IALCHEMY
25 February 2015
There’s a rumour doing the rounds of tech blogs today, that mega-corp Apple has purchased the now defunct Camel Audio, makers of the popular Alchemy synth.
It was first reported by MacRumors, based on info it discovered on a corporate registry site (link to the papers). The papers show that Camel’s address has now been changed to that of Apple’s UK HQ and lists the company sole director as Heather Joy Morrison – one of Apple’s corporate lawyers and senior counsel for iTunes, suggesting that Apple is now the sole owner of the company.
Alchemy, Camel’s flagship product, had included more than a thousand sounds when it was available, with 5.5GBs of samples. The company recently shut up shop in early January 2015, removing all of its purchasable software from its website and leaving just a note for users upon logging in to the service:
“We would like to thank you for the support we’ve received over the years in our efforts to create instruments and effects plug-ins and sound libraries. Camel Audio’s plug-ins, Alchemy Mobile IAPs and sound libraries are no longer available for purchase.
We will continue to provide downloads of your previous purchases and email support until July 7, 2015. We recommend you download all of your purchases and back them up so that you can continue to use them”
Camel Audio users have been speculating on the take over and the consensus is that Apple plan to beef up Garage Band with the plugins, or add more softsynth offerings to Logic Pro X. As yet the monolithic tech giant hasn’t made any kind of formal announcement or confirm the rumours.
Although, it looks like it’s a done deal and Apple will have to play catch-up when it does finally confirm the rumour. That’s not likely to happen for some time though, the company is notorious for keeping its cards close to its chest. Either way, we’re happy to see that Alchemy hasn’t gone the way of the dodo and it’ll be interesting to see what Apple do with Camel’s software.
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