KVR Audio

mungocherry33 · Post by **mungocherry33** » Sat Sep 20, 2008 3:42 am

vurt wrote:
biomechanoid wrote:
I suggest you try the demo when its available and decide for yourself.

well hurry the hell up, or do i have to come to scotland and open a few cans of whoopass!?

Yea, what he said.

Ben [Camel Audio] · Post by **Ben [Camel Audio]** » Sat Sep 20, 2008 2:37 pm

For example, in Zebra, I would like if you could set the mseg to step mode cause it takes too long to make steps manually. Also would be nice to copy/drag multiple selected points. Some quick buttons for favorite mseg's as well as saved presets would be nice too.

You can't switch MSEGs to step sequencer mode - but they are tempo syncable, and we do have 16 step sequencers which will be familiar to CamelSpace owners - they're similar but more powerful in Alchemy. Its possible to save and load modulator presets, and Alchemy will come with a library of these components to make building prests easier. You can also randomize modulators individually.

Can each of the four morphable sources be assigned pan positions so that a morph operation also morphs the pan position?

Yup.

Honestly, for me it seems to be an Absynth4 clone. The voice manipulations in the sound demo can be done with Absynth as well, morphing is no problem as well, you can even draw your own curves in Absynth or you can manipulate the harmonic content.

So what makes this synth outstanding?

Absynth is a great synthesizer. I think you're incorrect when you say that you can recreate the sound demo with Absynth. You might be able to recreate some of those effects with Absynth, but I don't see how you could take a voice and change the odd/even harmonic balance, or pan the partials of the voice, or make such a convincing child-like voice from an adults voice, or extract the noise part of a voice or many other of the effects in the demo. Absynth does not have an additive or spectral resynthesis engines which is the reason many of those effects are impossible. Whilst you can cross-fade between sounds in Absynth, you cannot morph between sounds - morphing requires the sound to be broken down into its individual harmonics and the two sounds to be blended.

Okay, no additive synthesis. Anything else?

Ok - as discussed, the additive synthesizer is quite a significant part of Alchemy, and for many will be the primary reason for buying it. However, if we leave that to one side, there are still many things which make Alchemy different from Absynth. I don't want this to turn into an Absynth vs Alchemy battle, anymore than an Omnisphere vs Alchemy battle. However, I do wish to defend myself from the claim that this is an Absynth clone, so I've listed some of the things which make Alchemy different from Absynth below. Depending on your particular interest some or other of these features may be of more or less interest to you, but I'd be suprised if none of them were - for example the ability to load multisampled SFZ files into Alchemy does add something.

Sounds
* over 2GB of samples and analysed content from in-house designers Tim Conrardy and Biomechanoid, as well as designers such as Ian Boddy, Robert Rich, Scott Solida and Nucleus SoundLab
* many years of dedicated sampling sessions of both unusual creative material such as the sound of chewing polystyrene to more conventional sampling of numerous acoustic instruments and voices, including a chamber choir
* intelligent random preset generation

Morphable Sources
* 4 stereo sources each of which has additive, VA, spectral, granular and sampler engines
* up to 100 zones per source using any synthesis method
* morph between sources using advanced harmonic blending and precise time alignment

Groove Arpeggiator
* separate control of the velocity, pitch and pan of each note
* midi file import for drum patterns and melodies
* 'groove import' to synchronize to a particular drum pattern
* wide variety of modes including up, down, up/down, down/up, as played, random and chord
* many parameters including multiple latch modes, key splits, played key velocity control, octave and source controllable from the modulation system
* ability to control one source or all four
* up to 128 steps

16 Effects
* up to five effects blocks can be applied in any order
* camel reverb, acoustic reverb, 2 delays, 2 mod fx (each capable of flanger and chorus effects), 2 distortions (each has bit crusher, tube, mech and xcita effects), bass enhancer, compressor, multi mode filter, 2 bandpass filters and band reject mixers, 2 three band EQs, panner and amplifier
* all of the CamelSpace and CamelPhat effects included
* band pass filters and associated band reject mixers allow you to apply effects to specific frequency ranges for effects such as multiband distortion

