Ableton Forum

Michael Gerard wrote:Confirmed that you -can- import your old sounds one by one... Don't see a way to import entire sound packs, though. Which is a drag, because I bought them all from Camel Audio and there are a ton of them...

You have access to your whole " legacy content" in one click in the browse window .

This synth is irritatingly complex. Usually I can figure out a synth in less than an hour without tutorials.
This is nuts. I can see I will need the manual for this.

hmmm.
HMMMMM...

My current thoughts:
What can this synth do that can't be done with a combination of live and logic?
I already have a ton of modulation when adding lfo's and automation in live.
Spectral synthesis sounds really 80's to me ( I already have the korg m1 vst)
I dont care about preset surfing

I do find the ability to morph between patches interesting.
Every one else seems to think its great.

Nathannn,

Yes, it is a VERY complex synth. However, like many synths, as soon as you understand one oscillator and its synth types (in other synths like serum it defaults as wavetable but you can do FM and AM) in alchemy's case it has 7 synth types and different analysis modes that take advantage of these 7 different synth types. Its sort of a cant do step 1 without step 2 actually happening after type of thing.

This synth can do a lot under one roof that can't be done in combination of live and logic *assuming your not using alchemy in logic lol* because it has so much under one roof. Most synths that go for this type of thing especially additive synths, usually try to focus on only the additive part while sometimes taking ideas from other forms of synthesis. But alchemy, it has somehow done so much in one place, that it just makes on crazy creative synth. Dont like how a sample sounds as additive analysis, try granular, want to just load a sample up like a normal sampler but have lots of modulation options that no other sampler I know of has, this is your spot. The free-flow of changing what your doing in alchemy is amazing.

Alchemy is all about the one stop shop overall... but then you throw in all the morphing abilities... it just takes sound design to another leap.

nathannn wrote: Spectral synthesis sounds really 80's to me ( I already have the korg m1 vst).

Korg's M1 has nothing to do with Spectral Synthesis, nor is it anywhere in the league of Alchemy in terms of depth and functionality. I get these are just your kneejerk reactions, but this is enormously reductionistic and I'd encourage you to dig deeper into the synth! Complexity like this is a GOOD thing!

I also think you're misunderstanding the 'preset morphing' -- it isn't morphing between different patches in the library, it's morphing between different settings for one patch, as programmed with the X/Y pads and the different zones on the left. This can result in patches with dynamics that go far beyond most other synths...

-M

I did mess with it for few more hours after my post and I now understand how to program it.
I was meaning that the korg m1 sounds like most of the sounds I get out of spectral synthesis. I understand that the korg m1 is a rompler or sample based synth and spectral synthesis is something different.

So far I really like Alchemy 2 a lot. The only down side is that I always have to use it logic.

Wow,

This is awesome

Downloaded last night and am very impressed. Not only with the synth, but the fact that as a Logic owner it's free!!!

I've actually been using Logic more and more, and although I occasionally miss Live's throw it all together and mess about approach, I've been 'far' more productive with Logic. I've been hugely impressed with the new stuff in version X. The 'Drummer' function is fantastic, even though it is unbalanced with the styles (no Jazz drummer - wtf is that all about!!). The new synths, effects and graphics are great. I'm a bit old school, and like to see cool imagery of what I'm using not just the minimal Live display, which I find pretty uninspiring.

And most importantly... Logic has 'never' crashed on me. And... The of course the price

I wonder what will follow I certainly a huge fan of small developers doing their own thing (just look at u-he), but it's exciting to have great quality products incorporated into the DAW

nathannn wrote:The only down side is that I always have to use it logic.

Oh, really?

I simply cannot get over the fact that the nice guys at Camel would pull this arsehole move. I mean, I grabbed the installers and content, and I can keep using it, but it really needed this 2.0 upgrade. The VST version is sluggish and takes way too long time to load, so I really do feel a bit cheated, here, considering I've tossed quite a bit of money at Camel (all their effects and a lot of Alchemy libraries).

