Instrument 01 · AU / VST3 · macOS
A scoring instrument for composers who build worlds. 26 Places, from castles and taverns to spaceports and nebulae, playing in your song’s key and tempo.
US$59introductory price, then US$89
Trailer coming soon
How it works
Most instruments give you sounds and leave the scene to you. WORLDBUILDER starts with the scene. Choose a castle, a forge, a city at night or a nebula, and it plays music that belongs there: tonal, rhythmic and in your song’s key and tempo, over a living environment of wind, water, fire, ice and thunder.
Play up to four Places at once, shape them with one Score Intensity dial, and arrange the result into a cue you can export for picture or for a game.
The Places
Each Place is an ensemble of six instruments with three Characters that change its patterns, harmony and sound. Press play to hear one.
Brass drones, tuned bells, horn calls, processional timpani, harp and a choir.
Characters: Fortress · Royal Court · Besieged
Lute, hurdy-gurdy, hand drums, marimba, a recorder and small bell jingles.
Characters: Market Day · Harvest Night · Quiet Dawn
Arpeggiated pulses, wide pads, thruster risers, PA tones and an engine drone.
Characters: Busy Hub · Abandoned Dock · Launch
Tuned anvil, a piston ostinato, steam swells, bowed metal and a furnace bass.
Characters: Steam Mill · Iron Forge · Assembly Line
Muted chimes, synth bass, electric piano, a crowd in key, sirens and traffic hum.
Characters: Rush Hour · Night City · Rain-soaked
Breathy flute, bird calls, wood percussion, a recorded kalimba and string pads.
Characters: Enchanted · Dark Woods · Morning Glade
Organic pulses, glassy calls, a chittering rhythm, formant drones and a swarm.
Characters: Dormant · Awakening · Swarm
Choir, gongs, singing bowls, a chant drone, temple bells and zither.
Characters: Sacred Dawn · Ancient Rite · Forsaken
Tuned drips, a sub drone, metal taps, bowed bass and crystal resonances.
Characters: Crystal Cave · Deep Mine · Flooded
Piano shards, a lo-fi music box, broken bells, cold wind and recorded violin.
Characters: Overgrown · Haunted · Desolate
Engine drone, life support, computer arpeggios, airlocks, hull and a soft alarm.
Characters: Cruising · Red Alert · Derelict
Lush pads, mallets, synthetic birdsong, water plucks and a ventilation hum.
Characters: Thriving · Night Cycle · Failing
Creaking wood, concertina, rope swells, a ship’s bell, waves and gulls.
Characters: Calm Seas · Storm · Ghost Ship
Electric piano, a soft pop pulse, wind chimes, a sprinkler hat and a music box.
Characters: Sunny Afternoon · Evening · Uncanny
Smooth electric piano, vibraphone, PA chimes, an escalator hum and a fountain.
Characters: Busy Weekend · Empty Night · Dead Mall
Snare marches, bugle calls, low drums, radio blips and tense strings.
Characters: Morning Drill · On Alert · Night Watch
Guitar plucks, steel drum, wave swells, a shaker, a breezy pad and gulls.
Characters: Tropical Day · Sunset · Stormy Shore
Recorded oud, frame drums, ney flute, a tanpura drone and wind whistles.
Characters: Oasis · Endless Dunes · Sandstorm
Harpsichord, string pads, fanfare brass, glockenspiel, timpani and choir.
Characters: Grand Ball · Throne Room · Fallen Palace
Recorded lute and fiddle, frame drum, glass clinks, squeezebox and stomps.
Characters: Lively Night · Quiet Corner · Brawl
A rotating-hull drone, docking clamps, comms beeps and a zero-g lead.
Characters: Routine Orbit · Emergency · Abandoned
Grit bass, a neon arpeggio, rain pads, a drum machine and glitch stabs.
Characters: Night Market · Corporate Tower · Riot
Console arpeggios, a warp-core drone, a tactical pulse and alert brass.
Characters: Cruising · Battle Stations · Warp Jump
A drilling ostinato, grind bass, metal clanks, a worker hymn and a beacon.
Characters: Shift Change · Cave-in · Night Shift
Eroded crystals, ancient machine pulses, an alien choir and ritual drums.
Characters: Dormant · Reawakening · Guardian
Vast evolving pads, cosmic wind, star bells, stardust and solar flares.
Characters: Drift · Stellar Nursery · Void
Demos are placeholders until the real recordings are in.
Inside
Every instrument plays a pattern you can open and edit: a piano roll with velocity and chance lanes, variants A, B, C and a fill. Play parts in from your MIDI keyboard, drop in a MIDI file, or drag a pattern out to your DAW.
Build a cue in sections (intro, build, climax, wind-down and more), each with its own length and intensity curve. Start from a template, or let Auto-arrange make a first pass for you to shape.
Render the full mix or one stem per Place, export sections that loop as seamless loops, and render each section’s ending as a stinger, ready for a game engine or an edit.
Save up to eight complete versions of your world as Locations, then travel between them. It sounds like moving through a place, not a crossfade.
One large dial moves every Place at once, from a calm bed through the world as you set it to a full climax, each Place on its own curve. Automate it to shape a cue over time.
Press Inspire for a new, musical world built from the next World Seed, or start from one of 24 ready-made scenes, from Ambush at the Tavern to Into the Nebula.
Play any of WORLDBUILDER’s 156 instruments on its own track, from your keyboard or the piano roll, like any software instrument: the Tavern’s lute on one track, the Spaceport’s pads on another, the Castle’s timpani on a third.
Game scores layer up as the action does. Push Score Intensity and every Place moves through Calm, Tension, Action and Climax, changing gear on the next bar line with drums, ostinatos and stabs of its own.
Each Place slot also plays on its own stereo output in Logic Pro, so you can mix and process every Place on its own channel.
Screenshots
The interface is pixel art throughout, and its mood follows your Places: storybook for fantasy, neon for sci-fi, and a blend of the two when both play.
US$59 US$89
Introductory price
Free
Try it in your own projects
Prices in US dollars. Taxes may apply at checkout.
More answers on the support page.
