NI Massive or Camel Audio Alchemy?

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
Post Reply
moondancer
Posts: 10
Joined: Tue Oct 13, 2009 7:02 am
Location: Poland
Contact:

NI Massive or Camel Audio Alchemy?

Post by moondancer » Fri Feb 05, 2010 2:11 pm

Like in subject. which is better?
Which is sound greater? In yours opinion
Software: Ableton Live 8, Absynth 4, Pro 53, V-Station, Bass Station, Zebra 2, AudioRealism BassLine 2
Hardware: MacBook Pro 2.4GHz, Launchpad, ZeRO SL MK II, CME M-Key, Lexicon Alpha, SAMSON MediaOne 4A

glitchrock-buddha
Posts: 4357
Joined: Fri Oct 14, 2005 1:29 am
Location: The Ableton Live Forum

Re: NI Massive or Camel Audio Alchemy?

Post by glitchrock-buddha » Fri Feb 05, 2010 2:25 pm

I have both. I think Massive sounds better, but Alchemy is much more versatile, because you can load your own samples, use multisampled SFZ format, do granular sampling, or additive/spectral resynthesis os samples. It's beast. I just happen to think that Massive sounds amazing for all things electro, inlucding dubstepm drum and bass techno, whatever. All those styles are far better with Massive I think. It does great pads and lo-fi stuff as well.

But they are totally different and one can not compare the sounds. They excel at totally different types of sounds.
Professional Shark Jumper.

ashtonron
Posts: 355
Joined: Mon Dec 12, 2005 7:29 pm
Location: Oslo

Re: NI Massive or Camel Audio Alchemy?

Post by ashtonron » Fri Feb 05, 2010 2:34 pm

glitchrock-buddha wrote:I have both. I think Massive sounds better, but Alchemy is much more versatile, because you can load your own samples, use multisampled SFZ format, do granular sampling, or additive/spectral resynthesis os samples. It's beast. I just happen to think that Massive sounds amazing for all things electro, inlucding dubstepm drum and bass techno, whatever. All those styles are far better with Massive I think. It does great pads and lo-fi stuff as well.

But they are totally different and one can not compare the sounds. They excel at totally different types of sounds.
+1

I too have both, and agree with the comments above
Ableton Suite 8, Komplete 6, Macbook + IMac, Nuforce Icon HDP, Art tubefire 8, Korg MicroKontrol + wacKMK, Oxygen 8 +++
http://soundcloud.com/ashtonron

moondancer
Posts: 10
Joined: Tue Oct 13, 2009 7:02 am
Location: Poland
Contact:

Re: NI Massive or Camel Audio Alchemy?

Post by moondancer » Fri Feb 05, 2010 2:53 pm

Thanks I must thing about this.
I have Absynth 4 which has sample use.
I must download trials and try booth :)
Software: Ableton Live 8, Absynth 4, Pro 53, V-Station, Bass Station, Zebra 2, AudioRealism BassLine 2
Hardware: MacBook Pro 2.4GHz, Launchpad, ZeRO SL MK II, CME M-Key, Lexicon Alpha, SAMSON MediaOne 4A

Khazul
Posts: 3185
Joined: Wed Feb 23, 2005 5:19 pm
Location: Reading, UK

Re: NI Massive or Camel Audio Alchemy?

Post by Khazul » Fri Feb 05, 2010 4:55 pm

Have both - you need to try them both really and see which suits your production style.

I hardly use alchemy for regular synthesis, so IMHO its most useful if you want to do wierd shit with samples, though often you can get just as good or better by abusing live's warping, bouncing the result and sticking it in a simpler/sampler. Depends what you are trying to do with it.

And alchemy definately isnt a software v-synth replacement - grrr!

Massive is a fat arrrse plastic VA - a jack of all trades when it comes to enhanced VA like synthesis does everthing pretty well. Excellennt modulation control, quite easy UI considering its complexity. But IMHO it sounds a little bit 'plastic' for want of a better term. I much prefer to use Sylenth1 and ACE, though ACE like Massive is a complete CPU hog!
Nothing to see here - move along!

glitchrock-buddha
Posts: 4357
Joined: Fri Oct 14, 2005 1:29 am
Location: The Ableton Live Forum

Re: NI Massive or Camel Audio Alchemy?

