ALCHEMY underrated?

[ThomasHelzle]

Removed - shouldn't have posted in the first place in such a topic I guess.

Cheers,

Tom

[wagtunes]

Thanks Tom. I couldn't have said it any better. Without some degree of trust, we have nothing. I know that every single plugin I own can someday cease to exist unlike hardware that you can almost always get repaired. How many 40 year old synths can still be fixed?

It isn't the best feeling in the world relying on software in this industry.

[Teksonik]

Alchemy still works just fine here on Windows 10........

How many 40 year old synths can still be fixed?

How many 40 year old synths are worth fixing ?

[wagtunes]

Alchemy still works just fine here on Windows 10........

How many 40 year old synths can still be fixed?

How many 40 year old synths are worth fixing ?

1) There's no guarantee that the next Windows OS will be able to run Alchemy at all, let alone without problems.

2) Whether or not a 40 year old piece of hardware is worth fixing is a matter of opinion and will differ from person to person.

But when software stops working, opinion doesn't matter. Wishing and hoping don't matter. It will either work or it won't.

Do not get me wrong. I will never go back to using hardware. Too expensive. Too space consuming. And repairs cost money.

But the thought that every piece of music software that I own COULD stop working someday with absolutely zero recourse doesn't exactly make me feel all warm and fuzzy.

And before you say it doesn't happen, it does. There is so much software that I've bought over the years that doesn't work anymore. Some of my favorite video games of all time I can no longer play. Unlike Monopoly which my grandfather bought me in 1965 and I can still play. And hell, even if my house burns down with everything in it, I can still go out and buy a new Monopoly game. If I owned Alchemy and somehow lost the license info, login, whatever and my PC crashed, I'd be pretty much out of luck.

In that respect you can't compare software to a physical product. It's the only thing about software that I've never liked since I bought my first video game in the early 80s.

[pdxindy]

Of course they don't owe me and of course it's their decision and product, but they especially were a company that seemed to care.

Sorry for the rant, but this whole aloof "nobody owes nobody anything" talk somehow doesn't cut it for me.
We are all human and want to trust each other - we don't really have much else to rely on.

You depend upon and trust real people in your daily life... to me it is an expression of the profound alienation and dysfunction in society that so many people are trying to form virtual personal relationships with businesses online and then talking in the same language as with boyfriends and girlfriends.

Also, the last part of your first sentence is so loaded. Oh, they seemed like a company that cared... but they dared to sell to a company that you despise so therefore they cannot possibly care... all centered around you.

I would never want to sell a product online these days, because so many people then assume/demand some sort of personal relationship and I would be betraying them if I did something they did not like. The developer is now supposed to hold your hand and consult you if they want to do something, and then they are supposed to pay for your therapy sessions because they are responsible for your disappointment and how dare they.

As you said "Of course they don't owe me and of course it's their decision and product". Then that is the end of the story. The rest you wrote shows you don't actually mean that first sentence. Like when someone says "I don't want to tell you what to do..." then proceeds to do just that

[Teksonik]

1) There's no guarantee that the next Windows OS will be able to run Alchemy at all, let alone without problems.

There's no guarantee Alchemy won't work with the Next Windows OS.

And before you say it doesn't happen, it does. There is so much software that I've bought over the years that doesn't work anymore. Some of my favorite video games of all time I can no longer play.

We're not talking about video games here. There are far more plugins that do still work than don't. The very first plugin I ever bought over 16 years ago still works.

If I owned Alchemy and somehow lost the license info, login, whatever and my PC crashed, I'd be pretty much out of luck.

Well you have to take some personal responsibility. Lose your License info or leave your hardware out in the rain.

In that respect you can't compare software to a physical product. It's the only thing about software that I've never liked since I bought my first video game in the early 80s.

If you bought the same hardware you had in the 80's those games would probably still work. YouTube is littered with Videos of people rebuilding IBM 8088's or older computers and getting them to run old software. My Atari ST software stopped working.....when I sold my last ST.

[wagtunes]

1) There's no guarantee that the next Windows OS will be able to run Alchemy at all, let alone without problems.

There's no guarantee Alchemy won't work with the Next Windows OS.

And before you say it doesn't happen, it does. There is so much software that I've bought over the years that doesn't work anymore. Some of my favorite video games of all time I can no longer play.

We're not talking about video games here. There are far more plugins that do still work than don't. The very first plugin I ever bought over 16 years ago still works.

