Live 11 and Camel Audio Alchemy

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
sporkles
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Re: Live 11 and Camel Audio Alchemy

Post by sporkles » Fri May 14, 2021 6:14 pm

Ugh… New computer, and I just can’t find the Alchemy installers… I know that I had them neatly stored in a folder … somewhere, but two of my external drives were DOA when I was searching for the installers. :evil: I wouldn’t mind letting Alchemy go all that much if it weren’t for all the cool Alchemy libraries I also invested in back in the day. I did make a complete backup of my old system drive a while ago, so I do have all the program data files, but I guess simply dropping them into the same folder on the new computer won’t work…

kitekrazy
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Re: Live 11 and Camel Audio Alchemy

Post by kitekrazy » Fri May 14, 2021 6:52 pm

So is the current Apple version only available in Logic?

I had an issue with Image Line products load with blank GUIs. I reinstalled them to fix it.

Maybe a reinstall would work. I think one time with Alchemy I deleted the 32 bit folder and the 64 bit came up blank.

The nice thing about Alchemy is your authorization is built in.

If is stopped working it wouldn't be the end of the world since I've gotten a zillion other synths since then. I don't use it because I forget its there.

sporkles
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Re: Live 11 and Camel Audio Alchemy

Post by sporkles » Mon May 24, 2021 8:13 pm

Phew! I managed to get Alchemy working by copying the files from the ProgramData folder from my backup drive and the .dll from the VST folder! Even my patch ratings are intact :D And in the process, I noticed that all the samples from the various Alchemy libraries are in fact in wave format. That's very interesting!

patekswiss
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Re: Live 11 and Camel Audio Alchemy

Post by patekswiss » Thu Feb 24, 2022 11:36 pm

So here is the latest on my end about Alchemy.

As we all know, at least if you're using a Mac as I am, Alchemy really doesn't work in Live 11 anymore. If you have a project that uses Alchemy as a plugin, you may be able to open the project and Alchemy may still play. But you can't change anything, or create new tracks or projects with new instances of Alchemy, because the user interface does not appear - just a black square.

To get around this, I tried going back to an install of Ableton 9 that I had on my computer. But it froze every few minutes, and in a bad way requiring a hard restart. I am using Mac OS Mojave (10.14).

I then tried an old copy of Ableton 10 that I kept around. Alchemy seemed to work fine in this version of Ableton 10, and I didn't have the freezing. This much has already been mentioned in this thread.

But the next time I opened Ableton 10, Alchemy failed the same way it does in Ableton 11. No UI. The culprit? I had auto updating on. Ableton had auto updated my Ableton 10 from something like version 30 to version 41. Alchemy works with the former, but not with the latter.

Fortunately I had a backup copy of Ableton 10 on my Time Machine. I copied that over, started it up and went directly to the control panel and DISABLED automatic updating. So far so good.

Hope this is helpful to anyone who starts having Alchemy issues in Ableton 10. Also this resuscitates other old Camel Audio faves such as Camelspace.

Cheers, WW

Pitch Black
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Re: Live 11 and Camel Audio Alchemy

Post by Pitch Black » Fri Feb 25, 2022 1:34 am

Musicians are the last people who should have auto update switched on for anything. We usually have more third-party software and plugins than any other use-case.

If it works, don’t fix it!! 😛
MBP M1Max | MacOS 12.7.2 | Live 11.3.20 | Babyface Pro FS | Push 3 (tethered) | a whole other bunch of controllers
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patekswiss
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Re: Live 11 and Camel Audio Alchemy

Post by patekswiss » Sat Feb 26, 2022 7:42 pm

Agree. I have it turned off for my Mac and iPhone operating systems because the updates break everything and often don't deliver much new or enhanced functionality (often they're primarily for the convenience of the vendor rather than the user). But I just overlooked this on Live. "Live" and learn, I guess. :-)

theophilus
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Re: Live 11 and Camel Audio Alchemy

Post by theophilus » Sat Mar 05, 2022 3:07 am

This is awesome - thanks for this.

I did not have a 10.1 around, but I was able to get the latest 10.0 release off of ableton's site and that one also works!
It's useful in that alchemy itself works fine, you just can't see it, so if you can set it up to edit & then save patches, and then open them in in live 11.
I still have a lot in it so happy to have it useful again!

Machinesworking
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Re: Live 11 and Camel Audio Alchemy

Post by Machinesworking » Sat Mar 05, 2022 7:27 am

Pitch Black wrote:
Fri Feb 25, 2022 1:34 am
Musicians are the last people who should have auto update switched on for anything. We usually have more third-party software and plugins than any other use-case.

If it works, don’t fix it!! 😛
Sez the guy with an M1 Max. :lol:

Pitch Black
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Re: Live 11 and Camel Audio Alchemy

Post by Pitch Black » Sat Mar 05, 2022 8:41 am

Machinesworking wrote:
Sat Mar 05, 2022 7:27 am
Pitch Black wrote:
Fri Feb 25, 2022 1:34 am
Musicians are the last people who should have auto update switched on for anything. We usually have more third-party software and plugins than any other use-case.

