Cakewalk would make a lot of sense, for us, anyway.  Come on, do it Cakewalk.
 
@

You gotta think they will resurface in some fashion. You do not let assets like that evaporate as a business owner - that just makes no sense.

Pretty odd, for sure.
Had a few of the add-on libraries on the "to eventually buy" list.
 
On Jan 2, I d/l'd a few updates that I was behind - the updated Factory Samples Part 3 & 4 and Presets.
Didn't think I'd be turning off the lights on the way out...
 

Maybe I am biased, but Gibson/Cakewalk does seem like a natural fit since it does fill the void of rene leaving by offering a world class synth that is seen that way outside of the Cakewalk loyalists. Z3ta+2, Rapture and Dim Pro are all good synths but none have the appeal to non-Cakewalk users as Alchemy. Since Alchemy 2 was already in development, it would fit in nicely as a flagship synth for  a Sonar X4 or whatever the next incarnation of software will be.  
 
One of the things that drives me nuts about software companies going out of business is it seems to awaken the amatuer mathematicians that go on rants about how piracy did the company in. I have already read several and I have yet to see one person show any evidence that pirates suddenly begin buying products they were pirating if they can no longer pirate. I'm not trying  to defend piracy in any way or form and forum hosts, please advise if this tangent is inappropriate.  What I have witnessed in the real world is that pirates who cannot find a pirated version of software A will simply move on to software B,C,D and whatever else is available. When pirates  DO buy software it is never a result of piracy policies but other circumstances ranging from change in income, change in morals or necessity such as being in a legit business that requires customer support only available to legit customers. Bottom line is that the number of units sold is exactly the same regardless of how many pirated versions are floating around.  I know some people disagree but I am still waiting on examples of any product suddenly having a spike in sales due to effectiveness of anti-piracy measures beyond the natural temporay bump a newer version of a product creates. Avid is a prime example. Despite using ilok2 Avid is still struggling with sales.
 
The harsh reality is that the music software business, like every other business, got saturated with too many people making too many variatiojs of the same thing. Most products go through a period of rapid growth and end up with massive consolidation  and weeding out. From cigars to cd/dvd media, people are often shocked at how industries that once had hundreds of competitors now only consist of a few huge mega-corporations with tons of brand names. Screaming "it's  piracy's fault" ignores centuries of capitolism history and is a reactionary attempt to paint the software industry as some kind of sacred cow exception. I guess my point is that as bad as piracy is, it is a completely  seperate issue from factors that make a company profitable. 

dubdisciple
Maybe I am biased, but Gibson/Cakewalk does seem like a natural fit since it does fill the void of rene leaving by offering a world class synth that is seen that way outside of the Cakewalk loyalists. Z3ta+2, Rapture and Dim Pro are all good synths but none have the appeal to non-Cakewalk users as Alchemy. Since Alchemy 2 was already in development, it would fit in nicely as a flagship synth for  a Sonar X4 or whatever the next incarnation of software will be.  
 
One of the things that drives me nuts about software companies going out of business is it seems to awaken the amatuer mathematicians that go on rants about how piracy did the company in. I have already read several and I have yet to see one person show any evidence that pirates suddenly begin buying products they were pirating if they can no longer pirate. I'm not trying  to defend piracy in any way or form and forum hosts, please advise if this tangent is inappropriate.  What I have witnessed in the real world is that pirates who cannot find a pirated version of software A will simply move on to software B,C,D and whatever else is available. When pirates  DO buy software it is never a result of piracy policies but other circumstances ranging from change in income, change in morals or necessity such as being in a legit business that requires customer support only available to legit customers. Bottom line is that the number of units sold is exactly the same regardless of how many pirated versions are floating around.  I know some people disagree but I am still waiting on examples of any product suddenly having a spike in sales due to effectiveness of anti-piracy measures beyond the natural temporay bump a newer version of a product creates. Avid is a prime example. Despite using ilok2 Avid is still struggling with sales.
 
