Camel Audio is closing shop! ;-( .......Alchemy is reborn!

[monkey man]

I'm going to say what I always do in these cases:

If Roland goes out of business, I can still get a unit repaired; I don't require support from said company. Same goes for any MIDI hardware unit I own. If parts aren't available, often work-arounds and 3rd-party alternatives can be made to fit or whatever. No OS upgrade, buyout or bankruptcy can prevent my units from working.

Approaching 1st ever plug / VI purchase in a few months (apart from M5, but that's MOTU so it doesn't count for me; all my eggs have been in its basket for 15 years, and I'm still very happy about that). I'll be aiming to keep the number of companies involved to a minimum, and to choose ones that appear to, as best we can tell, be destined for long-term survival.

I am dreading the day I spend that first dollar 'though, 'cause the line I've been preaching all along about hardware vs VIs (and to a lesser extent, FX plugs, hence my persistent insistence that MOTU continue to add high-quality freebies to DP), still stands. In fact the Crysonic and now Camel Audio situations, being virtually successive, only serve to fuel my scepticism.

There. I said it, and you can bet I'll repeat the sentiment next time... and there will be a next time, where folks are left high-and-dry, out of pocket and perhaps with sizeable libraries of useless custom-programmed patches.

[mhschmieder]

Surprised that the rumors were true about Apple being the one. Maybe the tech is to be integrated into Logic's EXS sample player, which I don't think ha been updated in awhile and may be losing its "reason to buy Logic" edge to Kontakt?

Funny thing, I delete all EXS files anytime I buy a sample library. I figured I'd never use it, if only because it's so long in the tooth and due to hating Logic and never planning to buy it (my only compromise on the DAW front was to buy Studio One, which was mostly for its Mastering Mode).

I do hope our investment gets returned somehow. It was bad enough having to more or less give up on Cameleon 5000, which I still prefer timbrally to Alchemy. It would be great if those of us who bought most of the Alchemy add-ons have some way to carry forward with their use into another product, with some loyalty discount.

[philbrown]

I do hope our investment gets returned somehow. It was bad enough having to more or less give up on Cameleon 5000, which I still prefer timbrally to Alchemy. It would be great if those of us who bought most of the Alchemy add-ons have some way to carry forward with their use into another product, with some loyalty discount.

I have several add-on libraries for Alchemy and am hoping for the above as well.
I miss Chameleon 5000 as well, and looked at it as separate and distinct from Alchemy with a different sound flavor.

Never cared for any of U-He's stuff I've demo'd and a lot of Absynth's sounds give me ear fatigue. Long live Alchemy! (I hope)

[billf]

According the articles appearing today, Camel was indeed purchased by Apple:

The Companies House, which is where corporations must register their current information, indicates that Camel Audio’s address has changed to the location of Apple’s London headquarters, which is 100 New Bridge Street. In addition, Camel Audio’s only director is now listed as Heather Joy Morrison, who happens to be a lawyer with Apple.

Neither Apple nor Camel Audio has officially confirmed the acquisition.

http://www.valuewalk.com/2015/02/apple- ... mel-audio/

[Shooshie]

While I'm sure Apple plans to use Camel's plugins in Logic, and perhaps in Final Cut and possibly other applications we don't even know about yet, the article I read had some comments below that were all about Aperture and photography. What on earth was THAT about?

I can't think of any crossover between audio and photographic plugins, unless they're possibly processing light as waves, not intensities. Nah, too esoteric. There must have been some kind of HTML screwup connecting unrelated comments to that page.

Shoosh

[mikehalloran]

It would be great if those of us who bought most of the Alchemy add-ons have some way to carry forward with their use into another product, with some loyalty discount.

after Apple bought the company?

I hope that you're right but if Emagic/Logic, Nashoba/FileMaker, NeXT... well, the list goes on and on, doesn't it?

Apple tends to pluck what it wants and abandon the rest.

[bayswater]

I do hope our investment gets returned somehow. It was bad enough having to more or less give up on Cameleon 5000, which I still prefer timbrally to Alchemy. It would be great if those of us who bought most of the Alchemy add-ons have some way to carry forward with their use into another product, with some loyalty discount.

Dreamer. Apple rewarded loyal Emagic Logic users by ending upgrade pricing and charging full price for their first new version. They relented after a huge backlash, but only for that first release. Apple didn't get to be the biggest company in history with price discounts.

