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Creating wavetables for Alchemy


3ple

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Hey guys,

 

I know most of us wanted this to be a feature (importing wavetables), but there's a workaround. It was possible when Alchemy was part of Camel Audio, but since Apple bought it and changed the folder structure, I thought it wasn't possible. It took me a few hours to figure it out, all the details, lengths, etc (first when it was a third party plugin) and then last night now that Alchemy is part of Logic, but I really hope it will help us all make Alchemy an even greater synth (even though it already is amazing). :)

 

Edit: here are some wavetables I just created. I will be sharing more on a regular basis:

3ple - Wavetables for Alchemy.zip

 

Create your own wavetables

You're gonna need Audicity, since it's the one I used on this tutorial. I used WavePad in the past, but Audicity is free, so it's even better :P I also use Sound Studio, which I love and been using it for years! If you have an audio editor that shows you the length of a selection in samples, go ahead. Sound Studio has been working for me and it's cheap too :)

 

Let's go then! (one note: I don't understand why some values are the way they are or why it has to be stereo, but hey, it works lol I was more worried on making it work. Maybe I will keep trying different approaches and see what can be changed, but for now, it works this way)

 

Open an audio file. Make sure the sample rate is 44.1 Khz, If not, just convert it, otherwise the values I'm about to show you will change and for now I don't think it's important that it is any other sample rate than 44.1 KHz. One important note: the final file has to be stereo. Don't ask why... it just doesn't work when it's mono... you can of course open a mono file, but the exported file has to be stereo). Even though on my image you can see that left and right channels are slightly different (just picked a random song for the sake of this tutorial), both channels have to be the same information.

 

 

Make a selection. It has to be 1,024 samples. No more no less. Check the top right corner

3ple-wavetable-creation-for-alchemy-1.thumb.png.caf8b06c8c2d898ef0c55c193771f2cc.png

 

Crop it. Now your file will be 1,024 samples long

3ple-wavetable-creation-for-alchemy-2.thumb.png.8d083aee944033b7f4673778d83835d1.png

 

Copy-paste it 19 times, so you will have a total of 20 repeated wavetables (don't ask... it is what it is lol). Total length has to be 20,480 samples. Check the top right corner. Save the file 

3ple-wavetable-creation-for-alchemy-3.thumb.png.d3eb34f720bbde4fc85843b82c97bd0e.png

 

Open it in Audicity. Then go to File > Export Audio

3ple-wavetable-creation-for-alchemy-4.thumb.png.d4f7ffad01f5fb2e56d7c895e883f0c6.png

 

Pick the options you see below. Those are the ones that work. Maybe other ones work as well, but I didn't take the time to check them, because I knew those would work anyway ;)

3ple-wavetable-creation-for-alchemy-5.png.3b14be7139e354cddc23fe671df5c6d3.png

 

Copy the new file (RAW extension) to the location you see below. Just right-click your Logic app, Show Contents and follow the path. You can either drop the file on the root of WaveOsc or create a folder. Up to you. REMEMBER: I don't know if updating Logic will make this WaveOsc folder go back to the default structure so I advise you to always have a copy of all those wavetables on a separate folder, just in case ;)

3ple-wavetable-creation-for-alchemy-6.png.8ea95409535096f6d6346e6854d41a7c.png

 

Open Alchemy and enjoy it! :) Every time you put another wavetable on that folder, only new instances of Alchemy will show it. To test the accuracy of the sound, just play the original file (the one with the 20 repetitions) and then play an F0 note in Alchemy with the loaded wavetable.

