Camel Audio ceasing sales? [Update: CA acquired by Apple]

[DrGonzo]

Camel Audio are known for being good dudes. A sudden change of character isn't likely. There is probably some unfortunate reason why more isn't currently known.

Wise words.

/C

[Lotuzia]

Btw if the company was estimated worth 50K£ *previously*, it doesnt mean they have this money in bank, and due to sales stopping, it doesnt also mean its still worth this value .

Accounts filed 4th December 2014 at Companies House, states, amongst other things such as assets, liabilities etc, that the company has *cash* of over £500K.

So unless the CA family had *very* expensive Xmas presents, it seems that they are unlikely to be insolvent.

ok so .........

[beely]

The funny thing is, if any other company, except u-he, would proceed like this, it'd have already been flamed to death here. Really, i wonder why a simple "We can't tell anything at the moment" isn't possible, or why the official repesentative around here muted himself since 2 months. If i had bought a CA product recently, i'd be worried, angry and confused by all this. Shady. shady style.

Unfortunately, this is generally how buyouts happen. Business reasons come first, and the users are just shut out while the business works around what it needs to do and it's legal obligations until some official announcement is (or isn't) made.

I'm sure Ben, Colin, Andy and the rest of the team have read some of the consternation going on on the nets and twitter etc and it probably upsets them to not be able to respond (there is clearly a legal reason for this, otherwise someone would say something). They genuinely do care about the user community, and even if the deal they have done (assuming it is that which seems the most likely) is very positive for them going forward, it's a sting in the tail to have to shut a company down and not be able to inform anyone what is happening - but it is clearly beyond their ability to talk about it.

[KingTuck]

Camel Audio are known for being good dudes.

I don't see a reason to leave paying customers in doubt then. As i wrote, a simple "We can't tell anything at the moment" here or on their website wouldn't be a problem really, would it? At least better than vanishing into the unknown.

Again, we dunno. Have to wait and see. I'd assume the less cynical view though.

[declan32001]

I was stunned when I read this this morning. I've been checking their website nearly every day for the past few months hoping for the announcement of the release of 2.0....now, we'll NEVER see it! I hope someone from Camel jumps on here and offers a little further explanation if only to say because of legal this or that we can't make any further public comments. But something!

Hate to see a company with such a quality product fall by the wayside like this!

I'll bet one of the major computer music magazines will run a story to explain more, like Computer Music Magazine or Future Music...they were always fans of Camel Audio.

Music Radar is the website for those mags, and they've already posted a story about it. No info whatsoever.

[Numanoid]

Couldn't fans/customers of Alchemy initiate some kind of crowdfudning project, to raise enough money to buy the product and have enough left to pay for the development of v2?

[MillerSam]

I would pay directly for it to a crowdfunding project

[whyterabbyt]

Couldn't fans/customers of Alchemy initiate some kind of crowdfudning project, to raise enough money to buy the product and have enough left to pay for the development of v2?

Yay! If speculation about what's happened isnt good enough, lets speculate on how we can 'solve' what we've speculated has happened. Thats even better, its speculation-squared!

[Touch The Universe]

It's using reason to find a likely scenario and we seem to have made some ground I think. Agree though, not much more to speculate without more info

I think you're giving this more than it truthfully has. What reason has been used to obtain what likely scenario? An absurd number of possibilities are present for what has happened to Camel Audio. All of those scenarios have equal credibility so long as we know so little. At that point reason doesn't change anything. All options are technically possible and since we, again, know jack about the details, are all as reasonable as the next.

Coulda been a mac buyout! Maybe Native Instruments snatched em! Maybe Spectatronic are forging it with Omni 2! Maybe something bad happened to Ben! Creative differences between the team! Maybe this tax thing messed em up! Maybe the team lost motivation!

Could be anything, y'know? Until we know more there isn't ground to make. I guess it's fun. Maybe it is just a different strokes thing. Seems like a waste of time to me though. I wanna know as much as everyone else what happened. Again though, could just be different strokes. I don't care very much either way.

