Tulum 4 is out now on the App Store and Google Play

The fourth generation

Tulum 4: The Black Sea Bagpipe, Rebuilt for Touch.

Not a soundboard. A playable instrument.

If you can play a real tulum, you can play Tulum 4. The fingering, the grip and the relationship between both chanters have been rebuilt as a playable digital instrument for iPhone, iPad and Android.

Why it’s real

iPhone, iPad & Android11 languagesNo ads, no subscription

Tulum 4 on iPhone: ten gold keys laid out like the holes of a real tulum’s double chanter — three pairs above for the upper hand, two pairs below for the lower hand.

2012: First on the App Store
4: Generations, all still on the App Store
10,000+: Players reached since 2012
1st: Tulum MIDI controller in the world
5.0★: From its first 31 ratings in Türkiye

Why it’s real

Most virtual instruments imitate the sound. Tulum 4 recreates the way the instrument is played.

The goal was never to record a tulum and put the recordings behind buttons. The interaction itself is based on the real instrument: the fingering, the grip, the two chanters and the ornaments work the way a tulum player expects them to.

You can’t fret the strings of a virtual guitar or draw a bow across a virtual violin. The tulum is different. Its goatskin bag keeps the air flowing without a break, so everything a player does — every note, every ornament, every slide — happens in the fingers. Put those fingers in the right places on glass, and the instrument is all there.

Keys where the holes are

Three pairs for the upper hand, two for the lower, with either hand on top. A player’s muscle memory works from the first touch — there is no new fingering to learn.

Both chanters, both voices

The tulum’s double chanter sounds two pipes at once, and the small differences between them are its character. Tulum 4 plays both — the left pipe in the left channel, the right pipe in the right.

Ornaments without buttons

Tulum 4 recognises a çarpma from the same finger combination a player uses on the real instrument. Titretme and slides into the in-between notes of makam music come from the fingers, too.

Recorded from a real tulum

Four sound sets recorded from the instrument itself, transposable in semitone steps, with the Uşşak and Nihavend makams — or scales you build yourself.

The design problem

How do you put tulum fingering on a flat screen?

On a real tulum, each finger lies flat across the double chanter and seals two holes at once; roll it slightly and one hole opens while the other stays closed. That small movement is part of how the instrument is played — and it is exactly what a sheet of glass cannot feel.

On glass you play with your fingertips, so Tulum 4 gives every pair of holes two keys — one closes both pipes, the other just one. The physical movement becomes a pair of touch targets, and every shape a rolling finger can make is still within reach.

Touchscreens report where a fingertip lands — not the shape of a finger lying across them. That is the one difference left. If iOS ever lets apps sense a finger lying flat, we can close this last gap too.

Real tulumThe flat of the finger seals both holes; rolling it opens one.

Tulum 4The fingertip presses a key: one per pair closes both pipes, the other a single pipe.

Twin chanters

Two chanters. One instrument.

The tulum’s chanter is two pipes side by side, played by the same fingers. Tulum 4 treats them as two pipes, not as one sound.

Under the same fingers

Every pair of holes has two keys: one closes both pipes, the other just one. As with a rolling finger on the real chanter, you choose whether both pipes change or only one.

Each pipe in its own channel

The left pipe plays in the left channel, the right pipe in the right. Listen in stereo and you hear two pipes side by side, with the small differences between them intact.

Two lanes on the score

When a take becomes notation, both chanters are drawn as two separate lanes, so you can read what each pipe played.

Two ways to play

On its own. Or with the Tulum MIDI Controller.

Physical fingering. Digital instrument. For players who want a chanter in their hands, the Tulum MIDI Controller puts the fingering back on a physical body — and Tulum 4 turns it into sound.

Just the app

Your phone or tablet is the instrument

The touchscreen is a complete tulum. Tune the size, shape and position of every key to your hands, choose key themes and colour palettes, and lock any hole closed for closed-tulum playing. Nothing else to buy.

Tulum 4 while recording: the metronome set to 100 BPM in 5/8 time beside the instrument keys.

Optional hardware

Tulum MIDI Controller

Shaped like the real double chanter, with ten brass touch points where the holes are. Plug it in and your fingers land exactly where they would on a tulum; Tulum 4 recognises it and maps every hole one to one.

USB-C MIDI — Bluetooth LE on wireless models
Touch calibration in the app adapts it to your fingers
Volume slider on the underside
Keeps sounding with the screen locked, like a hardware sound module

Photograph of a Tulum MIDI Controller production unit with its USB-C cable. — A production unit.

Made in small batches and sold separately — Tulum 4 is complete without it. For details and availability, message us on WhatsApp.

Ask on WhatsApp Email

Learn

From one key to your first tune.

Tulum 4 is built to teach, not just to play — whether you have never held a tulum or you teach it.