If it works, don’t fix it!! 😛
Sez the guy with an M1 Max. :lol:
…aaaannd the 2015 MBP, annnnd the 2006 MBP, aaannnd the 2002 OS9 TiBook. They will all still work, if summoned from the dungeon. :twisted:

EDIT:
Should add a full account of the working wounded:
2015- until last month, heavily swollen battery and sudden death on stage during my New Years gig.
2006- busted screen, permanently confused graphics card, busted optical drive, no battery.
2002- broken hinge, so much case corrosion it looks like it has psoriasis.

It was high time for an upgrade!
MBP M1Max | MacOS 12.7.2 | Live 11.3.20 | Babyface Pro FS | Push 3 (tethered) | a whole other bunch of controllers
Ableton Certified Trainer
Soundcloud

kitekrazy
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Re: Live 11 and Camel Audio Alchemy

Post by kitekrazy » Sat Mar 05, 2022 7:42 pm

I had an issue like this and I installed it again and not delete the 32 bit VST. I think it borrws files from it.

Machinesworking
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Re: Live 11 and Camel Audio Alchemy

Post by Machinesworking » Sat Mar 05, 2022 11:51 pm

Pitch Black wrote:
Sat Mar 05, 2022 8:41 am
Machinesworking wrote:
Sat Mar 05, 2022 7:27 am
Pitch Black wrote:
Fri Feb 25, 2022 1:34 am
Musicians are the last people who should have auto update switched on for anything. We usually have more third-party software and plugins than any other use-case.

If it works, don’t fix it!! 😛
Sez the guy with an M1 Max. :lol:
…aaaannd the 2015 MBP, annnnd the 2006 MBP, aaannnd the 2002 OS9 TiBook. They will all still work, if summoned from the dungeon. :twisted:

EDIT:
Should add a full account of the working wounded:
2015- until last month, heavily swollen battery and sudden death on stage during my New Years gig.
2006- busted screen, permanently confused graphics card, busted optical drive, no battery.
2002- broken hinge, so much case corrosion it looks like it has psoriasis.

It was high time for an upgrade!
So it's more like "if it doesn't work, don't fix it, buy a new one!" :twisted:

You get my point though, we're not dawless musicians, we all want to look over the bleeding edge, even if it means giving up some plug ins, which you 100% would have to do on the M1. Alchemy is one of those plug ins. Unless you love complex setups with two DAWs, IAC MIDI, some sort of universal audio routing like loopback or Blue Cats Connector you're not getting Alchemy into Live.

You can do it currently with Connector and Logic, I've asked Blue Cat into looking at MainStage since I cannot get MIDI to work in MainStage, if we could, then Alchemy is back in Live for relatively cheap.

Pitch Black
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Re: Live 11 and Camel Audio Alchemy

Post by Pitch Black » Sun Mar 06, 2022 1:08 am

Yup, us tech geeks are now like guitar geeks, need that ‘68 Strat through this particular vintage amp/head combo to get that sound. If you want it you have to keep and maintain the “vintage” gear.

Plus ca change…
MBP M1Max | MacOS 12.7.2 | Live 11.3.20 | Babyface Pro FS | Push 3 (tethered) | a whole other bunch of controllers
Ableton Certified Trainer
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Tarekith
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Re: Live 11 and Camel Audio Alchemy

Post by Tarekith » Sun Mar 06, 2022 6:12 am

I buy new Mac laptops right when they come out and upgrade my OS the day it's released. Ha! Living on the edge! 8)
Tarekith
Ableton Forum Administrator
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Pitch Black
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Re: Live 11 and Camel Audio Alchemy

Post by Pitch Black » Sun Mar 06, 2022 6:54 am

Tarekith wrote:
Sun Mar 06, 2022 6:12 am
I buy new Mac laptops right when they come out and upgrade my OS the day it's released. Ha! Living on the edge! 8)
Image

Machinesworking
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Re: Live 11 and Camel Audio Alchemy

Post by Machinesworking » Sun Mar 06, 2022 8:13 am

Tarekith wrote:
Sun Mar 06, 2022 6:12 am
I buy new Mac laptops right when they come out and upgrade my OS the day it's released. Ha! Living on the edge! 8)
Generally I wait. You probably never got burned but I did. Motorola couldn't release a fast enough G4, so the "speed bump" back in the day from the first Powerbook 500mhz to the 667mhz version in the next version had a worse level 3 cache. What that meant was less plug ins on the 667mhz than the 500mhz for audio, because at the time things like caches mattered a lot. The reason was pretty simple, the 667mhz would have been faster or at least as fast as the 800mhz G4 Powerac Apple released simultaneously if the 667mhz had the same level cache as the previous years 500mhz. I got burned by marketing, so I always wait for real world specs before buying anything these days.

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