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

[Mushy Mushy]

what is it about apple buying camel that makes people constantly bump this thread? sure it sucks but its not THAT BIG of a deal! no?

Irony much

[Touch The Universe]

what is it about apple buying camel that makes people constantly bump this thread? sure it sucks but its not THAT BIG of a deal! no?

Irony much

because i said it sucks and its a big deal, or that I bumped it? I'm just a little annoyed seeing the same thread with same content day after day so I asked a serious question. Feel free to carry on

[SuitcaseOfLizards]

Posting to hump ER BUMP this thread

[wagtunes]

As Camel Audio is now defunct and Apple is taking over the helm and the only question remaining is whether or not Alchemy will see any light of day again, I went to my demo (now on week 4) for one last time to see what all the sadness is about. Is Alchemy really the greatest thing since sliced bread? Am I really going to be terribly disappointed that I can't get my hands on this?

So I played around with it.

Nice sounds. Nice textures. Interesting morphing and modulations.

I would consider it an excellent synth.

But better than everything I own? Irreplaceable?

Hardly.

In fact, I can name at least 5 or 6 synths whose sounds I like just as much if not better.

For the kinds of things I would "personally" use Alchemy for, here are synths that I would turn to in its place and not feel the least bit "bad" or that I had to settle for "second best."

ABSynth 5
Blue II
Omnisphere
Serum
Zebra 2

I'm not saying that these synths do similar things, though Omnisphere is pretty close. I'm saying that the sounds I can get out of these things are close enough to what I can get out of Alchemy (from what I can tell from the demo) that I won't miss not having Alchemy. I mean it's not like Alchemy is "OMG, nothing else can make these sounds" because it's not. With some ingenuity, you can coax some very interesting sounds out of other synths that are out there.

Is it maybe harder to get those sounds out of those other synths because of Alchemy's architecture? In some cases, yes. It others, not so much.

Point is, the world hasn't just ended. Alchemy isn't irreplaceable. And trust me, if it really IS...somebody with at least a half a brain in their head is going to come out with something. Technology just moves along too fast for something NOT to come out, especially when a void is left, if there is indeed such a void.

I would say there maybe is to a degree, but not to the point where everybody who doesn't have Alchemy should just throw themselves out a 10th story window.

Because there ARE other options.

My 2 cents for whatever they're worth.

[mumpcake]

Come on, we need better trolling than playing the "oh noes, de sold it for da monay" stuff.

Not yet. That trolling seems to be doing its job pretty well for the time being.

[IncarnateX]

Here is my take what is going on:

1. Some spies from the Apple board read this amazing thread on
kvr about the doom of the iPad and shit their pants (who wouldn't if they were doomed by the most intelligent prophets at KVR?)

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 6&t=365482

2. The board soon figured out they could avoid the death of the iPad if the bought Camel Audio and released Alchemy for iPad only, because everyone knows that the future of whole f**king music industry depends on this product (just look at this thread's page number)

3. They gave Camel Audio an offer they couldn't refuse. Those that complied earned a little cash and those that didn't are probably dumped in a river somewhere.

I cannot see any other explanation but you are free to try to convince me otherwise if you think you know better.

[ThoughtExperiment]

As Camel Audio is now defunct and Apple is taking over the helm and ....

...My 2 cents for whatever they're worth.

...about 2 cents, I'd say

[beely]

So I played around with it.
Nice sounds. Nice textures. Interesting morphing and modulations.
I would consider it an excellent synth.

But better than everything I own? Irreplaceable?

It's a great synth, with a very well-thought out and usable interface, a good selection of preset sounds and variations, a large amount of sample content, and the option of expansion packs.

It has some synthesis types, so it can do VA, it can do additive, it can do granular, it can do rompler, and layer those in a single patch, which makes it a really powerful product.

All of those things can be found in varying degrees in other products.

The main killer feature of Alchemy is the resynthesis options, which are the best out there and no one else does very well.

So is Alchemy replaceable? Yes, in the fact that it' a synth that does synth sounds, y'know, basses, leads, pads, atmospheres, sample playback etc.

But all it's features aren't available elsewhere, so it definitely has a place. But for people that don't own it and are complaining the sky is falling because "now they can never have it" I don't think their music is going to suffer.

It's a great synth, but already in a world where there is a massive amount of great synths out there and I expect 98% of owners of deep synths probably haven't explored more than 5% of what they already have - and that's being generous... If they want a new synth to inspire them, there are plenty of choices.

("But I want the one I can't have now!")

Life happens, people move on, stuff gets forgotten...

[Keith99]

I doubt it is irreplaceable but I am going to have a big job to replace it. I have on average 5 instances of Alchemy in a track along with 1 or 2 of Omnisphere and then various others for specific jobs. Alchemy has always been my bread and butter synth and I do not know what I will use instead.

[Mushy Mushy]

I doubt it is irreplaceable but I am going to have a big job to replace it. I have on average 5 instances of Alchemy in a track along with 1 or 2 of Omnisphere and then various others for specific jobs. Alchemy has always been my bread and butter synth and I do not know what I will use instead.

How about Alchemy?

[trimph1]

Here is my take what is going on:

1. Some spies from the Apple board read this amazing thread on
kvr about the doom of the iPad and shit their pants (who wouldn't if they were doomed by the most intelligent prophets at KVR?)

