the loop. The feedback path runs through soft saturation, so it won't self-oscillate uncontrollably even at high values, but it will build up density.• Mix (0.0 – 1.0) — Dry/wet blend. 0 = input only, 1 = processed signal only.• Wet Gain (0.0 – 4.0) — Extra level boost on the wet signal, up to +12 dB. Useful when the effect is subtle and needs to be louder in the mix.Utility Buttons• RESET — Returns all parameters to factory defaults.• RND — Randomizes spread, feedback, mix, modulation parameters, and all per-head settings. Good for discovering unexpected textures quickly.• VU / WAVE — Toggles disk display mode (see Disk Visualizer above).Right Column — ModulationTugPhonon has two modulation modes, switched by the button at the top of this column.Global Modulation (default)A single LFO modulates the position of all 8 heads together. The heads move in a ripple — like a wave passing across them — rather than all moving identically.• Wave — LFO shape: Sine, Sawtooth, Triangle, Square, Reverse Saw, or Sample & Hold.• Mod Rate / SYNC — Rate of the LFO. Same sync/free logic as the loop: SYNC on locks to DAW tempo with a note value dropdown; SYNC off lets you set Hz directly (0.05–20 Hz).• Depth — How much the heads move. At 0 there is no modulation. At 1 the swing is ±12% of the full loop length.• Duration — Gate duty cycle. At 1.0 the modulation runs continuously. Lower values create a gate effect — the modulation is active for only a portion of each LFO cycle, then cuts off. At 0.5, for example, the effect pulses on and off in equal time.Individual ModulationWhen switched to Individual Modulation, each head has its own independent LFO. The global controls become inactive. Settings are found in each head's MOD tab (see Head Strip below).Head StripThe bottom section shows 8 head channels, scrollable horizontally. Each head has:• Number label (1–8) and an enable toggle — disable a head to remove it from the mix entirely without deleting its settings.• Pan knob — Stereo placement, left to right. Uses equal-power panning.• Offset knob — Fine-tunes this head's tap position relative to its default evenly-spaced slot. Useful for nudging a head slightly earlier or later for rhythmic displacement.• Gain knob — Output level for this head.Each head has four tabs:FILTER Tab• Freq (20 Hz – 18 kHz) — Center frequency of the band-pass filter applied to this head's output. Default values follow a V-curve across heads (heads 1 and 8 are bright, heads 4 and 5 are dark), which gives spectral spread out of the box.• Q (0.5 – 12) — Resonance of the band-pass filter. Higher Q = narrower, more resonant band.• Drive (0.0 – 1.0) — Tape saturation. Applies soft-clipping (tanh) after the filter. At low values it adds subtle warmth; at high values it becomes obviously distorted.• LFO Depth — Amount of random pitch/frequency scatter applied to this head. At full depth the frequency swings up to ±3 octaves.• LFO Rate — How fast the scatter jumps. Uses a sample-and-hold mechanism — the frequency jumps to a new random value at each LFO period. Selects from the same 24 note values as the loop rate.MOD Tab (visible in Individual Modulation mode)Same parameters as Global Modulation, but specific to this head:• Wave shape, Rate (sync or free), Depth, Duration.FX Tab• Tremolo Rate (0.1 – 20 Hz) — Speed of amplitude modulation (tremolo). A sine LFO scales the head's output level.• Tremolo Depth (0.0 – 1.0) — Amount of amplitude swing. At 1.0 the signal swings between full and about 50% level.• Ring Freq (10 – 5000 Hz) — Carrier frequency for the ring modulator. Ring modulation multiplies the head signal by a sine wave, producing sum and difference sidebands.• Ring Mix (0.0 – 1.0) — Blend between the dry filtered signal and the ring-modulated signal.RES TabPhysical modeling resonators that respond to the head's audio and re-emit it at a specific pitch and decay.• Mode — Resonator type: • Off — Bypass, no resonator. • K-S — Karplus-Strong string model. Bright attack, pitch-shifted decay. • Comb — Simple delay feedback without frequency shaping. Bright, metallic. • Bell — Partial ratios based on measured church bell acoustics. Slightly inharmonic, rich overtones. • Pipe — Closed-open cylindrical pipe. Only odd harmonics, hollow character. • Marimba — Undercut wooden bar tuning. The second mode is pulled sharp, which is characteristic of marimba. • Beam — Free-free Euler-Bernoulli bar. Very high inharmonicity — metallic and unpitched-sounding even at a defined fundamental. • Membrane — Circular drum modes using Bessel function zero ratios. Dense upper partials.• Pitch (20 – 4000 Hz) — Fundamental frequency of the resonator.• Decay (0.01 – 8 sec) — T60 decay time. Higher modes always decay faster than the fundamental regardless of this setting — the difference is more pronounced at short decay values.• Mix (0.0 – 1.0) — Blend between the head's filtered/FX signal and the resonator output.AutomationAll 169 parameters are automatable. The per-head parameters follow the naming convention param​Name​_0 through param​Name​_7 (zero-indexed). For example, the BPF frequency of head 3 is bpf​Freq​_2.