This article takes another look at WORMHOLE from Zynaptiq to explore some of the sound design and manipulation tricks that this software has up its metaphoric sleeve for both music and post-production.

What Is WORMHOLE From Zynaptiq?

WORMHOLE consists of 5 processing modules: the spectral WARP, the pitch/frequency SHIFT, the dual random modulated hall REVERB, a nifty little DELAY, and the dry/wet morphing FX BLEND sections. WORMHOLE has been designed to be an ultra-fast and easy-to-use, high-end multi-effects processor in combination with a flexible signal path.

What Is WORMHOLE For?

While WORMHOLE is designed to excel at making the usually time-consuming workflows of creating high-quality Sci-Fi sounds and creature voices fast, easy, fun and extremely hi-fi, it actually covers a very broad range of applications – including musical sweetening and ambient effects from the grungy to the shimmering and lush, bread-and-butter mixing effects like creating suboctaves, widening, chorusing, filtering, harmonic shaping and reverberation, and some seriously psychedelic electronica colours and mangling effects. 

We Reviewed WORMHOLE - Check It Out

In this review, Pro Tools Expert Deputy Editor Dan Cooper takes a look at Zynaptiq's latest effects plug-in WORMHOLE. Watch the video to hear how WORMHOLE changes the character of Dan's voice and also the tonality of drums and piano in a mix. This is what Dan said about WORMHOLE when he reviewed it…

“I’ve always felt that plug-ins by Zynaptiq are in a league of their own. There's a very good chance you'll never hear anyone at Zynaptiq say “Let’s Emulate something….” No, that's not the Zynaptiq way of doing things as I feel they produce plug-ins that break the mould with WORMHOLE being a definite continuation of that.”

From the outset, Zynaptiq claimed that WORMHOLE was a new type of creative effects tool that produces:

• Otherworld audio effects

• Alien voices

• Sounds so unearthly you'll swear they're from a parallel universe

In the following videos, Zynaptiq demonstrates these and more…

Zynaptiq WORMHOLE Speech Processing Examples – Aliens, Robots, Monsters And More

Zynaptiq WORMHOLE has been designed to create convincing, high-quality creature and robot voices and space-age transmission effect simulations – while being fast and easy to use. This video shows speech manipulation sound examples, focusing on sound – no explanations included.

Zynaptiq WORMHOLE SFX Design Examples

This video demonstrates using WORMHOLE for designing Sci-Fi flavoured SFX, using a metal clang, a synth waveform and a ventilator fan recording as source files. No additional processing was used, just one source file through one instance of WORMHOLE at a time. No explanations, just sound.

WORMHOLE is designed to be good for making all sorts of creature and robotic voices, as well as making them sound like the gravimetric faster-than-light transceiver went out-of-range. The WARP and SHIFT sections provide the mangling, while the dry/wet morphing ensures intelligibility (even with extreme transformations) and serves to fine-tune the alienification amount – reigning even the strongest processing back in if so desired. Or use the morphing to gradually transition from clean to mutated in an otherwise impossible, cool way.

Zynaptiq WORMHOLE Alien Soundscape Examples

With WORMHOLE, creating otherworldy alien soundscapes that ooze strangeness becomes fast, easy and hi-fi. This video shows three examples, focusing on sound rather than in-depth explanations.

With WORMHOLE, you can also make spaceship atmospheres and neutrino accelerator field fluctuation induced interference oscillations. Turn cute metal clangs into huge impacts of intergalactic proportions, air-conditioning rumble into ancient planetoid displacement machinery hum, and synthesiser waveforms into mutated cyborg production facility power plant drones. Then, animate the sound organically by moving the dry/wet morph and section dry/wet mixes just a little bit. Or go crazy and automate everything all over the place, of course.

Zynaptiq WORMHOLE: Epic Piano And Drums Example

While WORMHOLE is great for creating extreme and strange sounds, it also excels at musical processing. This video shows it turning two piano tracks and a drum mix into an epic soundtrack-style ambient piece. The settings used are shown and commented on.

Zynaptiq WORMHOLE For Guitar

Guitars, pianos, pads all love WORMHOLE. It does just that thing that you'd typically reach for your really awesome vintage rack multi-effects units for, and feed them back to each other through the console... Did we mention the dual, cascadable random modulated hall reverbs yet?

Try For Yourself - Download Demo

For more information and to download the free demo please visit the Zynaptiq website.

Final Thoughts

We will leave the final thoughts to Dan Cooper…

“I can't see wormhole becoming an everyday effects processor in my workflow as the genres of music I work on don't really require this level of rich dimension shaping that WORMHOLE features. Sound designers, voice-over mixers and even directors should definitely check out WORMHOLE as it is a tool that doesn’t just produce voice effects, it creates characters.”