Well I've jumped on the bandwagon, downloading Iris soundbank now and the wood and glass packs.. Looking forward to playing with this!

Hi Brando!! I also played with the demo of Iris and do like the simplicity/interesting soundscapes it produces (the special pricing is also my incentive).
I do have the full version of Alchemy and I think it's just fatter sounding. Of course, I'm biased as I've played with Alchemy more than Iris and more familiar with it......Alchemy is also a go to. If you like Z3ta+2, you'll love Alchemy (which has a ton of free patches already available). Support is a fantastic with the folks at Camel. (I got it for around $125 at the KVR market place, but it's NFO.....I planned on keeping it).  

Thanks for the excellent feedback Mesh and AT - 
  Let's see - 

I generally agree with everything you both have said (so it must be right) (LOL)
Mesh - I own Camelspace and Camelphat 3  and agree they are a great company. Lots of support. Innovative.
AT - I do own Rapture, DimPro and Z3ta 2, and quite a few 3rd party synths, including Wusikstation. So being able to read SFZ's is definitely a plus. What interested me in both Alchemy and Iris (as well as Harmor) is the aspect of spectral synthesis - at least it seems cool for sound design and manipulation. In practice (at least in Iris) I still feel it makes great sounds but I am struggling with how I would make practical use of it in musical context in a mix. 
Appreciate your opinions on Alchemy. Alchemy it is.

Alchemy comes up regular on KVR secondhand. Pretty decent prices and there's often add-on packs attached.

Good for you Brando!!! You're really going to love it.

Also, check out the free User_Libraries, updates to Alchemy, as well as the excellent tutorials at Camel's site. You may need to login to access them.

Cheers!!!

tomixornot


I've got IRIS +2 pack at AudioDeluxe. Make a deal and you pay even less than the current offered price.

AudioDeluxe is a real find!  I sent them an offer for IRIS of $125.  Got a reply a short time later: not high enough, but click here to see what we'll sell it for.  Clicked.  Saw the price: $129.  Bought!  Could not have been more hassle-free.
 
Not that I need yet another synth that I'll have no time to learn properly.

I have got the Alchemy player but invested in a few of their libraries. I am very happy with it and love the sound of Alchemy. The good thing about the player is that is does not distract you too much from the job of searching for and using a preset which is good in some ways. There are enough controls on the player to mangle any sound into anything else anyway. (You may not be able to save presets on the player itself but Studio One lets you save them and recall them though) I do intend to upgrade at some point for sure for ultimate control over a patch.

I did get onto a forum somewhere that was comparing Alchemy to IRIS. The basic feeling was that Alchemy's spectral editor is not the same or as good as IRIS. It needs time to render and it does not seem to create the same sort of sounds that the spectral work in IRIS can do.

What I did get from that forum is that they compliment each other well and it is certainly worth owning both from a sound design point of view. I was thinking of holding off and getting the full version of Alchemy rather than IRIS but now I might just get IRIS and be done with it and upgrade Alchemy later.

Hey Mesh! I did download all of the freebies and there is a ton of material. Some good, some ...meh... as you would expect. The really great thing about Alchemy that no other synth does quite the same way is that every initial preset/sound/setting is like a playground to experiment in. If you don't like something there are an infinite number of ways to change it or shake it up. Import an audio file, superimpose that, change multiple settings and save those as snapshots to the remix pad. I love it - and agree completely with you that you can get lost (and maybe never find your way home!) just delving deeper and deeper into the beast. (I am reading Stephen King's "Lisey's Story" at the moment and keep making a comparison to the pool in Boo'ya Moon - if you happen to be a King fan.)

Jeff - good insight as well and thank you. I am going to take a look at the sound sets and pick up one or two and then see what comes around in a sale later on. I agree about the spectral synthesis aspect of Alchemy not being in the same league as Iris'. That was my original reason for being interested in Iris, then Alchemy  - but to be honest I still can't tweak anything really exciting out of Iris (demo) that I can't get in a far more interesting way out of Alchemy by other means.
I purchased Alchemy and Blade recently and AAS's Chromophore not too long ago, as well as several other non-synth things. So not regretting the decision to pass on Iris at least for now. Hope it serves you well if you take the plunge.

Best regards,

Hi David and Mike. Thanks for your insight too. I would not think that IRIS would be the total package as Alchemy is for sure. I think I see IRIS as being pretty cool with the way it handles the spectral side of things and probably only that side of things. Don't forget too that they might also bring out updates and give it new features as time goes on. I see it as a specialist device that is producing sound in a unique way through spectral manipulation. It has gone back to its original price now which sort of makes it a little less enticing. I should have jumped on it previously but maybe it might be on special again at some point.

Thanks David too for the link to Audio Deluxe. I think they might be good for the purchase. I do love the sound of Alchemy though and it is certainly capable of some pretty amazing textures itself. And when you start moving the remix pads around all sorts of intersting things happen.

dmbaer

Jeff Evans


I did get onto a forum somewhere that was comparing Alchemy to IRIS. The basic feeling was that Alchemy's spectral editor is not the same or as good as IRIS. It needs time to render and it does not seem to create the same sort of sounds that the spectral work in IRIS can do.
 

First, let me admit that although I've purchased IRIS, it's not even installed yet ... maybe this weekend.  But in looking at a number of IRIS videos, I have no expectations that IRIS will come anywhere close to what Alchemy can do.  What IRIS offers is immediate gratification because it's got integrated graphic editing.  So play around with IRIS and have lot's of fun.  But it looks like IRIS just lets you graphically control which partials get included when the partials are reassembled into the final sound, and it's an all or nothing proposition.  That doesn't make it bad ... there's much to be said for extreme ease of use.  But Alchemy ultimately has much more control.  I'm talking about things like controlling the phase of partials, for example.  Also, IRIS's modulation capabilities are pretty lame while Alchemy's are extensive.
 
I'm chomping at the bit to learn what will be in the next major upgrade to Alchemy.  Sadly, we probably won't be seeing that until sometime in 2013.  I'm thinking there's a good chance we'll see some vast improvements in graphic editing to support the additive mode.  Maybe we'll have Izotope to thank for proding CA to move in that direction.

Thank you for this DM_,
 
I've never been too enthused with Izotope graphics (though they don't hurt things) ... and Alchemy will get my next-grab-hold-to-study.
 
BTW, doesn't Ominsphere do similar stuff with better samples?  (I don't have Ominisphere, just Trillion).  Omnisphere and Trillian have a wide variety of fx-manipulation, iirc.

Although to be honest, I have Alchemy, Omnisphere and REFX Nexus (plus Komplete etc), and I'm most likely to turn to Nexus first. Best sounds out there, and ease of use FTW most of the time.

In Studio one 2, there is a Vst3 version. Anybobody have some insight? I didn't notice a difference