Post by glitchrock-buddha » Fri Feb 05, 2010 5:01 pm

moondancer wrote:Thanks I must thing about this.
I have Absynth 4 which has sample use.
I must download trials and try booth :)
hmmm, tough call then. I would say generally that Absynth has more in common with Alchemy than Massive. So for versatility of sound, Massive might be a better way to go. Also, you can get it for half of Alchemy. But Alchemy can do soooo much more with samples than Absynth. Absynth can either play them back normally or granular, but Alchemy's granular synthesis is much better I think. Also you can load multi-sampled .SFZ instruments in Alchemy which allows for pretty decent real life like instruments. And the Additive resynthesis is really where it's at in Alchemy. Have you listened to the resynthesized voice audio demo on the Camel site? It's pretty amazing. Alchemy also comes with a decent selection of real instruments like keys, choirs, strings etc, which Absnth isn't strong on.

Like I said, totally depends on type of music. I personally don't like Alchemy at all for more synthetic sounds and VA type sounds. Massive absolutely kills at that stuff. Everything from warm synth sounds to nasty, or even nice noisy pads and such. But Alchemy is just awesome for granular and additive type stuff.

Another thing to note, Massive is quite reasonable on cpu on eco mode. Alchemy however takes much more cpu. It's the biggest cpu hug I have.
Professional Shark Jumper.

ewistrand
Posts: 1537
Joined: Sat Feb 23, 2002 5:33 am
Location: Eagan, Minnesota

Re: NI Massive or Camel Audio Alchemy?

Post by ewistrand » Fri Feb 05, 2010 6:11 pm

glitchrock-buddha wrote:
Another thing to note, Massive is quite reasonable on cpu on eco mode. Alchemy however takes much more cpu. It's the biggest cpu hug I have.
That's surprising- I don't think Alchemy's bad at all CPU wise. Circle may be the worst I have.

@ the OP; I also have both Alchemy and Massive, and I moderate the official forums for both. They're two completely different beasts; I use Massive as the 21st century wavescanning synth it is, and I use Alchemy as a sample mangler/resynthesis engine that's hard to beat. Try the demos.

ew

zenke
Posts: 260
Joined: Sat Oct 02, 2004 8:38 am

Re: NI Massive or Camel Audio Alchemy?

Post by zenke » Fri Feb 05, 2010 6:15 pm

I have Massive and Alchemy and use Alchemy much more. However I would suggest looking at Zebra 2.5 which really rocks. I actually find the sounds that Massive produces a bit samey and unoriginal.
Z

glitchrock-buddha
Posts: 4357
Joined: Fri Oct 14, 2005 1:29 am
Location: The Ableton Live Forum

Re: NI Massive or Camel Audio Alchemy?

Post by glitchrock-buddha » Fri Feb 05, 2010 6:50 pm

zenke wrote:I have Massive and Alchemy and use Alchemy much more. However I would suggest looking at Zebra 2.5 which really rocks. I actually find the sounds that Massive produces a bit samey and unoriginal.
Z
Did you notice Moondancer's signature? :wink:
Professional Shark Jumper.

glitchrock-buddha
Posts: 4357
Joined: Fri Oct 14, 2005 1:29 am
Location: The Ableton Live Forum

Re: NI Massive or Camel Audio Alchemy?

Post by glitchrock-buddha » Fri Feb 05, 2010 6:53 pm

ewistrand wrote:
glitchrock-buddha wrote:
Another thing to note, Massive is quite reasonable on cpu on eco mode. Alchemy however takes much more cpu. It's the biggest cpu hug I have.
That's surprising- I don't think Alchemy's bad at all CPU wise.
Most definitely. Alchemy and Massive are comparable monophonically, but start to add polyphony and play sustained pads and such. For me on my 2.8 Ghz C2D mpb, Alchemy often gets up in the +30% range, whereas Massive seldom breaks 20% for the same types of sounds.
Last edited by glitchrock-buddha on Mon Feb 08, 2010 5:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Professional Shark Jumper.

milfhuntr
Posts: 290
Joined: Mon Nov 30, 2009 7:19 pm

Re: NI Massive or Camel Audio Alchemy?

Post by milfhuntr » Mon Feb 08, 2010 5:16 pm

Those synths are not alike. I use those two as well as FM8. I personally like FM8 better than all of them.

Post Reply