Several times on KVR I have seen people say things like "Oh wow, I can't wait to drop these samples into Alchemy!" and "I loaded that sample into Alchemy and it was AWESOME!"

What am I missing? Is there some kind of magic 'click this button to generate awesomeness' feature in Alchemy that I'm not aware of? I love Alchemy to death but realize it's hard work to create something, but I feel as though I'm missing something by the way some people talk, like there's some kind of 'instant magic' when you import samples.

So, everyone spill the beans - what do YOU do with Alchemy and samples? Perhaps we can all learn a new trick or two

First, for how long are you using Alchemy? I mean, REALLY using? Not just loading some sounds a few times into the granular engine and tweaking randomly.

There is no instant magic, at least not for me. But after many countless hours of experimenting, exploring all features and parameters, trials and errors (a lot), I've learned what to do to create the sounds I have in mind and make the resynthesis sounds good (to my needs of course). I've learned and now know Alchemy's sweet spots to make sounds sound good. Some samples for some reasons will never sound good though and some other type of samples will almost instantly sound great after few twists and tweaks. So for me, there's no instant magic and the only magic taking place is achieved by a lot of time spent digging into the synth and experimenting all kind of crazy stuff. That's where the magic is for me!

It's a HUGE synth. A monster of possibilities. It takes time. Alot. Just don't expect instant magic in 3 clicks.

Watch the tutorial videos on the site. They are incredibly well done and helpfull. Importing/"dropping" samples into Alchemy is incredibly simple, mastering Alchemy is the key but easier than you think, just watch Dan's videos on the CamelAudio site it will make your work much more joyfull

Thanks guys I'm definitely no Alchemy virgin, but you confirmed my suspicions that there aren't any hidden 'magic' features... I just wondered if I'd missed something the way some people talk about loading a sample into ALchemy and then *POOF* instant audio glory

Additive mode.

http://soundcloud.com/digitalbeatsyndrome/pizm-9-7-11

Its dry then wet.

And its note limited to this..

Some nice tips so far. One way of looking at Alchemy is to forget that it's a "synth", and view it as a toolbox for manipulating samples. Here is one very simple recipe you can try to get started:

1. Start with a cleared instance (File -> Clear)
2. Import a sample to Source A
3. Source A -> Copy Source
4. Source B -> Paste Source
5. Hard pan Source A left
6. Fine tune Source A -5 cents
7. Hard pan Source B right
8. Fine tune Source B +5 cents

Now play some notes. The sample is nice and wide, kind of like a stereo doubler. Delay and reverb will make this sound huge. Works particularly well with vocal samples.

After step 2, instead of immediately copying Source A make some changes to the sound e.g. set the stretch to 0 and modulate the Position control with a slow LFO, AHDSR or MSEG. Turn on the filter section and apply some filters to shape the sound, with a small amount of modulation for added movement.

Now go through the remaining steps to duplicate Source A to Source B and make some minor changes to Source B including panning and fine tuning, perhaps adjust the depth of filter modulation by a very small amount to add extra movement. In the FX section add some delay + reverb to taste.

As pointed out above, it's important to remember that what works with one sample might not work with some other sample - this doesn't matter too much ... just try something else. After a while you'll start to recognise what works and what doesn't with certain types of sound.

Also watch the tutorials because there are some great tips. The granular tutorial and the synth basics tutorials are particularly useful.

Peace,
Andy.

There is much magic in Alchemy, but the most impressive (and lazy) one click function could be "file - autoasign all" (for the remix pad), after loading any sound in the "machine".

Raymond

Great tips guys, thanks! Much playing with Alchemy to be done this weekend