Coming Soon from Camel Audio - Alchemy!

[pdxindy]

How would you like them to be better? I mean, what could be improved from Cameleon?

[ckatrun411]

I don't know if its just, screen resolution, cause cameleon is from 2004? so obviously, the size was a little bigger or something. but I always found making breakpoints on those envelopes a little awkward.

What I want improved, is totally ergonomic... not function, i guess...


well.....

Its not a deal breaker for me. Obviously, I like Alchemy, I think its going to be a great sounding, and very important synth for a guy to have...

But, have you used Rapture?


Rapture, is like the "wet dream" of software synthesis envelopes, as far as I am concerned. Now, I'm not saying every synth should have Raptures envelopes, but I sure do hope the MSEG envelopes in Alchemy, have a little bit of an easier going vibe to work with.


Do you have cameleon? I think you have said several times you don't... but I am not sure...


Why not download the demo, and tell me your thoughts, I'd be keen on hearing.....


I know, that this Bitplant GUI, speaks great news about what the envelopes may look like...

Gosh, I do hope Alchemy's MSEG are far easier to work with than Cameleons, and I also hope they are as powerful and well designed as Rapture or Absynth, or even Zebra's, which i hear are fabulous..


But, the envelopes alone, wont be a deal maker or breaker for me....


cheers

[pdxindy]

I don't know if its just, screen resolution, cause cameleon is from 2004? so obviously, the size was a little bigger or something. but I always found making breakpoints on those envelopes a little awkward.

What I want improved, is totally ergonomic... not function, i guess...


well.....

Its not a deal breaker for me. Obviously, I like Alchemy, I think its going to be a great sounding, and very important synth for a guy to have...

But, have you used Rapture?


Rapture, is like the "wet dream" of software synthesis envelopes, as far as I am concerned. Now, I'm not saying every synth should have Raptures envelopes, but I sure do hope the MSEG envelopes in Alchemy, have a little bit of an easier going vibe to work with.


Do you have cameleon? I think you have said several times you don't... but I am not sure...


Why not download the demo, and tell me your thoughts, I'd be keen on hearing.....


I know, that this Bitplant GUI, speaks great news about what the envelopes may look like...

Gosh, I do hope Alchemy's MSEG are far easier to work with than Cameleons, and I also hope they are as powerful and well designed as Rapture or Absynth, or even Zebra's, which i hear are fabulous..


But, the envelopes alone, wont be a deal maker or breaker for me....


cheers

I have Cameleon demo so I tried it for a couple minutes. The mseg's seem okay, but not great (I'd need to work with them for a while to get a more detailed sense of what I'd like improved) One thing I noticed right off, you have to click, release the mouse and then click drag to move a new point. Should just be click drag.

As far as mseg's in general, I like some of the things Massive did. Having the envelope have different modes. 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.

Rapture is pc only yes?

[biomechanoid]

This looks really great. Looking forward to the release. Two questions, though:

1. My one worry is with polyphonic instruments such as a piano. Will playing several six note chords one after the other, or playing fast solos so that the system has to calculate fast, cause a big strain on the CPU? (The usual answer would be yes, but I can imagine an arrangement in which once a preset is created, the number and tuning of partials and their ratio to velocity become constant, so the instrument would be playing back constants instead of having to calculate on the fly.) Could still cause strain, however?

Yeah... if you want a realistic piano, a sfz in sampler mode is your best option - unless you want to manipulate it in some way such as the odd/even harmonic balance. But there's nothing (except your RAM limits) to stop you analysing a large multisampled instrument. Playing 6 notes of an analysed sfz should use no more CPU than playing 6 notes of a analysed single sample. A single analysed sample tends to sound pretty good across the keyrange compared to standard sampling.

2. I imagine that the file size for presets, compared to the size of sample libraries, will be small. But is it possible to guess the file size if we tried to create an 88 note stereo piano, with detuned unison "strings," and around 150 partials per "string"? (Many of these would be near-partials, of course, instead of actual multiples of the fundamental.)

The file sizes for analysed content actually isn't much smaller than the original file size. Accurate resynthesis requires a lot of data.

Are the mseg and other envelopes better than Cameleons?

Yes - you'll see them in action in the first video.

BTW - please bear in mind we are a relatively small team and we are all really busy right now. While we do our best to answer all your questions, please be patient if we're not around for a few days. Thanks.

Col

[ckatrun411]

Rapture is pc only yes?

Oh, no buddy. Rapture works on mac... I'm using macintosh as well.

Rapture is great and totally fun....


Its at www.cakewalk.com but you probably know that already.

Cheers

Are the mseg and other envelopes better than Cameleons?

Yes - you'll see them in action in the first video.

BTW - please bear in mind we are a relatively small team and we are all really busy right now. While we do our best to answer all your questions, please be patient if we're not around for a few days. Thanks.

Col

Thats good news. I'm hoping their totally radical. I know this is going to be quite an important and awesome synth to have.

Thanks for heads up mate, cheers

[mcdonalk]

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

thanks

Keith

[opus_diaboli]

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?

[ckatrun411]

Does absynth do additive? This is a totally different thing mate.




Really, ok..... Absynth does granular, but you would be hard pressed to say a synth is a clone just cause it 'does granular.' I really don't know what kind of spectral stuff absynth does, I'm quite sure Absynth does not do additive. This is like, basically, a MEGA HUGE, difference.

[opus_diaboli]

Okay, no additive synthesis. Anything else?

[ckatrun411]

erm, thats a big thing mate...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Additive_synthesis


That makes this synth, an entirely different idea, and architecture.

[koolkeys]

I agree with ckatrun411. Absynth is a FANTASTIC synth(I do own it). But just additive synthesis and resynthesis alone make Alchemy a completely different instrument. Not necessarily better(although it could be, I haven't tried it yet). But those are pretty big differences. Heck, entire synths are sold as ONLY additive synths, without sample loading, spectral synthesis, granular synthesis. Morphine, anyone? I'm pretty sure that Cube is just an additive synth, and it's a full priced synth.

So yes, it's a big deal and worthy of putting Alchemy separate from Absynth.

Brent

[pdxindy]

Absynth does not do resynthesis either. huge difference

the flute sample, voice sample etc in Alchemy demo are no longer samples. The sample is analyzed and resynthesized using the additive and spectral synth engine, so what you can do to it goes well beyond manipulating a sample.

[Alien Leg]

The resynth quaility is definitely a big step up from the other additive synths, so I will have to get it. The flute example was really impressive. But there seems to be the typical FFT transient blurring when there are hard attacks as in percussion instruments like in the other resynthesizers. This area of fast noisy elements in sounds must be the most difficult one to get good results. But anyway, Alchemy is a must have for the sampling enthusiast!

[biomechanoid]

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?

I suggest you try the demo when its available and decide for yourself.

I've used Absynth quite a lot, and love it dearly. While some aspects of Alchemy are certainly similar, I can assure you there are far, far more differences than similarities, and that Alchemy offers a lot more possibilities.

While Absynth is certainly capable of some very interesting voice manipulations, there is no-way you could come close to recreating the voice demo in Absynth - the granular stuff perhaps, but there's no additive analysis, there's no spectral analysis, you can't morph samples (only single cycle waveforms), you can't edit or modulate harmonics in samples (again, only single cycle waveforms) and you cant separate the harmonic and noise content of a sample.

Cheers

Col

[vurt]

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!?