If I owned Alchemy and somehow lost the license info, login, whatever and my PC crashed, I'd be pretty much out of luck.

Well you have to take some personal responsibility. Lose your License info or leave your hardware out in the rain.

In that respect you can't compare software to a physical product. It's the only thing about software that I've never liked since I bought my first video game in the early 80s.

If you bought the same hardware you had in the 80's those games would probably still work. YouTube is littered with Videos of people rebuilding IBM 8088's or older computers and getting them to run old software. My Atari ST software stopped working.....when I sold my last ST.

So for every piece of software that I ever owned that I wanted to keep, I'd have to have a PC around that was able to still run that software.

That doesn't sound like a very practical solution covering over 30 years of PC development and OS.

[samsam]

Whether you sell your soul for a single happy meal or 1000 happy meals, the point of the matter is, you've still sold your soul.

Ben sold the company, you can't sell souls.

Your '20 pieces of sliver' phrase doesn't fail because people think you're being literal with the amount (well, at least not in my case), it fails because clearly no treason or treachery was involved.

[Ben H]

Whether you sell your soul for a single happy meal or 1000 happy meals, the point of the matter is, you've still sold your soul.

Ben sold the company, you can't sell souls.

I guess not, if you don't have one.

Your '20 pieces of sliver' phrase doesn't fail because people think you're being literal with the amount (well, at least not in my case)

Oh really?

He didn't get 30 pieces of sliver, get got a f**k load more than that.

I couldn't help but notice you've back gone and re-quoted one of my older posts again, that I have already replied to.

Is that because you are trying to avoid answering my question again?

I've already put it to you several times now.

The need to somehow punish them for not doing what someone wants says something about the person saying that, not them.

I wasn't talking about punishing them. I'm not sure how you got that from what I posted?

Here it is a long time later and you are still trying to punish them...

Again, I'm not trying to punish them.

bad mouthing them publicly. Trying to extract your pound of flesh for their perceived wrongs.

Again, proof?

OK, last time I'm going to ask this...
Show me where I talked about punishing them?

You can't, because I didn't...

[Teksonik]

So for every piece of software that I ever owned that I wanted to keep, I'd have to have a PC around that was able to still run that software.

That doesn't sound like a very practical solution covering over 30 years of PC development and OS.

Same for every hardware synth you wanted to keep.....

[acYm]

there's something uninviting overall about the whole alchemy interface imo. I don't usually have problems with big plugins that have hundreds of pages and tabs and layers but I find it really easy to get lost and confused while programming that thing. possibly a case showing you actually can pack too much stuff in a vst... too much moving around for me. or maybe it's because everything is so uniform and samey. nowadays I use it mostly as a semi-rompler. I'd definitely miss it though, thank god I have my backups, it's one of the coolest synths for Kore.

if you ask me, the loss of space and phat is much more tragic than alchemy. harmor kinda does alchemy better than alchemy.

[Phorous]

I feel like Alchemy v1 became overrated in its later days. Honestly, the filters were just so-so and it only had five or so effects... The resynthesis was cool in theory, but didn't really sound all that good. No clue if v2 addressed any of this, but even if it did its not enough to get me to switch to Logic.

IMO, alot of the goodwill to Alchemy was based on community love for KVR darling Camel Audio, and we all saw how that worked out... divorced and bitter

[samsam]

Oh really?

Yup

[AnX]

Alchemy still works here, but i never use it. Prob havent loaded it up for 3 years or so. Never really liked it.

CA5000 was fun, but needed a lot of work to stop it sounding metallic.

I was hoping Ben was working on a diff synth, something that wasnt a bit of everything and wasnt sample based.If he was, i'll never get to use it (no apple products here)

[aMUSEd]

there's something uninviting overall about the whole alchemy interface imo. I don't usually have problems with big plugins that have hundreds of pages and tabs and layers but I find it really easy to get lost and confused while programming that thing. possibly a case showing you actually can pack too much stuff in a vst... too much moving around for me. or maybe it's because everything is so uniform and samey. nowadays I use it mostly as a semi-rompler. I'd definitely miss it though, thank god I have my backups, it's one of the coolest synths for Kore.

if you ask me, the loss of space and phat is much more tragic than alchemy. harmor kinda does alchemy better than alchemy.

That's strange because for me it's Harmor that has exactly the deficiencies you are ascribing to Alchemy - if anything has tons of tabs and menu diving it's Harmor, much more so than Alchemy. Never been able to get into it (plus it's barely stable on Mac).