But I agree; for existing Mac users, Logic is looking more and more like an utter no-brainer (and, admittedly, I might be more forgiving if, say, Ableton had bought Alchemy... )

Using an External Instrument (and Soundflower) you can easily send MIDI from Live to MainStage, and the resulting audio back to Live to record. One quick tutorial on this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41EZa97 ... 5njcabs6hA (skip the intro stuff until he gets into the steps)

koranek wrote:Now if there were just a reasonable way to slave Mainstage to Live. I know that Rewire won't work for this.

We need to find the software geeks who can do Jbridge and Soundflower type programming to develop something.

I'd pay for that in a heartbeat.

jcrystal wrote:Using an External Instrument (and Soundflower) you can easily send MIDI from Live to MainStage, and the resulting audio back to Live to record. One quick tutorial on this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41EZa97 ... 5njcabs6hA (skip the intro stuff until he gets into the steps)

SoundFlower doesn't seem to be under active development anymore though...

Latest version is working for me to get Live 9.2.2 to speak nicely to Alchemy/Mainstage

fishmonkey wrote:

jcrystal wrote:Using an External Instrument (and Soundflower) you can easily send MIDI from Live to MainStage, and the resulting audio back to Live to record. One quick tutorial on this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41EZa97 ... 5njcabs6hA (skip the intro stuff until he gets into the steps)

SoundFlower doesn't seem to be under active development anymore though...

fishmonkey wrote:

jcrystal wrote:Using an External Instrument (and Soundflower) you can easily send MIDI from Live to MainStage, and the resulting audio back to Live to record. One quick tutorial on this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41EZa97 ... 5njcabs6hA (skip the intro stuff until he gets into the steps)

SoundFlower doesn't seem to be under active development anymore though...

All it really needs are updates to new OS releases, and it looks like Rouge Ameba are going to be doing that.
It's a legit concern though, and worth emailing Rouge about.

Machinesworking wrote:

fishmonkey wrote: SoundFlower doesn't seem to be under active development anymore though...

All it really needs are updates to new OS releases, and it looks like Rouge Ameba are going to be doing that.
It's a legit concern though, and worth emailing Rouge about.

Rogue Amoeba has "taken it under their wing" however they offer no support and their fork of the software hasn't be updated for a long time.

the current version of SoundFlower was buggy for me under Yosemite, so i uninstalled it. i don't like relying on unsupported software, especially low-level stuff. i need my machines to be rock-solid...

Is there anything else that will do what Soundflower does?

fishmonkey wrote:

Machinesworking wrote:

fishmonkey wrote: SoundFlower doesn't seem to be under active development anymore though...

All it really needs are updates to new OS releases, and it looks like Rouge Ameba are going to be doing that.
It's a legit concern though, and worth emailing Rouge about.

Rogue Amoeba has "taken it under their wing" however they offer no support and their fork of the software hasn't be updated for a long time.

the current version of SoundFlower was buggy for me under Yosemite, so i uninstalled it. i don't like relying on unsupported software, especially low-level stuff. i need my machines to be rock-solid...

jcrystal wrote:Is there anything else that will do what Soundflower does?

Jack OSX, but it's development is glacial, and it's a lot more work to set up.

Sound flower for what it's worth is bug free on my Yosemite system, apparently not for everyone, but I've never had issue with it.
I mostly just use the stereo version.

fishmonkey wrote: Rogue Amoeba has "taken it under their wing" however they offer no support and their fork of the software hasn't be updated for a long time.

the current version of SoundFlower was buggy for me under Yosemite, so i uninstalled it. i don't like relying on unsupported software, especially low-level stuff. i need my machines to be rock-solid...

Sound flower has IMO always been more stable than Jack, and those are your choices for inter application audio.
As far as Sunflower being low level and adding instability I've almost always had it installed with zero issues.

For what it's worth I emailed Rouge Ameba this:

Your company has taken over hosting Soundflower, there is much concern about whether you will be updating it for new OS's and fixing bugs? Are you? or are you just hosting a link to the open source project?

I'll report back with what they say about it.