http://www.camelaudio.com/

Anybody else give this a look? Very tempting for current Cameleon 5000 owners, at $125 crossgrade.

Listening to the jukebox, this sounds like quite a synth engine. Lots of Reaktor like stuff.
This seems to take a a lot of concepts from Spectrasonics Omnisphere. The arpeggiator can lock to a midi file, right click a knob to assign modulation, weird sound experiments for sample material and years in the making, granular synthesis... and so on.

This seems to be a much more open synth then Omnisphere though, with a big selling point being it's user sample mangling.

How long ago was this announced? I only noticed it today.

The demos sounded so awful that I didn't bother posting any info about this synth here, when it was announced a couple of months back. I'm so tired of synths that try to do everything; Cameleon 5000's strength is that it is a very focused app. As such, it is my primary go-to synth for sound design work (just as was the hardware Kawai K5000r that it replaced in my arsenal).

OTOH, the granular synthesis block might be useful. But I would only be interested if the familiar Cameleon workflow was easily accomplsihed within the more comprehensive framework.

Oh, I may have misinterpreted the intent of this product when I first read about it. After revisiting Camel Audio's website, it no longer sounds to me like they are REPLACING Cameleon 5000 with Alchemy.

In that case, I have nothing against it. My criticisms were based on the assumption that Cameleon 5000 is going away. But it appears the primary focus of Alchemy is on providing different synthesis techniques towards manipulating samples; whereas Cameleon 5000 -- although it does contain samples, just as did the Kawai 5000 -- is primarily focused on additive synthesis.

The Cameleon 5000 interface is one of my favourites in the business. Alchemy's is nice as well, but due to its more comprehensive nature, the workflow of Cameleon 5000 sound design would not be as direct or as visually pleasing. One of the beautiful things about Cameleon 5000 is that there is almost an Art to designing patches with it. I find that very satisfying.

Been to busy to check it out but I've always liked both Camel products and their friendly customer support. I have everything else they put out. CamelSpace is my favorite effects unit for delay effects.

Ugh; it actually DOES replace Cameleon 5000 after all:

"Alchemy will supersede Cameleon, however we'll keep supporting Cameleon for the forseeable future - it just won't get any new features. Alchemy can do everything that Cameleon 5000 can do, and a huge amount more."

After enough OS and/or hardware upgrades, surely Cameleon 5000 will break. That's bad news.

Maybe when more screen shots become available, we'll find that the familiar interfaces of Cameleon 5000, CamelPhat and CamelSpace become available as secondary pages.

But I wouldn't count on it. Software-only vendors don't know when to stop tweaking; most of them lose their focus after initial releases, and soon enough everyone's trying to do the same thing and build the uber-synth that does everything but not very well. Grr.

Yeah, I really hope they keep the break point editing of the additive side of Cameleon. I've just started getting into this synth, and this is such a great way to work with partials. If I have to program envelopes for each of the harmonics of sounds in Alchemy (which would be nice, but I don't want to work that way exclusively), that would bite.

Spectral synthesis... (drool)

Camel Audio has updated the sample manipulation synthesizer Alchemy to v1.11 and released a new soundbank created by sound designer BigTone. Camel Audio is also running a competition to create a tutorial video with the opportunity to win $500.

Alchemy v1.11
The Alchemy v1.11 update includes many new features and bug fixes, and is Windows 7 and Snow Leopard compatible. The new version offers Cameleon 5000 preset import, new formant filters for the additive and spectral sections, much enhanced spectral synthesis quality, new additive editor features, punchier unison VA attacks and numerous other improvements.

Alchemy is now able to import and export additive and spectral data to CSV files. These files can be read and written by spreadsheets or third party utilities. Aladdin by Paul Nauert is now available from the User Library and is the first such utility and offers the ability to generate anything from plucked sounds to wave sequences using techniques such as cellular automata, random walks and FM. Registered Alchemy users can download Alchemy v1.11 by logging into their account on the Camel Audio website.

BigTone Alchemy Expansion
The BigTone Alchemy expansion is a collection of 150 pads, playable arps and warm synth sounds, all of which are suitable for a wide range of genres including trance, ambient and electronica. The set was created by sound designer BigTone and comes with a library of over 100MB of his specially created samples. Each preset has fully programmed perform assignments which make them easy to tweak, and comes with 8 remix pad variations for a total of 1200 sounds.