Beginner mode. Colour-coded keys guide your fingers from a single note to a whole tune, step by step.
Fingering and titretme guides for every hole, so you know what each one does.
Exercises for single notes, scales, ornaments and folk songs.
Write your own lessons by typing the notes or simply playing them — then send them to a student as a .tlm file.
Play along as the notes scroll by, and slow the tune down for the hard bars.

Beginner mode: large numbered keys and a prompt telling the player which key to press next.

The learning section: practical tips, tulum and sipsi notes, exercises and your own lessons.

Record & score

Play, record, read the score.

Every take can become notation — and every file can leave the app.

A recording shown as notation: both chanters drawn as two lanes on a scrolling score, with playback controls and BPM.

Recording to notation

Record as you play and Tulum 4 turns the take into a score you can preview on A4.

Export anywhere

Open the MIDI file in your DAW or notation software.

.wav.aac.mp4.mid.pdf.txt.tlm

Nine effects

Reverb, chorus, vibrato, tremolo, compressor, ring modulator, bit crusher, room simulator and stereo widener — with room presets and your own saved chains.

Black Sea time

A metronome with BPM control and the region’s own time signatures, such as 5/8.

A sound with a memory

Made by a developer and a tulum player.

The tulum is the bagpipe of the eastern Black Sea — Rize, Trabzon, Artvin, Gümüşhane: a goatskin bag, a double chanter and a sound that never stops for breath. It carries the horon dances and the highland songs.

The app began with a single sentence. Davut Engin was looking for an idea for a mobile app and landed on a virtual instrument; he called tulum musician Selim Tarım, who answered: “Let’s make the tulum first.” Selim brought the sounds, the mentoring and the testing; Davut the software and, later, the electronics.

It did not stop at one app. Since 2012 the work has run through four generations, each one built by studying how the tulum is actually played and translating more of that behaviour into software — not by putting recordings behind buttons. Inside Tulum 4, an illustrated “Story of the Tulum” tells the rest.

Let’s make the tulum first.

Selim TarımTulum musician — ideas, sounds, mentoring and testing

The app and its story speak eleven languages

TürkçeEnglishΕλληνικάDeutschРусскийالعربيةفارسیEspañolPortuguês日本語中文

Players have been filming it since 2012

All 26 videos on YouTube →

Tulum iPhone uygulaması2012 · the first video, 55K+ views

Selim Tarım — iPhone Tulum uygulaması hakkında2012 · Selim on the app

Tarık İhtiyar — Kapıya Sandaliye (iPad Tulum)2014 · a folk song on iPad

Dünyanın En Gerçekçi Sanal Enstrümanı — Tulum 32020 · the third generation

Four generations

Every generation is still on the App Store.

4th generation · 2026

Tulum 4 New

The real grip, both chanters, ornaments and slides, lessons, recording to notation and the Tulum MIDI Controller.

App Store Google Play

3rd generation · 2020

Tulum 3

Brought closed-tulum playing, with an adjustable number of closed holes.

App Store Google Play

2nd generation

Tulum II

The second generation, still available for players who love the classic feel.

App Store

1st generation

Tulum

Where the series began: the Black Sea tulum on a phone for the very first time.

App Store

For press & App Store editors

Press kit

Product: Tulum 4 — store listing “Tulum 4: Turkish Bagpipe”
Developer: Davut Engin — independent developer, maker and musician, Türkiye. Has built the Tulum app series since 2012, from the software to the Tulum MIDI Controller’s electronics.
Tulum musician: Selim Tarım — ideas, sounds, mentoring and testing
Released: 19 September 2026 · version 1.0 (App Store) · now also on Google Play
Platforms: iPhone and iPad (iOS 15 or later) · Android
Category: Music
Business model: One-time purchase · no ads · no subscription · no account needed
Languages: 11 — Turkish, English, Greek, German, Russian, Arabic, Persian, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese and Chinese
Size · age: 72 MB (iOS) · 4+ · PEGI 3
Hardware: Optional Tulum MIDI Controller — USB-C MIDI, Bluetooth LE on wireless models; made in small batches
Download: App Store · Google Play
Contact: info@davutengin.com · WhatsApp Tulum MIDI Controller line · Instagram @sanaltulum · YouTube @sanaltulum

Assets

In one sentence

Tulum 4 is a playable digital reconstruction of the Black Sea tulum for iPhone, iPad and Android, built around the real instrument’s fingering, twin chanters and performance behaviour.

In 50 words

Tulum 4 rebuilds the tulum — the double-chanter bagpipe of Turkey’s eastern Black Sea — as a playable digital instrument for iPhone, iPad and Android. Same fingering, same grip, both chanters in stereo, ornaments and slides from the fingers. Learn from zero, turn recordings into notation, or play it with the optional Tulum MIDI Controller.

The Black Sea Bagpipe, Rebuilt for Touch.

A Black Sea instrument. A new way to play it.

iPhone, iPad & AndroidWorks offlineQuestions? Support

@sanaltulum @sanaltulum