• There is distortion — how do I get rid of it?

• The sound is too quiet — how do I make it louder?

• There is a ‘click’ at the start of each note — How do I get rid of it?

• There are ‘stuck’ notes — how do I eliminate them?

• Alchemy’s CPU usage is too high — how do I reduce it?

• A dialog box has appeared saying ‘Please select a location and filename
for supporting data files…’  — what should I do?

• There are no presets — why is that?

• Alchemy is asking for a ‘keyfile’ — what should I do?

If Alchemy is not behaving the way you expect, here are some things to try.

There is distortion — how do I get rid of it?

First, try turning down the main Volume control (in the Title bar), as the sound may be clipping when it enters your sequencer/host. If this does not solve the problem, then turn down all the Source Amp controls by equal amounts (a reduction of 6 dB or more may help). Sometimes by soloing different Sources and turning different elements on and off, you can isolate the problem in an individual source or element and resolve it by reducing the Source Amp or element Vol control. If distortion remains, it is likely to be caused by a deliberate distortion effect. Check to see if a source or main filter is set to the ‘Tube’, ‘Mech’, or ‘Ring’ type, or if a conventional filter type has a high Drive setting, or if the Effects rack contains a Distortion module.

The sound is too quiet — how do I make it louder?

Turn up the Master Volume and Master Amp controls (to their maximum levels if needed). If it is still too quiet, turn up Source Amp controls and individual element Vol controls. If you still don’t have enough volume, try increasing the Drive setting of any conventional filters you are already using, or set an unused (source or main) filter to the ‘Mech’ type and boost its Resonance knob enough to raise the gain without causing noticeable distortion. You can also add a Compressor module to the Effects rack.

There is a ‘click’ at the start of each note — How do I get rid of it?

You have probably set the attack time of the Master Amp envelope to zero, which means the sound reaches full volume instantly. Try increasing the Attack time very slightly. A setting of 0.001 s, which Alchemy uses by default, often works well if you want a fast but click-free attack.

There are ‘stuck’ notes — how do I eliminate them?

If Alchemy continues to play notes after you release them, the likely culprit is the modulation routing of the Master Amp parameter. By default, AHDSR 1 modulates this parameter, acting as a ‘master amp envelope’; and whenever an AHDSR module is routed to the Master Amp parameter, the modulation depth is locked at 100%, which ensures that the amplitude will fall to zero at the end of the release stage. To resolve a ‘stuck’ notes issue, try the following:

• If you are using an MSEG as the ‘master amp envelope’, ensure that the modulation depth is set to exactly 100%.
• If you have not assigned either an AHDSR or an MSEG to modulate the Master Amp, add an AHDSR in this role. By setting an Attack time of 0 sec and a Sustain level of 100%, you can preserve the existing amplitude characteristics while eliminating the ‘stuck’ notes.
• Another possibility, external to Alchemy, is that your sequencer may contain MIDI data with a missing ‘Note Off’ message.

Alchemy’s CPU usage is too high — how do I reduce it?

First, if you are running your sequencer with less than 256 samples of latency, we recommend increasing it to 256 samples. Beyond that, there are a variety of strategies. The best solution depends on the details of your preset, so try the following, checking to see on one hand how much the CPU load is reduced and on the other hand how much the sound changes.

1. If using the Acoustic Reverb module with Quality set higher than 40%, reduce this setting to 40%. Or consider switching to the Camel Reverb effect.
2. Reduce polyphony. (Your needs for a particular preset may vary, but the following minimum voice counts were established for the factory presets: Keys, Organs 8; Pads, Brass, Guitars, Mallets, Strings, Synths, Vocals 6; Soundscapes, Drums, Arpeggiated 3; Bass, Loops, Sound Effects, Leads, Woodwinds 2. Of course some presets are monophonic by design.)
3. Turn STEREO off for all Sources which use the Additive element or the Source filters.
4. If using a HQ filter type, switch to the corresponding non-HQ type. (For example, switch from ‘LP2-SVF HQ’ to ‘LP2-SVF’; see the Filter page for details.)
5. Try switching off Source filters if their contribution to the preset is not significant.
6. If using the Additive element (in ADD or VA mode), use fewer oscillators. Listen to each Source as you reduce its NOsc control to ensure that you preserve the essential sound. Alchemy processes oscillators in blocks of four, so NOsc settings that are multiples of four (4, 8, 12, 16, …) give you the most oscillators for the least CPU cost.
7. The Additive element in ADD mode benefits from special optimizations, cutting CPU load in half when all of the following conditions are met:
   1. Oscillator wave is Basic > Sine.
   2. Symmetry is set to exactly 50% and not modulated.
   3. No modulation is applied to the Master Coarse and Fine Tune, Source Coarse and Fine Tune, and Additive element Pitch controls.
8. If using a Granular element with grain Density set above 4, reduce this setting to 4.
9. If the sound has a long release time, try reducing it; it may be more efficient to achieve similar effects with Delay and/or Reverb effects.
10. If using the Granular element with Stretch fixed at 100% and with no special granular manipulations, try switching the element to Sampler mode.
11. Use fewer effects.
12. Use fewer sources.
13. If in Xfade mode, use an analogous Morph mode instead. This makes a large difference for Additive and Spectral elements (although it may significantly change the sound of the preset).

A dialog box has appeared saying ‘Please select a location and filename for supporting data files…’ — what should I do?

This dialog box appears when your sequencer is saving a song that contains more than 1MB of additive or spectral analysis data. You should click ‘OK’. In the following File Save dialog you should navigate to the folder in which your song is saved and enter a suitable name for the Alchemy preset file that will be saved there. This file will be referred to by the song so it is a good idea to keep it in the same folder.

The reason why it is necessary to save this data outside the song is because some sequencers do not allow more than 1MB of data to be stored inside a song by a plugin. Known examples of this are Logic and GarageBand. To find out if your sequencer has this limitation, please contact the sequencer manufacturer. If your sequencer does allow you to save more than 1MB of plugin data within a song, then you can increase this threshold by changing the value of the MaxChunkSize parameter within the AlchemyConfig.txt file that is located in your plugin folder. The MaxChunkSize parameter specifies the threshold in bytes. Increasing this value when your sequencer does not support it will lead to a crash when saving songs.

There are no presets — why is that?

You should be able to browse the Factory presets, as well as any User presets you have saved, and any add-on banks of presets you have installed, via the Bank, Category, and Preset fields in Alchemy’s Title bar. If the expected content is not displayed when you click these fields, then you may not have installed the Bank folders where Alchemy expects to find them. Locate these folders on your computer and move them to the Achemy data folder (Windows) or /Library/Application Support/Camel Audio/Alchemy/Presets (Mac); Alchemy will find them the next time it is loaded.

If you cannot find Alchemy’s Factory bank anywhere on your computer, go to the Camel Audio web site at http://www.camelaudio.com, and log into your user account by clicking on the ‘Log in / create user account’ link at the top right-hand corner of the page and entering your email address and password. Then click on the ‘Downloads’ link in the Support Menu on the left of the page, and download Alchemy Presets (a .rar file that will be expanded by the installer) to your desktop. Then run the Add-On Installer, found in the Start menu under Programs->Camel Audio->Alchemy (Windows) or in /Applications/Alchemy (Mac).