Westgate introduces Anomaly for Alchemy...$75


http://westgatesounds.net/Alchemy/

Firstly thanks Larry always appreciate your detective work.
 
This is expensive for what it is. Nearly every patch sounds the same. All the sounds are there in your existing libraries to construct these textures.
 
Be wary of textures being so complete in nature. Everyone else will have them too. It is better to construct these yourself even if you are using several instances of Alchemy (and other synths) and making these types of things much more unique and individual to you.
 
Much better sounds result when you take control over every aspect of a complex texture. And play them like a musical instrument.
 
Just some thoughts.
 
 

Jeff, just listened to quite a few of the demo sounds - boy you're spot on - they do all sound very similar!
Also I'd love to know what genre of music they are aimed at and how you'd incorporate these sounds.
The new pack from Camel, Iceland, is way better than this and I've already used Iceland in the project I am working on at the moment.
Cheers
Nigel
 

To the original poster, thanks for the mention...
The Anomaly sounds are not for everyones tastes.  Not a problem. But to imply that these sounds were created from the Factory Sounds that come with Alchemy is very misleading... "All the sounds are there in your existing libraries to construct these textures." That I have a problem with....
Better to do some actual reading on the site and listen with a more critical ear than just take a quick swipe at something that is not to your taste...
Oh well, you cannot please everyone...
 

I never said the Anomaly sounds were created from factory presets. What I said was if you have a bunch of their libraries already especially the atmosphersic libraries there are tons of elements in there already that will allow you to build very similar sounds to the Anomaly library without spending $75. You just have to be creative and put some time in.
 
I actually like those types of textures but not worthy of spending that sort of money and yes you need some special applications for them. And as I also said be wary of such complete textures as well. Better to construct these types of textures with more control over individual elements yourself, making them much more individual in nature.
 
I spent quite some time on the site and listened to all the demos in great detail and read all the info, no quick swiping here. Heard nothing new, have heard it all before.
 
The actual guys that are making the libraries for Alchemy are much more creative and interesting. Just listen to 'Water' and 'Iceland' as great examples of that.
 
To dnekm have you listened to ALL the demos on the Camel Audio site, maybe you should.

The presets in Anomaly for Alchemy all use either 3 or 4 sources. They are complex for a reason.
 
That being the user who can control which sources are used, how much they are mixed together, etc...
 
I even advise swapping out sources and changing the performance views and remix variations on my site to make things tailored to each person.
 
These things are not set in stone and there is a great variety in the over 250 sounds that accompany the presets.
 
You prefer the official Camel sounds, your choice. No problem with that.
 
I have a different approach and prefer to provide people with starting templates as presets and encourage experimentation.
 
Apologies if I misread what you posted but I have to defend the sounds I create. And I disagree that you could create these sounds using Alchemy alone.

Very nice sound sets, from what I gathered from the demo.  I'm sure if I spent hours programming I could come up w/ something similar, but then, that is hours of work.  And Anomaly sounds more complex than many of the other libraries with the control via the pads and XY - which is right up my alley.  I love actually "playing" a drone, a synth that doesn't emulate nothing and completely changes character depending upon the pads.  It is a lot harder to program than it looks to get this right and the performances to jell.  And then play it all, both on the keyboard and finding the right X/Y & pad settings to sound like an organic performance.
 
Of course, stuff like this isn't everybody's or every style's cup of tea.  It isn't something you use harmonically.  So for more acoustic-based productions it ain't going to work probably, but in my own electronic rock stuff I use alchemy drones instead of pads and throw them in as ear candy.  Judicious cutting and eq'ing can make even the thickest sounds work w/in a song.  It provides a lot of interest and become less an FX than an texture.  That is my theory, anyway.
 
And this library looks perfect for such "pad" use, or dropping in ominous transitions and rumblings, etc.  like Biolab's stuff.
 
Of course my tastes are a bit different.  And not necessarily popular.  I'm the guy who upon seeing Madonna's first dance video (she had been an early roommate of my girlfriend) "She'll never last - a flash in the pan." Even after being so wrong I actually liked some of Madonna's later stuff in spite of myself.  So maybe my endorsement is the kiss of death.  Sorry about that ;-)
 
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Hello AT - Yes, it is about unorthodox atmospheres and bringing out the darkness in different ways....
 
And rather than try to set people on one path on how to use the sounds, the 4 different parts actually take 2 different approaches. One based on mixing the sources in different ways and the other attempting to create different colours/tones of the sources through the use of filters and FX.
 
I would rather have people trying to figure out new ways to use the weird sounds I make than have them only use them the way they are initially presented....

One thing I do agree with and that is the use of the Mix Pads and it is hard to tell what those sounds are going to do until you play with them. They really make Alchemy sounds come alive. Recording the movements of the Mixpads is very cool.
 
Why don't you drop the price to $59 and make it more attractive and in line with the Alchemy libraries. I might jump in then and buy it. You can almost get two Alchemy libraries (on special ) for your price and you would twice get as many sounds and presets etc..
 
Do you have any sweeter or more pleasant sounding textures rather than them all being so heavy and dark. You need both in my opinion.
 
I have got the Alchemy player installed on an second computer, is your library compatible with that as well.

Hello Jeff,
 
I specialize in dark sounds. So, while there may be at times glimmers of light in the sounds that I create, it is light surrounded by darkness....
 
I thought about the pricing, believe me. But all of the Camel sets that are $60 only offer 150 presets at most, with this soundset there are 250 presets with 8 variations each for a total of 2000 variations. So the price is set right....