The BigTone expansion can be purchased from the Camel Audio website and costs $59 / €49 / £39.

New features in Alchemy v1.11:

* Cameleon 5000 preset import.
* New formant filter for additive and spectral engines, accessed via Amp knobs.
* Much enhanced spectral synthesis quality when pitching sounds up and down.
* Improved additive editor modes including dark and bright partial editing.
* Can now edit multiple breakpoints at once in the additive editor.
* CSV file import and export for additive and spectral engines.
* AAZ file import and export for additive and spectral engines.
* In VA mode PVar values less than 100% now set all oscillators to given value.
* Much more responsive MSEG and additive editors on Windows.
* Zoom position of all editors now anchored to current scroll bar location.
* MIDI learn and automation read / write for individual source edit controls.
* SFZ files listed at the top of the import browser list for easier selection.
* Swap Snapshot command added to Perform section file menu.
* Spectral editor loop indicators are displayed using a different colour.
* New indicator to show that second level modulation depths are being edited.
* Additive oscillator count updates when higher partials are created in editor.
* Displays message when attempting to load presets created in more recent version.
* MIDI Unlearn All is now displayed on the main file menu.
* Easier to skin - skin folder tidied up.

Fixes:

* Fixed Move Up / Move Down reordering of effects in FX section.
* Fixed double clicking of FX section and spectral editor scroll bars.
* Fixed closing and re-opening the GUI locating the wrong preset in the Alchemy folder structure when two presets have the same name.
* Fixed missing import path variable in config file causing file browser crash.
* Fixed Alchemy save dialog boxes to display in front of host.
* Fixed click when modulating additive mode symmetry across zero point.
* Fixed effects disappearing when clicking on scroll bar.
* Fixed saving of presets while a project is being loaded.
* Fixed bank and category to set the current folder on File -> Clear.
* Fixed Copy & Paste of modulation source to include modulation depth.
* Fixed additive editor to allow dragging of last breakpoint.
* Fixed blank references to missing sample files in a cleared patch.
* Fixed host reserved MIDI CC values in MIDI learn mode.
* Fixed termination of additive data when all breakpoints deleted.
* Fixed 'Auto-Assign Empty' to no longer create variations of remix pads.
* Fixed Invert Knob causing the sound to change under certain conditions.
* Fixed Perform Clear causing some presets to sound different.
* Fixed click in output when modulating the number of oscillators.
* Fixed update of source GUI controls when receiving automation values.
* Fixed foreign language characters causing crash or folder display to fail.
* Fixed menu display for snapshot volume and removed modulation.
* Fixed memory leaks in file sub-menu selector.
* Fixed current preset folder when re-opening the GUI after clearing a preset.
* Fixed PVar modulation in VA mode.
* Fixed display of modulation depth ring image after reset.
* Fixed loop syncing between sources when modulating position control.
* Fixed randomise menu commands crashing new instances of Alchemy.
* Fixed rare crash when importing a PNG file to the spectral editor.
* Fixed additive editor not displaying partials after importing a sound.
* Fixed Morph-XY mode when morphing between different synthesis types.
* Fixed spectral rendering after import from source menu.
* Fixed 96 KHz project sample rate when rendering spectral sources.
* Fixed handling of missing data files.
* Fixed automation data not sent to host for learned MIDI controls.
* Fixed looping not working correctly when morphing in some circumstances.
* Fixed incorrect message after canceling Save Consolidated.
* Fixed rare crash when re-opening GUI after loading a preset after Clear.
* Fixed source labeling after PNG file import.
* Fixed scaling of the spectral high-pass filter.
* Fixed save consolidated creating AAZ files for inactive sources.
* Fixed EQ effect buffer clear causing click at note on.
* Fixed rare crash importing SFZ that fails to specify 'keycenter' on Mac.
* Fixed Automap / Kore perform controls not updating in AU version.
* Fixed alt-click circular knob mode for GUI controls on Win.
* Default installation path on Windows Vista and Windows 7 is now "My Documents/Vstplugins" to avoid permissions problems.

Note one of the most important features in this release:

Ability to import Cameleon 5000 patches!

There is currently a Group Buy on this product:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=HH0fGs_2bWaE0GtBHgvi6Bhw_3d_3d

Also, I didn't notice this at first myself, but the Group Buy includes sound banks, for those who already own Alchemy itself.

I'll definitely be taking advantage of this for the Big Tone sound bank.