Alchemy - Demo available

[Kriminal]

Camel Audio has released a demo version of Alchemy and updated Alchemy to v1.08.

The free demo is completely fully functional for three weeks. The demo comes with 40 presets and 100MB of samples to give you a taste of the 2GB of samples and over 300 presets in the full version. Alternatively, import your own WAV, AIFF or SFZ files into the additive, spectral and granular resynthesis engines. There are no annoying voices or silences, and presets and songs created with the demo can be loaded with the full version.

Alchemy v1.08 includes many improvements and fixes including reduced CPU consumption, the ability to import files from external drives and improvements to the installer. The manual now includes a tips and tricks section, and is available to download as a PDF file so you can print it out or read it when you're offline. The Camel Audio forum has over 100 user presets to download and is a good place to get help as well as discuss improvements.

The demo version can be downloaded from the Alchemy product page on the Camel Audio website, where you'll also find tutorial videos, example MP3s and lots more. Alchemy costs 249USD / 199EUR / 179GBP and is available directly from Camel Audio as a download. Registered users can download the latest update for free by logging in on the support page, and going to the downloads section.


New features:

- Mac import browser allows browsing of external drives (in the Volumes folder) as well as following aliases and symbolic links
- Mac installer allows data to be installed to a different location, such as an external drive
- Runs on Receptor via unsupported method
- Installer improvements: moves keyfiles and searches for RAR files and keyfiles in the same location as the installer as well as on the desktop (must extract mkpg file from dmg for this to work on Mac)
- Responds to all MIDI channels 1-16
- Downloadable PDF manual (from first page of Wiki manual)

Fixes:

- Fixed CPU spikes
- Improved randomization when Loops, Guitars and Arpeggiated folders selected
- Improved default path for Additive and Spectral file menus
- Fixed so files with capital letter extension shows up in source menu
- Improved so moving fine tune and pan displays values -100%..100%
- Fixed crash importing single cycle waveforms in additive mode
- Fixed web menu options in file menu
- Fixed Alchemy blocking Cubase Key Commands
- Fixed problem with some AMD processors
- Fixed incompatiblity between Alchemy and Orion
- Fixed issues with random button
- Fixed so save dialog shows up when GUI is closed if project save needs data location
- Improved song saving so only asks for data saving location when AAZ data greater than 1MB and user locations are identified properly
- Improved sluggish response of modulation depth knobs
- Fixed modulation menu for depth knobs
- Fixed MIDI learn and unlearn on depth knobs
- Fixed double click on the modulation depth knobs so it immediately set knob to default
- Fixed timing accuracy when running at buffer sizes larger than 256 samples
- Fixed mac file menus to deal with more then 256 items
- Fixed problem with WAV files with non lowercase extension, and those located inside a folder called "Alchemy"
- Fixed AIFF file loading issues fixed
- Fixed so AlchemyConfig.txt gets created if it is not present
- Fixed so yellow modulation ring is updated when copy/paste modulation assignments
- Fixed spelling of "Tune Coarse"
- Improved remix pad response
- First note doesn't make a sound at all if placed right in the starting position.
- Fixed Audio Unit so it deals with sample rate changes correctly
- Fixed loop points in sampler mode to syncronize with warp marker loop points
- Fixed partial pan values so they can be set in the additive editor when in overall mode
- Fixed playback of samples with very short (<64 samples) loop lengths

http://www.camelaudio.com/

[user_45a27]

Demo coming soon on the website...like a few weeks ago...already checked.

[Christophe]

today 16:42 - Alchemy Demo Release Candidate
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 80&start=0

[Kriminal]

it was up, then got pulled...not back again till monday...

[Vicious_Angel]

Kriminal i want your mini review about alchemy.
Is it stable under orion?

It is the miracle sampler who actually samples? I know it deserves the hype it got but i dont want another semi functional rompler

Edit: Typo.

[grymmjack]

alchemy is sick guys, way more synth than a person needs in his whole life.

[Dungeon Studio]

I just tried this supposedly wonderful 'Morgana' sampler... What a piece of crap! For what I've about this Alchemy - it does sound intriguing. I'm just after 'lo-fi' stuff, and this Morgana seemed primed for that - but more complicated than taking a space shuttle to a 7/11!

If Alchemy's easy, and works well in Orion... Maybe?

[suneel]

alchemists

[Vicious_Angel]

So guys who actually have it what do you believe about it?

[grymmjack]

I just tried this supposedly wonderful 'Morgana' sampler... What a piece of crap! For what I've about this Alchemy - it does sound intriguing. I'm just after 'lo-fi' stuff, and this Morgana seemed primed for that - but more complicated than taking a space shuttle to a 7/11!

