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Alchemy
Reviewed By rockbottom [all]
May 31st, 2011
Version reviewed: 1.20.1 on Mac
I've been using Alchemy since 2009. Yes, I was first attracted by the plethora of presets it offered: we are talking about more than 650 factory presets, which means about 8 times that number of different sounds, right out of the box, thanks to its famous 'remix pad' that morphs between the performance settings of each of these presets... and not counting the multiple intermediate sounds that can be frozen during morphing transitions. Yet there are so many add-on packs I haven't purchased, I'm not sure I'll ever grasp the potential variety of sounds it can yield solely from its presets... I mean, using the Alchemy player only!
Now for designing sounds you won't hear anywhere else, Alchemy has become my favorite workhorse — that was easy, since no other plug offers five synthesis engines at this level of sophistication...
Admittedly, for pure sound design work, there will always be dedicated synthesizers or samplers that each does a fraction of what Alchemy can do: but even if you definitely know which kind of synthesis method will produce the result you're after, there's always an opportunity to refine the sound with the subtle personality of each of Alchemy's 31 modeled filters; moreover the flexible modulation system is second to none!
Ah, but tell me: this is only synth programming, hence heavily depending on what's inside the synth... Well, you don't have to stop there: for actual sound design, Alchemy is excellent at re-synthesis and additive stuff...
Alright, U&I Software's Metasynth does similar sound processing, but since it's no plug-in, the sound texture proper cannot be manipulated while playing, as can be done with Alchemy; and together with real-time modulation capabilities, this remains one of the keys to musically expressive phrases: as demonstrated by those 'Alchemistry' tapes from Simon Stockhausen on his 'patchpool' web page.
Other products, like Image Line's Morphine, cannot pretend they're able to achieve the same goals, because the quality of additive synthesis depends on two factors: the partials (harmonic or inharmonic) on the one one hand, and the noise component on the other — Morphine, for instance, has predefined 'constant' noises that can be added to the body of partials, but these noises are only good for providing a typical attack to a blowed or bowed instrument sound... not for actually emulating complex spectral evolutions like what's occurring, for example, at the time a bell is hit!Read Review
Now for designing sounds you won't hear anywhere else, Alchemy has become my favorite workhorse — that was easy, since no other plug offers five synthesis engines at this level of sophistication...
Admittedly, for pure sound design work, there will always be dedicated synthesizers or samplers that each does a fraction of what Alchemy can do: but even if you definitely know which kind of synthesis method will produce the result you're after, there's always an opportunity to refine the sound with the subtle personality of each of Alchemy's 31 modeled filters; moreover the flexible modulation system is second to none!
Ah, but tell me: this is only synth programming, hence heavily depending on what's inside the synth... Well, you don't have to stop there: for actual sound design, Alchemy is excellent at re-synthesis and additive stuff...
Alright, U&I Software's Metasynth does similar sound processing, but since it's no plug-in, the sound texture proper cannot be manipulated while playing, as can be done with Alchemy; and together with real-time modulation capabilities, this remains one of the keys to musically expressive phrases: as demonstrated by those 'Alchemistry' tapes from Simon Stockhausen on his 'patchpool' web page.
Other products, like Image Line's Morphine, cannot pretend they're able to achieve the same goals, because the quality of additive synthesis depends on two factors: the partials (harmonic or inharmonic) on the one one hand, and the noise component on the other — Morphine, for instance, has predefined 'constant' noises that can be added to the body of partials, but these noises are only good for providing a typical attack to a blowed or bowed instrument sound... not for actually emulating complex spectral evolutions like what's occurring, for example, at the time a bell is hit!Read Review
