Be warned, guys - the Alchemy 1.5.1 Mac install is a DISASTER!

I can't believe I was so STUPID to just download and update my 1.5.0 setup that was working perfectly with all my Camel and Sampleconstruct libs on an external disk with an alias in the usual place.

NOW IT's ALL GONE! Alchemy wastes 10 minutes of my time to chew and ruminate and scan after I told it which folder to look in. And then NOTHING!

Why isn't the update fully transparent? Why doesn't it retain all paths and prefs like professional software should do?

I can't believe this…

I'm extremely disappointed in Camel Audio.

/Joachim

Hi Joachim,

I'm extremely sorry the update process has not worked correctly for you. We do try very hard to make our software as reliable as possible and retain all paths and preferences, and test our software as thoroughly as we can. So far we've had over 500 installs of v1.50.1 and yours is the first issue of this kind I'm aware of. I know this doesn't help you, but I just want to explain that we do try very hard to make our software reliable and test thoroughly, but due to the very wide variety of hosts, computers and configurations occasionally problems can occur.

If you haven't yet rated any presets or applied user tags, I would recommend deleting your preset database, as described here: http://www.camelaudio.com/faqs/Alchemy/Why_does_the_Alchemy_ v_preset_scan_fail and then reinstalling v1.50.1. If that doesn't solve your problem, please email details of the location of your data folder, which host you are running, and explain what exactly the problem is (ie. is it that the no preset appear in the browser? or are you saying that the files are actually no longer on your disk?) to support@camelaudio.com and we will help you solve the problem.

Sorry
Ben

My 1.50.1 OS X updater also was sitting on something for much longer than it should have too and that brought me here... But after restarting the new Alchemy, it re-scanned my presets and all is well. All libs are there and accounted for. BTW, I'm still on OS X Lion.

However, my OS X Alchemy library is in the default location. It could be the alias that threw it off.

My PC update went without a hitch. These Alchemy libs are not in the default location but again everything's fine.

FYI...

Hi Ben,

Many thanks for your kind words and please excuse my somewhat irate tone.

The fact, though, is that when I updated my 1.5.0 with 1.5.1, I reasonably expected it to be a completely transparent process, assuming that the update would totally respect the Alchemy alias pointing to my external disk (which worked fine in 1.5.0).

Why should I be asked by the installer to name a new path, with the old alias in plain sight (or should have been in plain sight)?

I haven't heard from support yet but I cleared up the mess myself by re-installing 1.5.1 and very explicitly pointing it to my external Alchemy folder. In fact, since I had to answer the phone while in the process, I found that the installer had decided for itself and just passed by the path nomination step! If I hadn't retrostepped it, I still wouldn't have the correct path.

So, sorry, but to my mind an update should know that it is a point update and not mess with established paths and prefs but make the update process completely transparent to the user.

/Joachim

OSX 10.6.8 here
installer spent way too long scanning my system, it was in excess of 15 mins by the time I tried to cancel it. The installer was still appearing to run normally btw, it wasn't "not responding" though I did need to force quit it. Re-ran the installer. It said it needed the previous installer to finish first

Reboot, retry, rescanned...and it worked. What's with all the scanning ? I only own two of your preset banks. It looks like it's scanning way more than just my Camel Audio folders.

Also, the preset browser. Why is it listing commercial preset banks I don't own ? take that kind of obnoxious product placement out of my copy of the synth please. Shouldn't be 'on' by default & imo it's obnoxious. How do I turn that off ? Trying to find a sensibly located 'turn off product placement' option and I ended up having my web browser launched and brought to your webshop, asking me to buy another bank.

between that & the scanning I'm now pretty suspicious of camel audio background processes.

Same issue here with SONAR X2 64 bit - no difference whether or not Cake's "Give all keystrokes to Plugin" option is enabled or not.
Alchemy works great however. Really liking the new browser.
Cheers!

@ ChiTown24 - scanning only scans presets you have installed, nothing else. the process can take some time depending on your cpu, presets installed etc, altho 15 minutes does sound excessive.

the option to turn off presets to buy should be immediately above the list of presets to buy(the ones that are greyed out). once turned off, you should never see it again.

cheers,

col

hi, just updated - just checking - is there any way of checking that it picked up the bonus patches/samples? Perhaps there is a new one that I can look for in the browser.

also, thanks for the help with Tim Conrardy - I did have the patches safe after all - I confused myself by putting "voices" in with the presets - it needed to go into data - so that was why it was empty. That probably doesn't mean much to anyone, including Camel support but anyway, thanks for your help!

Hi ChamomileShark! (great name by the way )

Try entering "phasers" (without the quotes )in the Alchemy text search box.

if it finds a preset named "Phasers Set to Stun" you've got the new presets

Martin
Last edited by MWSOS on Thu Nov 15, 2012 3:36 pm; edited 1 time in total

Is there a specific download that preset is in? Ive grabbed all the ones I didnt have and I dont see that preset in my search

I had asked earlier about the "bonus" presets with this update, got no response. My user download section indicated I had not downloaded the bonus file, so I did, but the total number in the browser was the same afterwards.

Looked for "phaser" and nothing came up. How do we load the new presets?

Not working for me using Live 8.2 on a Mac with OS10.8

Please try the following...

1) Log into your support account and go to the Product Downloads page.

2) Click the link at the top of the page named "download all presets" and save the file to your desktop. (Alternatively, you can also just select the Alchemy factory presets file.)

3) Double click the "all presets" file to launch the installer.

4) Start your host and load an instance of Alchemy. A preset scan will run again. Once the scan has completed, check to see if the presets you were missing are now available.

If problems persist, please feel free to send us an email and we'll be happy to help troubleshoot the problem with you.

yup that did it, keep forgetting about that all presets file and just grab the presets file from the list

It's well worth keeping a check on that Download All Presets link at the top of your Camel Audio user account.

Click on this and you will receive a single personalised file named AlchemyAllPresets.CamelSounds that contains all the factory and free bonus presets, all presets relating to every one of the libraries you have bought to date, and any keyfiles needed. This is a tiny file (maximum size just 17MB even if you own every single one of our libraries), so it is very quick to download.

This saves you having to individually download all the presets relating to individual libraries you own

Just make sure you've got all the latest Samples versions (if their links are Grey you've already downloaded them, but if they are Red you have an update containing more goodies


Martin