Sorry, I should have said logic instead of reason. For the most part we solved that nothing bad happened to Ben atleast. Deduced it's probably not likely to be any Vat Eu issues, which leaves a buyout. Only question is who and what for. People seem to think mac isn't logical for various reasons (majority windows users, typical mac behavior), now its up to which software developers or maybe Daw seems to be the most likely scenario. With more people chiming in bringing in more points things narrow down For me its seems a daw responsible, not a software developer (why not create there own or already have similar products etc).

[Phorous]

Would suck for those of us who bought Alchemy knowing 2.0 was just around the bend if we wern't offered an upgrade path anymore.

That is if 2.0 ever sees the light of day of course

At no point ever did Camel Audio say Alchemy 2 was right around the bend. They refused to share details until it was ready so as to avoid false promises and disappointment. In the case you mentioned above the hypothetical person would be at their own fault.

When a product is in production that long its either in development hell or right around the bend.

It was easily worth buying in its current state, its just a bummer that they decided to close up shop right after I bought it more than anything else. I would have happily forked over more money for expansions and an upgrade.

[chk071]

The funny thing is, if any other company, except u-he, would proceed like this, it'd have already been flamed to death here. Really, i wonder why a simple "We can't tell anything at the moment" isn't possible, or why the official repesentative around here muted himself since 2 months. If i had bought a CA product recently, i'd be worried, angry and confused by all this. Shady. shady style.

Unfortunately, this is generally how buyouts happen. Business reasons come first, and the users are just shut out while the business works around what it needs to do and it's legal obligations until some official announcement is (or isn't) made.

I'm sure Ben, Colin, Andy and the rest of the team have read some of the consternation going on on the nets and twitter etc and it probably upsets them to not be able to respond (there is clearly a legal reason for this, otherwise someone would say something). They genuinely do care about the user community, and even if the deal they have done (assuming it is that which seems the most likely) is very positive for them going forward, it's a sting in the tail to have to shut a company down and not be able to inform anyone what is happening - but it is clearly beyond their ability to talk about it.

Nonetheless, i don't they'd be disallowed to post a simple "We can't tell anything right now". I mean the way it is now, they could, god forbid, all died in a plane crash. And ZenPunkHippy didn't post here since 2 months. He posted frequently in political topics here too. Isn't he allowed to speak anymore now? Not my business but IMO, this is pretty weird.

[DonaldM75]

Just found a little blurb posted at Music Radar (publishers of Computer Music Magazine. Not much additional info, but I suspect an fuller article will be forthcoming in their next issue.

[SLiC]

It really is a very strange way to close, if money is the issue, or the lack of an ability top develop further or generate enough revenue for bills then surely we would get the 'closing down sale...', the product is already developed, it costs nothing to make, people just log on, make payment and download.

I'm pretty sure if the company was being bought then the buying company would put a positive spin on he purchase and want the existing customer database, so they wouldn't shut down the company in this way.

Sometimes companies declare themselves bankrupt and stop training immediately if they have a sudden 'tax bill' they cant meet then re-emerge with a clean sheet and a new product 6 month later!

whatever it is- very weird.

[beely]

People seem to think mac isn't logical for various reasons (majority windows users, typical mac behavior)

The company is *Apple*. Not "Mac". "Mac" cannot buy anything, short of accidentally triggering your Amazon 1-click buy-it-now button.

*If* Apple have bought them, it would be an end to Alchemy for sure. I think it's unlikely, but it happened with Redmatica, so who knows..? :shrugs:

[beely]

When a product is in production that long its either in development hell or right around the bend.

I dunno, three or four year for a small team to bring a significant software product or update to market is long but not unrealistically so, as long as your cash flow and existing products can support that long a development period.

Spectrasonics have, what, 20-40 employees and it's been at least that long for them so far without any new products...