Virtual Analog Synthesizer
* up to 600 oscillator unison with pitch, amp and pan control of unison oscillators

Spectral Synthesizer
* phase vocoder analysis for high quality pitch and time stretching
* noise resynthesis mode using 256 band noise shaping
* advanced graphical sonogram editing - choose from a range of brushes and select the colour and opacity
* graphical spectral cut, copy and paste - cut or copy and paste specific frequency and time regions

Granular Synthesizer
* up to 10 simultaneous grains
* selectable and customizable granular window shapes

Flexible Modulation
* up to 16 LFOs, 16 AHDSRs, 16 MSEGs, 16 step sequencers - only those you use are displayed
* virtually every knob is modulatable by up to five different modulators (including modulation-depth knobs, modulator parameters...)
* advanced mod-map feature for anything from drawing custom velocity curves to creating algorithmic random note in a scale effects
* xy-mseg shows you a vector style view of two parameters such as morph x and y position, with ability to import xy timelines
* per destination 'smooth' control
* modulation arcs intuitively show the range of modulation
* modulation details of selected knob automatically displayed
* right click on knob and select 'add modulation' to rapidly add and assign modulators
* playing speed modulation source allows variable response to fast and slow playing; for example to crossfade between staccato and legato samples
* unique flip-flop modulation source for customizable round robin effects

well hurry the hell up, or do i have to come to scotland and open a few cans of whoopass!?

Don't worry we're all continuing to work all hours to finish Alchemy and make it as good as we possibly can

opus_diaboli · Post by **opus_diaboli** » Sat Sep 20, 2008 4:31 pm

Hi Ben and all the others answering my question,

Please don't get me wrong, neither did I want to start any battle here nor was my question meant to be an offense. I just want to clarify if Alchemy is a must-have or a nice-to-have for somebody who already have Absynth4.

So thanks, especially to Ben for his detailed answer.

edit: but I have to admit that my question was a bit provocative.

ckatrun411 · Post by **ckatrun411** » Sat Sep 20, 2008 4:57 pm

I think ALchemy is going to be an important synth to buy mate. The spec features, like 16 step sequencers, 30 + filters, morphing etc... Are just incredible, and they are just icing on the cake of the additive, spectral, granular and va engines. The re-synthesis is going to be a very powerful tool for those of us who are deeply into sampling. And I really just like the sound n vibe of Camel stuff. Space n Cameleon are among my top used tools, along with Rapture, Tera, and ableton live built in sampler.....

I feel totally with a lot of the other guys who seem to be really on this synth, opus_diaboli, you should catch a demo when it is released.

My guess, even though I don't own absynth is, you will very quickly, and easily see the "mega huge" differences here.

mcdonalk · Post by **mcdonalk** » Sun Sep 21, 2008 4:51 pm

My previous question which I have posted has gone unanswered (I understand that this product is a mystery to most so far):

Can the 4 morphable sources be placed at assignable positions in the stereo fields so that, for example, mixing ("morphing") the sources results in discrete changes in placement of the sound in the stereo field (like the Wavestation and Cube)?

Perhaps this quote from the product description is intended to address this question:

"Morphable Sources
* 4 stereo sources each of which has additive, VA, spectral, granular and sampler engines "

However, I can't tell for sure. C5000 currently implements sources for which a stereo effect can be simulated, but the pan position cannot be changed dynamically.

Any insight would be appreciated.

thanks

Keith

PaulSC · Post by **PaulSC** » Sun Sep 21, 2008 4:54 pm

mcdonalk wrote:My previous question which I have posted has gone unanswered (I understand that this product is a mystery to most so far):

Can the 4 morphable sources be placed at assignable positions in the stereo fields so that, for example, mixing ("morphing") the sources results in discrete changes in placement of the sound in the stereo field (like the Wavestation and Cube)?

Ben [Camel Audio] wrote:
Can each of the four morphable sources be assigned pan positions so that a morph operation also morphs the pan position?
Yup.

pdxindy · Post by **pdxindy** » Sun Sep 21, 2008 4:55 pm

mcdonalk wrote:My previous question which I have posted has gone unanswered (I understand that this product is a mystery to most so far):

Can the 4 morphable sources be placed at assignable positions in the stereo fields so that, for example, mixing ("morphing") the sources results in discrete changes in placement of the sound in the stereo field (like the Wavestation and Cube)?

