TapeEngine, Colony and edgeRunner retrograde arrive as free plugins

Gearnews rounded up three free plugins on 18 October 2026: PhotonDSP's TapeEngine, 13X Audio's Colony and Variety of Sound's edgeRunner retrograde.

TapeEngine is a tape simulator. Beyond Tone and Saturation controls, it has a Tape Motion section with Wow, Flutter and Drift, a Stereo & Damage section with Skew, Crosstalk and Dropouts, and a Noise & Texture section that adds hiss, rumble, hum and buzz in the manner of a worn cassette. Every parameter can be set on its own, while a main character control, drawn as a cassette, moves them all at once, from fresh tape to a broken machine. It is a VST3 plugin for Windows.

Colony is a multi-effect built from six cells that work individually or together: Drive, with five overdrive types from tube saturation to hard clipping; Pump, a sidechain compressor that makes tracks bounce with the kick; Width, with chorus and ensemble effects, mid-side processing and a high-pass filter; Color, with nine tone-shaping styles and a noise layer; Space, with six reverb styles; and Motion, an LFO and step modulator. A central Energy knob drives all six, and the Build view sets how far each one travels. It runs on macOS, Windows and Linux as VST3, AU or standalone.

edgeRunner retrograde adds analog character through three stages: Color for warmth and depth, Saturation, which simulates analog processors for punch and glue, and Distortion, which goes up to complete destruction. It is available for Windows in VST and VST3 formats.