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 6&t=365482

2. The board soon figured out they could avoid the death of the iPad if the bought Camel Audio and released Alchemy for iPad only, because everyone knows that the future of whole f**king music industry depends on this product (just look at this thread's page number)

3. They gave Camel Audio an offer they couldn't refuse. Those that complied earned a little cash and those that didn't are probably dumped in a river somewhere.

I cannot see any other explanation but you are free to try to convince me otherwise if you think you know better.

[The_Hidden_Goose]

I doubt it is irreplaceable but I am going to have a big job to replace it. I have on average 5 instances of Alchemy in a track along with 1 or 2 of Omnisphere and then various others for specific jobs. Alchemy has always been my bread and butter synth and I do not know what I will use instead.

You could think of it as a new odyssey of discovery of that synth you never bothered looking at because you already had Alchemy.

And remember that Alchemy isn't necessarily going to suddenly stop working, so there's no real need to retire it from your arsenal until it gives you problems.

[trimph1]

I doubt it is irreplaceable but I am going to have a big job to replace it. I have on average 5 instances of Alchemy in a track along with 1 or 2 of Omnisphere and then various others for specific jobs. Alchemy has always been my bread and butter synth and I do not know what I will use instead.

You could think of it as a new odyssey of discovery of that synth you never bothered looking at because you already had Alchemy.

And remember that Alchemy isn't necessarily going to suddenly stop working, so there's no real need to retire it from your arsenal until it gives you problems.

Some people are apparently still using Bars & Pipes on their Amiga...

[Albert.VST]

Its amazing how quickly and easily ppl change their principles when money is thrown at them....

who changed? how do you know?

i think it's unfair to judge. walk a mile in someone's shoes.. face that person's challenges etc etc.. then you can make statements. until then though.. you really only have conjecture and circumstance to base your assumptions on...

i just think it's a lousy way to characterize a situation since none of us were in the room _ever_ and have no idea how it went down.

i'm sure it wasn't an easy decision to turn over years of work.. that being said.. maybe they were ready to move on and do something different. no one knows.

some people are pretty raw about this obviously.. but.. i mean.. move on. you could get hit by a bus next week and as you lay there dying in the street i doubt you'll think "i wish i could've spent more time on kvr trying to figure out why camel audio sold out to apple"

Read all these comments last days, and everyone seems to think the CA guys are cash loaded. And they had the choice saying no to Apple. But is it, who knows?
It might they were not in good financial shape, burned a lot of money developing Alchemy 2 and realized they had to spend a lot more getting it release ready. Maybe even coming to the point it could completely ruin their company.
So the Apple take over was a welcome development against a dooming bankrupcy and they simply couldn't turn it down, despited how much they hated treating their customers this way.

I don't say this is true, I even haven't any clue in this direction, but the cash loaded filthy rich bastards scenario may not be the thruth. So as things seem to be out in the open now it would be good CA and Apple would do a press release explaining what really happened.......

[Ameyah Audio]

As Camel Audio is now defunct and Apple is taking over the helm and the only question remaining is whether or not Alchemy will see any light of day again, I went to my demo (now on week 4) for one last time to see what all the sadness is about. Is Alchemy really the greatest thing since sliced bread? Am I really going to be terribly disappointed that I can't get my hands on this?

So I played around with it.

Nice sounds. Nice textures. Interesting morphing and modulations.

I would consider it an excellent synth.

But better than everything I own? Irreplaceable?

Hardly.

In fact, I can name at least 5 or 6 synths whose sounds I like just as much if not better.

For the kinds of things I would "personally" use Alchemy for, here are synths that I would turn to in its place and not feel the least bit "bad" or that I had to settle for "second best."

ABSynth 5
Blue II
Omnisphere
Serum
Zebra 2

I'm not saying that these synths do similar things, though Omnisphere is pretty close. I'm saying that the sounds I can get out of these things are close enough to what I can get out of Alchemy (from what I can tell from the demo) that I won't miss not having Alchemy. I mean it's not like Alchemy is "OMG, nothing else can make these sounds" because it's not. With some ingenuity, you can coax some very interesting sounds out of other synths that are out there.

Is it maybe harder to get those sounds out of those other synths because of Alchemy's architecture? In some cases, yes. It others, not so much.

Point is, the world hasn't just ended. Alchemy isn't irreplaceable. And trust me, if it really IS...somebody with at least a half a brain in their head is going to come out with something. Technology just moves along too fast for something NOT to come out, especially when a void is left, if there is indeed such a void.

I would say there maybe is to a degree, but not to the point where everybody who doesn't have Alchemy should just throw themselves out a 10th story window.

Because there ARE other options.

My 2 cents for whatever they're worth.

bump still mad at apple.

you are joking sir with BLUEII? hardware GUI, seriously hard to program, i tried a few times, Themida protected and not to mention the serious stupid Protection, no wonder it loads so slow, it has nice waveforms, limited audio import, no granular synthesis.

Omnisphere has no sample import and with v2 you have to import layer by layer, not fun at all

Absynth, nice synth, but the GUI and the sample import it limited.

Serum only has WT import, it is a nice synth, but it has no granular features

Zebra, more synth based, you can mangle audio material also only a small wavetable.

we still need something which combines various synthesis forms like alchemy did. you could for example load in crash/cymbal sample and turn them into a drone and layer it easy, something i couldnt come up with any other vsti.

somebody needs to come up with something, because Apple will screw this up for the windows users like they always do.