The harsh reality is that the music software business, like every other business, got saturated with too many people making too many variatiojs of the same thing. Most products go through a period of rapid growth and end up with massive consolidation  and weeding out. From cigars to cd/dvd media, people are often shocked at how industries that once had hundreds of competitors now only consist of a few huge mega-corporations with tons of brand names. Screaming "it's  piracy's fault" ignores centuries of capitolism history and is a reactionary attempt to paint the software industry as some kind of sacred cow exception. I guess my point is that as bad as piracy is, it is a completely  seperate issue from factors that make a company profitable. 

On the other hand...
 
 
If guitars could be downloaded, I bet you it wouldn't be long before Fender, PRS and Gibson were put in a similar position. Yet, for all the guitar brands and innumerable cheap alternatives out there, those guys are still selling. 
 
People usually DO find money to buy what they want when they don't have an option to download it. And if they don't have enough money for the Gibson, they'll buy an Epiphone.
 
Market saturation is a factor, obviously, but imho it's not everything. 
 
Back in my days, I'd ask one or two records for Christmas. Nowadays, kids will ask for a tablet and use it to download hundreds of albums for free... Paying for what you can download just doesn't compute for many people out there. Given the chance, people will set priorities to their own advantage. 
 
 I don't know what drove the folks at Alchemy to take their decision - but piracy certainly did not help keep them in business.

Rain. I hear what you are saying but your post kind of unintentionally emphasizes my point. You mention Fender, PRS and Gibson.  Notice that the list of premium guitar makers is tiny and that even the lesser brand names are owned by the big companies?. Stating that piracy is not helping alchemy is somewhat of a non-sequitur  since my point was that it is irrelevent to actual sales one way or the other. It's just stating the natural reverse relationship that a non-relationship would have just restated to imply a negative.
As far as the bizarre idea of downloading guitars (one of those arguments people like taking since it is impossible to come close to being realiity and thus impossinle to argue against), the closest thing we have to that is the knockoff industry. In fact, many of the acquired brands of the big companies  started off as knockoffs.  The physics involved to make such a comparison even close to an apples to apples thing would be if we lived in a star trek universe where one could replicate items perfectly. In the federation of the star trek universe money is not used, making such an argument even more abstract to relate to current paradigm. 
 

ps i forgot one more thing in the whole big brand thing you mentioned. In the software world the big names are still enjoying success and there sems to be no direct correlation to piracy. Adobe, a company with products arguably pirated as much as any is far more profitable than many of the big names with much less piracy. Even looking at music plugins, the Gibsons and Fenders of that world seem to do well or not so well regardless of protection.  Again, not trying to say piracy is good,just that it seems to have no quantifiable relation to to sales of this kind of product. People DO find a way to buy what they want, but that is the key phrase; "what they want".  I doubt the kid who downloads Fl stufio has the same kind of want that the kid who has ben dreaming of a Les Paul Custom has and is much more inclined to do without

I'm biased too :-) and I'd be thrilled if Gibson was the culprit, but I just don't see it.  Somewhere in that voluminous thread @ kvr, Urs (u-he) posted that his company takes "lots of small ideas & puts them together" and Camel "makes big ideas & figures out how to make it possible".  So anybody really feeling a strong Gibson/CW vibe here?
 
I don't want it to be Apple for a million reasons but it does make sense, and as much as Ben has talked about Alchemy 2 there could be some new tech there we're oblivious about.
 
I am so curious.
 

I'm sorta miffed with them, as I bought the whole bundle last year.. and have their other titles phat etc.. there is a few newer add-on's I now can't buy at this time.. sorry where was the warning to your loyal supporting customers , allowing them to buy packs they needed ?!?! "thanks for that"
 
NI pulled the rug from under my feet with Kore , in the past.. and now this ?
 
people assume other companies have bottomless pits of money, to do takeovers etc. they just have to be *very* careful not to un-stabilise their own company over stretching and now isn't the climate for it. I guess they will buy the assets if they are cheap / devalued enough sadly.
 
I'm not keen on certain audio companies buying it , as a few are just seem to asset strip what they buy and don't do anything really for end users.
 
 
 

I plan on redownloading my alchemy products just to be safe.  I do not remember, but is there a product key also that needs to be downloaded?  I cannot find it listed on my download page in my alchemy account.
 
Thanks for posting this info--I did not know Camel was going out of business.  Said to see this happen.