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

[Mojo42]

And finaly the end of speculation and the bitter taste of truth. What have I said 230 pages before?: Money rules the world. But good that I don`t have to regret my nasty Apple photo montages now Also all the Camel images and Camel jokes here in this thread are well deserved. At least our conscience can be quiet

[quantum7]

And finaly the end of speculation and the bitter taste of truth. What have I said 230 pages before?: Money rules the world:

You are right. Yes, it's hard to stay mad at Camel forever.....because everyone has their price, but I would hope that some developers would have a difficult time in selling to a company that would eradicate half of its user-base of ever using its favorite products again. These users helped the business succeed enough to warrant a purchase by Apple, and it seems a shame to throw those same users by the wayside. Such is life though, in the cold-cruel world of business.

[samsam]

It's so heartening to see all the people in this thread who work for free and would put the happiness of a few Windows users before their own and their family's financial security.

[quantum7]

It's so heartening to see all the people in this thread who work for free and would put the happiness of a few Windows users before their own and their family's financial security.

Yes, but those "few Windows users" are the very reason that their "family's financial security" now will exist in the first place. I hope that you can at least see that. I would think that the Camel guys probably had a hard time with that thought, but like you said, they had to think of their financial future. PC users will get over it, just don't expect them to be thrilled about it.

[samsam]

It's so heartening to see all the people in this thread who work for free and would put the happiness of a few Windows users before their own and their family's financial security.

Yes, but those "few Windows users" are the very reason that their "family's financial security" now will exist in the first place. I hope that you can at least see that. I would think that the Camel guys probably had a hard time with that thought, but like you said, they had to think of their financial future. PC users will get over it, just don't expect them to be thrilled about it.

Of course it sucks to lose CA but (a) there's no guarantee about how even Mac users are gonna benefit from the acquisition and (b) of course Windows-using customers also paid money into CA's pocket , c'est la vie (and see point (a)).

Summing up, it's a shame for all of us to lose CA but best of luck to them and well done on getting bought out.

[machinesworking]

personally I own Phat, Space and Alchemy. I'm on Mac but I use Digital Performer not Logic. I have no doubts that Camel will be rolled into Logic. The silver lining here is MainStage is $30 and they will roll whatever audio and instrument plug ins Camel guys create for Logic into Mainstage, it's not elegant but you can at least use MainStage piped into your DAW. I'm doing this with Autosampler by Redmatica, Apple bought them a couple years ago and thankfully rolled it into MainStage and not Logic.

If you don't want to give Apple any real money, it's not so hard these days, pick up a used Mac Mini, get the latest OS for nothing, and MainStage 4 for $30 when Camel stuff rolls into it. It'll be roughly equivalent to what I'm going to have to do. I'm not happy about it either, but it's better than them going out of business, and there are options.

[dayjob]

the windows version _should_ work for years. i bet the AU or mac VST gives out before the windows version. apple will upgrade OS X or logic and it'll break plug ins and one of those will be alchemy and that'll be that.

mark. my. words.


anyway... camel was a privately owned company. free to do as it pleased. no one here knows any details so why pile on? why not be productive and move on. it's beyond our control so let it go. shrug.

good luck to the camel audio people in whatever you do next.

[quantum7]

It's so heartening to see all the people in this thread who work for free and would put the happiness of a few Windows users before their own and their family's financial security.

Yes, but those "few Windows users" are the very reason that their "family's financial security" now will exist in the first place. I hope that you can at least see that. I would think that the Camel guys probably had a hard time with that thought, but like you said, they had to think of their financial future. PC users will get over it, just don't expect them to be thrilled about it.

Of course it sucks to lose CA but (a) there's no guarantee about how even Mac users are gonna benefit from the acquisition and (b) of course Windows-using customers also paid money into CA's pocket , c'est la vie (and see point (a)).

Summing up, it's a shame for all of us to lose CA but best of luck to them and well done on getting bought out.

I sure hope SOMEONE gets to use 2.0. If we PC guys can't use it, then I hope at least the MAC guys will get it. Alchemy is just too good IMO to waste. Alchemy was the most prominent synth used on my last album, so I have somewhat of an attachment to it.

[Gates of H&I]

the windows version _should_ work for years. i bet the AU or mac VST gives out before the windows version. apple will upgrade OS X or logic and it'll break plug ins and one of those will be alchemy and that'll be that.

I don't know what part of this you think makes sense. Apple will make Alchemy a plug-in for some reason, rather than being built into Logic like their other synths, and then when their own updates cause problems with the new synth they bought out a company to own, they'll just throw up their hands and say "oh gosh, there's nothing we can do!"...?

OS X updates cause problems with Logic sometimes. Then Logic gets updated.

[trimph1]

I have Alchemy here. It will work here either way. Even if I have to archive the dang thing.

[glokraw]

Well if that guy from Camel ever wonders into the PC world again
to develop something PC user can give him a nice gift, shut him down
and make him think WTF happened, they used to love me.

There could be medical reasons that inspired accepting/completing the sale.
We_don't_know_jack_diddly about the details, behind the scenes.
Who spoke first? who offered what? Angelina Jolie had her breasts removed,
just as a precaution, because of her family medical history.

Maybe Camel's owner just really really hated windows ate and nein,
and wanted to be done with them.
Customers can keep using what they paid for. It's a bit healthier
to buy a used Mac preparing for future, rather than risk keeling over
with a burst blood vessel, over a perceived injustice, and lose it all.
Cheers

[trimph1]

Buying a...a...a...Mac?!?!?

When they pry my hands off my PC !!!!

[mutantdog]

No surprise really, its been the general consensus on this thread for the last 300 pages.

I guess the only hope would be that Apple have some sort of plan involving the integration between plugin and iOS app. In which case, there would be an argument for them to keep the plugin part multi-format. This would keep to Apple's hardware-based business model (you'd need to buy a iPad) without restricting this to Logic users only. It would also do a lot to cement the iPad as a serious music making tool.

I am probably wrong about all this though, i guess we'll see in due course.

[dayjob]

the windows version _should_ work for years. i bet the AU or mac VST gives out before the windows version. apple will upgrade OS X or logic and it'll break plug ins and one of those will be alchemy and that'll be that.

I don't know what part of this you think makes sense. Apple will make Alchemy a plug-in for some reason, rather than being built into Logic like their other synths, and then when their own updates cause problems with the new synth they bought out a company to own, they'll just throw up their hands and say "oh gosh, there's nothing we can do!"...?

OS X updates cause problems with Logic sometimes. Then Logic gets updated.

i didn't say any of it made sense. obviously i wasn't clear enough.

windows plug ins seem to go on and on and on for the most part and just keep working through whatever microsoft updates to windows get thrown at them. w/OS X.. shit breaks every time they do a semi-major update.

so, what i'm saying is.. it's not unlikely that the current version of alchemy will just keep working on windows for the foreseeable future w/o any/many hiccups... chances are the VST/AU version will break on the mac w/some update of OS X then 3 years from now alchemy will show up in mainstage or logic or something.

i doubt it'll show up in logic any time soon.. if it does i'll be very surprised. even so.. all the people on OS X who don't use logic but use alchemy are just as pissed as windows users if not more so since they'll likely be shit out of luck w/the current version of alchemy before windows users are.

i hope that's more clear. sometimes i think it's totally obvious what i'm trying to say but i guess i leave out entire sentences.

[Gates of H&I]

Sorry, but you just sound like you don't have any experience of using audio software in OS X. Or of how Apple handle/support their software. I can't see much point continuing this exchange.

Edit: I didn't realize you were talking about current VST/AU versions(?), but even so what I said stands.