22 thoughts on “Camel Audio Announces Alchemy Mobile 2.0 For iOS”

1. Great update and still downloading the megabytes of patches!!!!!

   CamelAudio: next job is to put CamelSpace on the iDevice as a audiobus fx 🙂
   Pleeeeeease!!!

2. Andy, thanks so much for the awesome update! So much functionality, so much better now that one can roll their own drums instead of using the supplied audio loops. I do request to able to jump into the recording process without having it reset with the countdown every time. Once again, job well done!

3. OK,
   This is must have!
   If you beginer or you are pro – buy it, buy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy itbuy it

   1. It’s free it’s free it’s free it’s free it’s free it’s free (etc)

4. Great! One of my favorite iOS synths, what comes to sounds.

   But please, let users load their own samples.

   And open up the engine room, I want to tweak everything.

   1. if you use the Mac/PC version, you can transfer your patches, samples and all, into Alchemy on iOS. 🙂

5. My favorite app, I’ve used it on every commercial arrangement and every personal project ever since I bought it. Amazing Mac version too.

6. Camel Audio is a world class company. Their products and support are really top notch. I own the Alchemy desktop full version, Camel Space and the Pro Mobile iOS version. Many thanks for the update!

7. Just spent a good amount of time sketching out a little thing with the new version. Nice update Camel Audio! Thanks.

8. Ok, this is just my App Store review pasted in, so…
   You guys made this app infinitely more useful to me with this last update. I had thought maybe Alchemy would, sadly, go they way of MANY excellent iOS synths that fail to include sequencing, the real thing, not just a ‘record’ function which is limited and mostly pointless (ahem Animoog cough-cough). I bought Alchemy the day it came out, along with the upgrade, and used it once or twice, then headed right back to BeatMaker, because what am I supposed to use to develop my ideas? Like I would use a pre-programmed beat?! It was a great sounding app that lacked the crucial features required for me to work ideas out on a mobile device. iOS developers need to recognize that novelty does nothing for a real musician. If I’m going to use my iPad to seriously make music when away from my project studio, then the apps I use have to be designed with a genuine workflow that enables me to be creative in as many ways as possible, and gives me the tools to record any subsequent ideas WITH PRECISION, and most importantly; Export the idea off of the device, otherwise I just wasted hours of my life writing music that will never be heard. With an export feature I can forgive the failure to give me effects to manipulate (not just the ones you chose to allow me to play with when you made the preset), because I can send the track to my DAW and fix it there. Also, the fact that MANY apps allow a limitless number of tracks (to the extent of the devices memory) and yet some fall short of excellence by giving me just a handful, or even worse, one, is silly. There’s no reason not to give your customers options when it creates no significant cost on your end to do so. It almost seems like the reason you only allow four tracks is because your current UI would have had to be modified significantly, and, well, someone just wasn’t in the mood. If you are genuinely serious about creating a legitimate app for mobile music creation (which, by the way, will be the PRIMARY means of composition within another 5-10 years) then get off your butt and do it right! Everyone working at Camel must be a musician. Phat and Space, and Crusher are truly 3 of my most favorite, and frequently used plugins on my computer. Alchemy (the full version) for the Mac is one of the most amazing synths I have ever used. It stomps all over omnisphere, massive, and many of the other big ones. But you guys left the mobile version hanging out on the App Store for well over a year (jeez, was it two years?) ONLY HALF DONE! C’mon guys, audiobus is out there saving many of the other half-written apps from falling into obscurity, but you are Camel Audio? WTF? Does excellence only apply to the desktop? You really felt ok selling the sound packs knowing NOBODY was going to even be able to use your app as a semi-functional scratch pad for musical ideas? Was it a fund raiser to hire the staff you needed to write the real app? I’m giving you 4 1/2 stars (which is generous) because Alchemy mobile just got useful today, and I’ve been having a lot of fun finally using it to create music, but hell if you’re going to get that last 1/2 of a star until you fix a few things, namely (that’s right I got a list…I paid for the app, so I get to complain);

   -The current selection of sound packs are getting a little long in the tooth. New material guys. Or entice third party devs to make new ones that you guys market. Crap, I can’t believe it hasn’t already happened.