If Alchemy's easy, and works well in Orion... Maybe?

actually dungeon, morgana has a very unique sound i was not able to replicate for anything passed through it. i couldn't determine why this was so, it sounded like a lower bit depth, and some fancy bit crushing but i couldn't replicate (not even close) to the sound it makes.

i had the same first impression as you did, and then i started loading some sounds in and creating some patches from scratch, it really dirties and fuzzes up nicely. its probably overpriced but i dont think it's a piece of crap imo.

try to do the same things it does with orions sampler and orions built in effects to see what i mean.

if you're not a fan of the types of sounds you can get, no worry that's what it was built for to achieve those sounds.

and i'm not defending it, i dont own it, simply chiming in my own experience for your personal benefit.

[grymmjack]

So guys who actually have it what do you believe about it?

i have it.

it's a powerhouse and an incredibly deep yet simple to sculpt sound engine of diverse synthesis types combined into one product.

additive resynthesis is best i've heard in it. creating additive sounds from scratch is not fun however, a product like max clasters morphine is much easier to build a additive sound from scratch. last night in fact i was IMing with my good friend Les Sanford (the plugin developer of cobalt and several great effects) and was prodding him to try alchemy to which he did and having a background with additive and building sounds that way he was quite disappointed with how alchemys editor worked. i showed him morphine after that and he was in love.

i'm more of a luddite when it comes to additive from scratch knowing only the bare basics of harmonic theory, so i usually just use the resynthesis and LOVE that to pieces. it's why i bought cameleon5000 years ago and why i love alchemy too. nothing is cooler than doing sound design with the resynthesis.

now alchemy has granular and spectral too, as well as traditional sampler and subtractive synthesis - the sampler is pretty spectacular actually implementing much of the SFZ standard.

the granular engine is stunning and soooooo fun to screw with. suddenly even the simplest waveforms are fractal deep journeys upon which you can spelunk until you reborn a sound unlike anything ever from one that already existed. it's a load of fun with vocals.

the spectral resynth is sick because you can load images and turn them into sounds and actually paint on them and modify the spectral graph in real time. quite a lot of fun but it's in it's infancy and needs a bit of time to evolve and grow to be less finnicky i feel.

the subtractive in alchemy is good sounding, i was actually surprised by how good it sounds i was expecting something more of a "oh yeah and this half ass subtractive synth is included as a bonus" kind of thing, but nay.. it has lots of waveforms to build from including some really nice and interesting ones licensed from galbanum.

the modulation options are insane, and include all the staples as well as a great arp/step seq, msegs, and so on.

the only gripe i really have about alchemy right now is the voice architecture and effect routing. like you get 2 filters paralel or serial (your choice) or a mix of them, and that goes for each of the 4 parts in a sound, they could have made me much happier if they had 4 paths (and in their defense if it's filtering you're after you can do it with 4 diff filters as each part has a filter section) and into 2 master filters, and then the effects chain can be 1 of 2 possible paths, so pretty flexible, i've just run into situations where i wanted another 2 paths to do more creative effect stuff. the effects are worth mentioning as camel phat and camel space components are inside along with a great acoustic reverb.

in all, it's really incredible synth. it's easy to program, the designers did a fantastic job encapsulating the complexity for you exposing you only to what you need, and it's very easy to whip out and modulate very complex things - think somewhat a hybrid between NI's massive and Vember Audio's surge in it's implementation.

i dont regret upgrading from cameleon5000 and even though i have not yet dived super deep into it, there are many years for that, i will say i've had to reference the online manual only 3 or 4 times during - which is a testament to good usable design out of the box imo.

try it out, you wont be sorry.

[Dungeon Studio]

Interesting Grymmjack. As for Morgana, I got this little SE plug that replicates a Casio SK-1 pretty nicely.

Spectral resynthesis - Douglas Adams should be given credit for that, as that's something right out of Dirk Gently's Hollistic Detective Agency.

Sounds like a big rack of wack to me. (In a good way I mean. )

[Vicious_Angel]

Thanks for your informative post grymmjack.
If i buy it i am interested in its granular engine as i am going to use as a pad machine alike and or twisting insanse vocals and stuff. I have to take the demo now

[user_45a27]

Hi, Finally I've succeed into downloading ot today ( as everybody I guess). I think there is a big problem with the refresh rate in this plugin :

* moving points of the enveloppes
* spectral drawing

too slow ! the repainting period is too high , not smooth at all. You can't see at all what you are doing in real time when using the graphic component which are using some runtime rendering methods.

Modulations : maybe I haven't explored the possibilites of the synth enough but I've tried to modulated the rate of an lfo with an adhsr and the result was it was impossible to get something accurate and previsible, no control over modulation amount ? (tell me if I'm wrong)

Except these weaks it's clearly a big vsti with a big amount of sound designing, particularly thanks to a huge variety of synthesis method ( spectral drawing, additive, sampler , virtual analog) and filters...
About the spectral drawing , I regret this is a not a wavetable system, when you draw you get a wave that's read in the straight way, I thought it was more a king of way to make a wavetable then used as oscillators like withe VA waveforms ( looped as wavetable).

Anyway, it's a great vsti , too big price for me to get unfortunately.

[Christophe]

i tested yesterday some presets from Kriminal and i get stuck by a warm and beautiful bass