Perhaps this quote from the product description is intended to address this question:

"Morphable Sources
* 4 stereo sources each of which has additive, VA, spectral, granular and sampler engines "

However, I can't tell for sure. C5000 currently implements sources for which a stereo effect can be simulated, but the pan position cannot be changed dynamically.

Any insight would be appreciated.

thanks

Keith

Ben (from Camel Audio) did answer that question. Check above. The answer was yes.

Melodialworks · Post by **Melodialworks** » Sun Sep 21, 2008 6:03 pm

That's not correct. The answer was actually "yup"!

tconrardy · Post by **tconrardy** » Sun Sep 21, 2008 7:41 pm

Hi future Alchemists

Here is a piece I did over the weekend which showcases my own sound design for Alchemy. I hope you enjoy it:

Alchemical Visions

http://www.wusik.com/song.php?id=1764

8MBS ( it a higher bitrate for better clarity)

You will hear unusual soundscapes, voice manipulations ( that's my old mentor Allen Stange!) , bass, percussion, analog and hybrid sounds, along with a flute solo that seems to change when playing. Also, nature sounds with a lokota flute. Also, Listen for my cat Butterscotch when processed thru alchemy.

He is on his last legs this weekend, so kinda of a tribute to him

but..glad to have him make his debut here

this is 100% alchemy.

Timothy Spaceman

pdxindy · Post by **pdxindy** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 3:58 am

Some very interesting sounds there... I think I wanna be an alchemist

best wishes to butterscotch

sophtrazor · Post by **sophtrazor** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 4:27 am

Can Alchemy be loaded as an effect? I would really like this to be possible and id be more likely to buy it seeing as i have sold Camelphat and Camelspace

ckatrun411 · Post by **ckatrun411** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 4:59 am

sophtrazor wrote:Can Alchemy be loaded as an effect? I would really like this to be possible and id be more likely to buy it seeing as i have sold Camelphat and Camelspace

Buddy.... Alchemy is an additive synth. It has a spectral engine, a granular engine, a va engine, 16 step sequencers, mseg envelopes, and 30 + filters, on top of all that, it is loaded with morphing abilities, and distortions, flangers, reverbs, and delays...

It is a synth though, not a compressor. It has applications as an instrument and when you take into account what you can do with sampling, those applications become really unbelievable.

Change the way you are viewing this tool. When it comes out, do the demo. This is not an effect, like a compressor or a delay... Its a synth. If your interested in effecting some audio or something else with alchemy, you can just load that up into the oscillators.

Predator loads as a vst effect, and definitely reaktor can load as a vst effect, and definitely a few others, so I don't think what you are saying is so weird. I'm just saying that the focus of Alchemy, is to be an instrument. Thats where the magic is with this one. A good folder full of fx is important, but all that comes down to at the end of the day is reverb, delay, compression, eq, chorus, possibly a few filters, and some other various stuff. How do you expect to make a song using only chorus and reverb and nothing else? No audio of any kind, and not a single synth or instrument?

We need instruments too. That is what Alchemy is. You can totally effect samples with Alchemy though. We should get clear on that. I know that a lot of folks are going to buy this, just for its re-synthesis....

peace[/i]

sophtrazor · Post by **sophtrazor** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 5:47 am

yes sir!

koolkeys · Post by **koolkeys** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 5:51 am

I am wondering if he thought the resynthesis demo was audio being fed THROUGH the synth instead of audio that was loading INTO or resynthesized by Alchemy?

I believe much of the demo was made with resynthesized audio though, so it wasn't even audio any more, just a large series of oscillators made to sound like the original.

There's no way it could do that stuff in real time to audio streaming into it. So I doubt it even could be an effect if they wanted it to at this time.

Brent

koolkeys · Post by **koolkeys** » Mon Sep 22, 2008 5:53 am

EDIT: Didn't see your above post sophtrazor. Sorry about that. It looks like you understood! Cheers!

Brent

Coming Soon from Camel Audio - Alchemy!