   -Come off that 4 track limitation. You’re clipping my wings here. We all know there’s no REAL limitation. These are MIDI tracks, not audio, minuscule in size, so the only real issue is how to get more than four of those resource hoggin (but truly sweet sounding) presets of yours loaded into my iPads memory. If Intua (BeatMaker2) can give me 128 pads per track, each loaded with a .wav file of MY CHOICE, and potentially give me 20 tracks or more, you guys can certainly give me 8, 12, maybe 16? A 1985 hardware synth could do 16 tracks with like 128k of ram, so no excuses.

   -Unclench and let me get at some more parameters on the sounds, and let me import .wav or .aiff files, like you do on the desktop version (and many others do in their mobile version) to be tweaked. Oh…this one makes you nervous, because you’ve released a glorified player, and not an actual synth, huh? It’s time to kick that new staff you hired with my sound pack money in the a$z and give us the whole enchilada. Make it hap’n cap’n.

   Read this review at your next staff meeting. Shake things up. If your going to take $15 off me for an app, make one YOU believe is the best you can offer. I use your other products, and this one is not their brother, sister, or even a third cousin. It’s the bastard half sibling dad had with his mistress that nobody talks about. HOW SHAMEFUL!

   Whoops! The list isn’t done yet!

   -I like your magic keyboard thingy, but how about letting me setup custom scales/modes, since you guys couldn’t be bothered to put more than 10 or 12 in there yourselves. Animoog can do it.

   -You mean I can’t erase a single drum sound on a beat if I screw up? Once again, failed to complete the task and released the feature unfinished. I tried to look In the manual to see if I just missed something, and , oh, wait a minute, there’s no manual! Slap yourselves!

   -ok, so you figured 4 drum kits would pretty much take care of all our needs. C’mon now your really being silly, AND LAZY! How about throwing 5 or 6 kits on each of the sound packs.

   -I know just where you can find the extra space for those kits too…where the pre-programmed beats that nobody will ever use currently reside. Your app takes up a bunch of space already. No fluff folks, get rid of the Casio style backing tracks and give us TOOLS to make our own beats.

   I think that about covers it for now. Great app, maybe even in the top 20 (oh did you think I was going to say 5, uh huh ). Quit kiddin around, you got work to do.

   1. my goodness, so much complaining to do. mate, it’s FREE (or a tenner for the pro version), it is the best sounding sample-based synth in the app store by a mile, and it’s a shit-load of fun.

      plenty of ios sequencers have terrible sounds (BM2, Cubasis, Music Studio, FLStudio – J’accuse!), and plenty of synths have zero sequencing capabilities (omnisphere, absynth, most of the ios ones)

      how about you say thanks to the people at camel for making a brilliant sounding app that’s compatible with all the desktop sounds, and has a few nice little touches like a sketchpad sequencer, and in any case can be sequences with another app and audiobussed in.

   2. Much of what you wrote proves that you don’t even understand the app, especially about the 4 tracks. They aren’t MIDI, each one is rendered audio. Alchemy Mobile is not even multitimbral.

      1. ouch, actually they ARE rendered in MIDI as far as Alchemy is concerned.

         if you slow or speed up the tempo, the pitch of the sound doesn’t change, and the synths are being triggered by this internal MIDI data. also, you can sweep the remix pad on your sequenced part and the sound changes in real-time.

         1. Ouch, I guess you DON’T know more about the app than the developer does…

   3. Hi Matt,

      Thank you for your comments. It is important to hear how our customers feel where we are succeeding and where improvements might be made.

      >-The current selection of sound packs are
      > getting a little long in the tooth. New
      >material guys.

      We do have more libraries planned for release on iOS, one of which will be released very soon.

      >We all know there’s no REAL limitation.
      >These are MIDI tracks, not audio,

      As noted by Zymos, each part gets rendered to audio when you switch to a new track. Due to the limited system resources available on mobile devices, we could not put four simultaneous instances of the Alchemy engine within Alchemy Mobile v2.

      >-Unclench and let me get at some more parameters
      >on the sounds, and let me import .wav or .aiff files,
      >like you do on the desktop version (and many others
      >do in their mobile version) to be tweaked. Oh…this
      >one makes you nervous, because you’ve released a
      >glorified player, and not an actual synth, huh?

