Camel Audio ceasing operations

[valis]

January 8, 2015

We would like to thank you for the support we've received over the years in our efforts to create instruments and effects plug-ins and sound libraries.

Camel Audio's plug-ins, Alchemy Mobile IAPs and sound libraries are no longer available for purchase. We will continue to provide downloads of your previous purchases and email support until July 7, 2015.

https://www.camelaudio.com/support.php

[erminardi]

I hope because of piracy and not of health problems

[Sounddesigner]

I don't know their reasons for ceasing operation but I do know the plugin development world is a very tuff world to survive in. A lot tuffer than some users may realize and many famous name developers often aren't doing as good as many users perceive. One has to be carefull who you buy from especially when it comes to copy-protection since I've seen too many fly-by-night companies as well as long time companies disappear. To think about how Sonic Core has survived these 8 years is a real accomplishment since it can be harder for them than Native plugin developers since they have employees to pay and a expensive dsp platform in this new i7/free plugins/piracy/mp3 and low quality/etc era.

I almost bought Alchemy but never bought any Camel Audio products but I do know they've been out here a very long time and its a bit more eye-opening when long timers fall. Even the biggest Native companies have been forced to make price adjustments and ditch certain copy-protections in recent years. It's only going to get tuffer as prices get lower and the market gets more saturated with developers, it may be only the biggest companies stand a chance. I recently bought 15 IK T-Racks plugins and 5 Amplitube modules of VERY good quality for $136 and still have credits left-over, how many small companies can compete with that type business sales practice?

[djmicron]

there is possibly a buyout from spectrasonics, this is what i'm reading around various forums.

[braincell]

The market is flooded with plugins and a lot of people have everything they could ever dream of owning already.

[dante]

I don't have Omnisphere yet. . So still dreaming on that one.

[jhulk]

dont bother with omnisphere as its mostly based on his pcm from the roland d50 to jd800/jd990 and many other roland spectra sonics library and you dont have full control of the synth engine

better buying a old roland s760 sampler and doing your own samples as it uses the 4 partial synth engine of the jd800/990

and has 32mb of ram for waveforms

which will only cost you £200 with a monitor and mouse where as omnishere will cost you more and you have no control of content

you could easily build a modular patch with the same structure which would cost you nothing

if you want pcm wavetables i have several thousands of them

[dawman]

Eventually people will go back to hardware when they mature...

[astroman]

I wouldn't subscribe to the idea I'm mature...
but in fact I have considered the S760,
regretted not to buy the SQ80 when they were cheapo
and have a strange urge for a Korg DSS1

cheers, Tom

[siriusbliss]

There are diverging trends these days back toward real hardware and modulars at one end, and iOS synths at the other.

The costlier synth plugins in the middle of the market seem to be waning a bit (and this area of the market is quite flooded with synths now anyways).

Omnisphere is great fun, but still no real match for Scope IMO.

Nevertheless, the suddenness of this announcement smells like an acquisition to me.
(And I doubt it's Apple - perhaps Avid? - will have to wait a couple weeks until NAMM to see if there is any more news).

G

[dante]

djmicron said it was spectrasonics.

[Bud Weiser]

djmicron said it was spectrasonics.

All wrong, it´s the new europaen VAT rules in regards on electronic purchases and deliveries.
Camel is not the only company closing.
Tronsonic did too ...

It´s a logistic problem because of 75 different countries and different law.

Bud

[dawman]

Europeans enjoyed a brief period of freedom followed by innovation, yet their Kings and Queens decided they weren't getting enough cash out of the deal.
American Kings and Queens have also tried this but failed as they were recently removed from their lucrative positions.
So in due time Europeans will also tell their Kings and Queens to butt out and let business develop before taxing it to a crawl.....
Governments just need to get behind their people instead of in front of them.

[Sounddesigner]

djmicron said it was spectrasonics.

All wrong, it´s the new europaen VAT rules in regards on electronic purchases and deliveries.
Camel is not the only company closing.
Tronsonic did too ...

It´s a logistic problem because of 75 different countries and different law.