[daniel.sneed]

[...]I do hope our investment gets returned somehow. It was bad enough having to more or less give up on Cameleon 5000, which I still prefer timbrally to Alchemy. It would be great if those of us who bought most of the Alchemy add-ons have some way to carry forward with their use into another product, with some loyalty discount.

Of course, loyalty discount would be fair.
But, most of all, valuating the time-consuming learning curve and still running Alchemy projects are my first concerns.

[Michael Canavan]

I do hope our investment gets returned somehow. It was bad enough having to more or less give up on Cameleon 5000, which I still prefer timbrally to Alchemy. It would be great if those of us who bought most of the Alchemy add-ons have some way to carry forward with their use into another product, with some loyalty discount.

Dreamer. Apple rewarded loyal Emagic Logic users by ending upgrade pricing and charging full price for their first new version. They relented after a huge backlash, but only for that first release. Apple didn't get to be the biggest company in history with price discounts.

Hmm? I don't remember that? I bought the crossgrade to Logic 4.7 right before the Apple acquisition and if I recall correctly they initially got rid of the crossgrade offer and only relented after public outcry.
The upgrade prices were cheaper than the current model for years at about $130-160. Now you buy Logic as new every time..

To be fair to Apple though, I'm OK with what they did with Autosampler, it's $30 rolled into MainStage, and the EXS format is read easily and cleanly by every sampler out there.

[mhschmieder]

Hmm, although unrelated, I got some blurb about Aperture going away, along with iPhoto, and being merged into the new Photos app. Unclear whether it's free, a free upgrade/update, not-free, expensive, etc.

So perhaps Apple will be consolidating some of their line-up in the media space at the same time. All that I know is that there was something about a Logic point release update shown at NAMM. But MusikMesse is in a few short weeks, so maybe there'll be an announcement then.

Apple is a big company. There are parts of it where I know what is going on (and can't talk about it) and other parts where I know less than most on this forum.

[bayswater]

Hmm, although unrelated, I got some blurb about Aperture going away, along with iPhoto, and being merged into the new Photos app. Unclear whether it's free, a free upgrade/update, not-free, expensive, etc.

It's free as part of the next 10.10 update. This was made public quite a long time ago. Aperture will not be for sale after Photo is released. Those using the more advanced features of Aperture have been advised in many quarters to start looking at alternatives.

The Logic item is presumably 10.1 with quite a few GUI changes and new features.. It has been out for about a month. 10.1.1 has been out for about a week with a very large number of bug fixes, but (one hopes) there a lot more to come.

[mhschmieder]

What I will NOT miss about Alchemy is the hours-long rescanning process, which I am suffering right now because I stupidly forgot about it not kicking in until the next time you enable an instance of Alchemy in a DAW (it never had a standalone version, unfortunately -- I love using standalone versions of VI's to audition them, make lists of what I want to use, and to get them set up properly and to work out any kinks).

I went to my account last night for the first time in many months, and for the final time ever, and for some reason it said I hadn't downloaded part 3 of 4, of the main sounds, and the latest presets. That install took eons, but right now I am dead in the water and have no clue how much longer of a wait I have as the scanning process is very linear (extremely poorly written code, clearly) and resets its progress bar frequently.

It would be a joke if Apple bought them for their software infrastructure rather than their audio knowhow, samples, libraries, algorithms, etc.

[daniel.sneed]

What I will NOT miss about Alchemy is the hours-long rescanning process, which I am suffering right now because I stupidly forgot about it not kicking in until the next time you enable an instance of Alchemy [...]
That install took eons, but right now I am dead in the water and have no clue how much longer of a wait I have as the scanning process is very linear (extremely poorly written code, clearly) and resets its progress bar frequently.[...]

Hum, hum... Maybe process bar is showing up scanning process of every folder or the like...
But, even with this poor scanning feature, the day it will refuse to cope with future OS release, I will miss that great synth and libraries.

[mcarroll49]

Anyone know how DP9 works with Camel Audio Alchemy and their plugs Space and Phat? I have DP9 but couldn't bear losing Alchemy.

[BKK-OZ]

Have you tried them in 9?
Are they 32bit?
(If so, they won't show up, without a bridging app like 32 lives.)