      As you noted here, the full desktop version of Alchemy of course does allow access to all parameters and lets you load samples – but it is also priced higher than Alchemy Mobile (free) with the Pro Upgrade installed. Alchemy Mobile is essentially the iOS version of our free Alchemy Player desktop plugin. There are some differences though – such as the fact that Alchemy Player does not have the internal sequencer/recording of Alchemy Mobile, since it is intended to be used within a host sequencer.

      If you own the full version of Alchemy, you can save your presets (using any wav, aiff, or sfz files you wish) and import them into Alchemy Mobile, provided the Pro Upgrade is installed. For more information on transferring Alchemy desktop presets to Alchemy Mobile, please check out this FAQ:
      http://www.camelaudio.com/faqs/Alchemy_Mobile/Can_I_load_sounds_created_on_Alchemy_desktop_version_into_Alchemy_Mobile

      >-I like your magic keyboard thingy, but how about
      >letting me setup custom scales/modes,

      Thanks for the suggestion. I’ll definitely mention this to the other Camels.

      >-You mean I can’t erase a single drum sound on a beat if I screw up?

      We have been discussing this, and that feature may become available on a future update.

      >oh, wait a minute, there’s no manual!

      The manual is in the process of being finished and will go online very soon. We apologize for the delay.

      >-ok, so you figured 4 drum kits would pretty much
      >take care of all our needs.

      We consider Alchemy Mobile to be a song sketch pad, not a full composition environment such as Beatmaker, so the included kits are provided to help you get your song ideas started. That said, additional drum kits will surely be released in time.

      >How about throwing 5 or 6 kits on each of the sound packs.

      The existing libraries are smaller versions of the full desktop libraries, most of which did not include drum kits. Any future desktop libraries that do include drum kits will have some of the kits included in the mobile version.

9. Man! The techno kit and dance kit will suffice for now with this update. For sure camel will add drum packs for purchase.

   Sequencer is most sick and a much welcome bonus IMHO .

   The thing with alchemy is that the samples are of the highest calibre and yes, they offer it for free, knowing full well that, once tasted, serious peeps will buy further packs and get the pro upgrade to record the automations.

   Alchemy is deep, camel know what they are doing and I just bought all the presets- hoping for more soon:)

10. Thanks to all for your comments! We’re really happy to hear how much you’ve liked the update to Alchemy Mobile. 🙂

11. I take exception to the suggestion that the libraries are long in the tooth. For starters, the variety is exceptional. If you think they are limited, you haven’t really explored a few. I have, as I own four, with more to come. Second, they already invite multiple contributors in; that’s why the material shines as is. Third, many a library is only as limited as your ability to tweak a second and third set out of it. The Alchemy sets invite sculpting, so its not hard to personalize patches to suit the job at hand. IMO, Alchemy is on the short list for Best Desert Island Synth.

12. Alchemy sounds good, but the limited editing capabilities have meant that it has sat largely unused on my iDevices. It’s reminiscent the limited versions of Logic’s instruments that are found in GarageBand.

    Maybe Alchemy 3.0? One can dream. ;-/

13. Hi , think your product is the best on the mobile market , i would love the option to flip a screen and be able to program in your beats like you would in ableton live piano roll instead of playing them in it would give so much more option for creating beats on the go to transfer into your studio later , also i think the way you can choose a certain key and just work with the notes that work together is a massive help is that going to be incorparated into the desktop synth one day ? , keep up the good work 😉

14. Hello Matt salas,

    Most app developers do not look at comments that have >= 4 star rating. They only go by 3-star and below so your review will most likely have NO visibility to them if you give them 4.5 rating. It does deserve a 4.5 but sadly, I would give it 3.

    Their camels really know how to design a good, responsive and usable UI. However, the background of the top controller is too bright (light gray/white) and should be darkened – use dark gray for the background and light gray for the background where you have sliders. Also, ability to switch to/display a dual-keyboard is required – even if their heights are minimal.

    Alchemy app is definitely half-baked with 4-track limitation, no import-export, etc. It has been around for over a year but the camels have focussed on what makes them instant $$ – selling the sound packs, pro upgrade, etc. So fix up the issues, flaws in your app before another competitor comes up and crushes you with all these options.

    Realise that Mobile DAW is the future! Just look at NanoStudio – they give away the full desktop versions for FREE but sell the mobile app for a price.

15. I love alchemy mobile! Would love to see a full engine update and better sequencer. If it doesnt happen, i still love alchemy mobile!