Bud

It seems only small businesses are hurt by these new VAT laws. I like VAZ Modular a lot and the Native developer of that synth is closing his doors as well due to the new VAT laws and he basically stated VAZ is not full-time money and just a hobby thus it wasn't worth the ENORMOUS hassle brought on by the new VAT laws and penalties for not abiding by them.

All this still highlights problems I mentioned in my first post about small developers and the risk of dealing with them, and it still states that it's tuff to survive out here. For the new laws are more regulation/paper-work complexity and more of a financial burden that disproportionately hurt the smaller companies by far.

I always look at the results to determine the orchestrators intent. The result of this new VAT is a lot of small businesses are closing shop and I suspect that was part of the desired goal. Smells like Big Business was doing some serious lobbying and got their wishes granted (as well as greedy and desparate Governments wanting more money). Either way it's a irrational law thus it leaves the smell of incompetance and/or nefarious.

There's a old saying "you get the Government you deserve". It's up to the citizens of the EU to take a stand against this type of policy or they'll continue to get more of it. Same here in America. Freedom isn't free.

[kensuguro]

So sad to hear. Alchemy is one of the very few synths I use for sound effects design outside of fully modular systems or even building synths in synthedit. It's all over the place in my current project.

[jhulk]

his synths are great additive synths but the problem i find is that people where using it to copy sound library sounds

and this led to just emulations but the program is so much more as its a vector synthesizer and a sample manipulator for addtive spectra noise and granular so that you can do wavetable synthesis from any sample

i must admit i found chameleon a better product which alchemy was an extension of

and you could use chameleon presets but found the interface on chameleon much better

i found that wusicstation engine was better implemented even though no additive emulation is involved and you have to use pcm

it sound a lot better i found the results in alchemey was very digital and artifacty

williamk is a friend of mine and i support his platform

it is a shame but its a dog eat dog world in vsti land and you need to make something that stands out and makes it a tool for production

as i use vsti mostly as sound palette and use the bcmodular as a tools for manipulation even in that i have created hardware from my bcmodular shell consept designs as a proof of consept

i find that the vsti land is making the music sound same same so that i have been working with hardware sequencers and hardware synths and scope synths and modular to create unheard synth texture so to be different from everybody else

and i can say apart from scope dsp and modular hardware sounds so much better in the mix that im actually using my vintage digital and analog hardware more and more to be different and special

its sad to see these companies go but they must follow the fashion like arturia that is doing hardware and software and listeneing to synth users in waht they want unlike roland and akai that are missing the point

some one wants a tb303 then give them an analog tb303 and not a dsp emulation as it does not capture the faults in the design which actually gives it the sound like the 24db filter that has a fault in that it only gives out a 18db response but adds distortion with the 4th pole

same as the drum machine the reason they like the tr808 or 909 is not because of the sounds samples but because of the analog sound and the way the 8 bit samples are read from the rom chips and then through analog envelopes and vca that give it that sound that is hard to emulate with samples or dsp properly because of the parts used

i still use a eii for its 8bit 12bit compounded sound not because it sounds great but because the magic that happens with the synth engine and the transpose engine and its limitations that make you program them

as with massive kontakt libraries that do all the works for you so that you not inspired to get the most out of the synth with its limitations that make you think outside of the box with hardware that does it makes you a better programmer and imaginative thinker than using it as a prest machine that most people today just use the presets given in that a lot of the same sounds is used in lots of tracks because of laziness

[Nestor]

So many accurate descriptions and words my friends in all of your comments..., and yes, it is very sad to see them go, particularly, the "magic" which is lost behind their job and the enormous enthusiasm and passion of these wonderful developers... My best wishes for them and their future, it's the end of a company, but definitely, not the end of their genius, creativity and inspiration.

[valis]

"People I trust implicitly have told me that Camel was purchased by you-know-who, and will be rolled in to That Which Shall Not Be Named."
Chris Rnndall - https://twitter.com/Chris_Randall/statu ... 4844059649

Implying Apple is integrating Alchemy into Logic Pro imho

[djmicron]

i think the way camel audio stopped activity, led people to think of some NDA and also generated some viral marketing.

[valis]

C.R. is as likely to know as anyone though. Heard about OSX sandboxing from him before anyone, same with Logic going 64bit (before it was announced in 9.1.2 or w/e), same with LPX being 64bit only...