3ple-wavetable-creation-for-alchemy-7.thumb.png.31ccd191f3155f5ff7a7ecbfa9614fc2.png

 

 

I really hope you guys find this information useful. It was something that took me a few hours, but in the end I'm happy that I can now import other wavetables and increase the amount of possibilities in such an amazing synth! :)

3ple-wavetable-creation-for-alchemy-8.png.a7eb91769d8d1285102ae2af125f3864.png

Edited by 3ple
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Cool! Thank you for sharing! :)

Always a pleasure! :) I'm actually gonna upload some wavetables I just created and will be sharing more once in a while. I definitely feel Alchemy needs more people working on it, sharing other types of sounds, tutorials, wavetables, sources (I love playing around with the Additive graph and create my own sounds), etc. Last night it definitely opened a lot of options once I, by accident, found the WaveOsc folder and saw it can still be done :)

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:lol:

 

invaluable.png

Oh my bad... lol for some reason I read that as "of no value" :P

Well in that case, good to know you liked the tutorial and that it has invaluable information :) Always a pleasure to share stuff with my LPH family, who has given me so much too! 

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"Invaluable" means very valuable ... "Invincible" means you can't be defeated ... but "Inexperienced" means you don't know what you're doing, and "insensitive" means that you are a cad.

 

Brought to you by the same language that gives you both "door" and "poor," and challenges you to correctly pronounce them both.   :wink:

 

Who ever said that human languages make sense?  (Or should that be, "whoever?")

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Copy the new file (RAW extension) to the location you see below. Just right-click your Logic app, Show Contents and follow the path. You can either drop the file on the root of WaveOsc or create a folder. Up to you. REMEMBER: I don't know if updating Logic will make this WaveOsc folder go back to the default structure so I advise you to always have a copy of all those wavetables on a separate folder, just in case ;)

3ple-wavetable-creation-for-alchemy-6.png

Woohoo! It worked! Thanks a lot for this path. Been looking for the `WaveOsc` folder (and the `WaveLfo` one) after downloading some free patches for Camel Audio’s version of Alchemy. After a few DuckDuckGo searches, abandoned hope, not getting any appropriate result (maybe because you hadn’t posted this!). Can confirm that it does work in MainStage.

The relevant folders are here:

 

/Applications/MainStage\ 3.app/Contents/Frameworks/MAAlchemy.framework/Versions/A/Resources/Libraries/

 

(May be easier to read than the picture, for some people. Replace `MainStage\ 3` with whatever’s relevant for Logic Pro X.)

Turns out, some people have already created whole collections of `.raw` files for use in Camel Audio’s version of Alchemy. One of these in a set of 4300 Public Domain waveforms created by Sweden’s Adventure Kid, who was inspired in part by Sonic Pi (a Free Software music creation environment developed for the Raspberry Pi and runs really well on macOS). 

 

Heard about the “AKWF” collection on an Audiobus forum about iOS app Animoog and immediately wanted to add those waveforms to Alchemy in MainStage.

With your trick, @iam3ple, my version of MainStage now has an extra folder in the “Load VA” menu.

Alchemy_AKWF_LoadVA.thumb.png.eaf500b28637c10edb21c8eaac40b18b.png

Screenshot of Adventure Kid Waveforms submenu in MainStage Alchemy.

 

Haven’t spent a huge amount of time playing with them, yet, but many of these do sound pretty good and they sure work well with the Alchemy approach to sound design. Will have to get a better grasp of how morphing works in this case. For one thing, it forces me to use the same waveform in all four sources, though `XFade XY` and `XFade Lin` work different waveforms. Haven’t had this issue when importing audio.

 

So, really grateful for this trick. Wish Apple supported waveform import in Alchemy. RetroSynth does import wavetables from correctly formatted sound files. One might even enjoy getting a way to manipulate waveforms to make them into wavetables and “VA” sources.

 

Thanks again!

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Copy the new file (RAW extension) to the location you see below. Just right-click your Logic app, Show Contents and follow the path. You can either drop the file on the root of WaveOsc or create a folder. Up to you. REMEMBER: I don't know if updating Logic will make this WaveOsc folder go back to the default structure so I advise you to always have a copy of all those wavetables on a separate folder, just in case ;)

3ple-wavetable-creation-for-alchemy-6.png

Woohoo! It worked! Thanks a lot for this path. Been looking for the `WaveOsc` folder (and the `WaveLfo` one) after downloading some free patches for Camel Audio’s version of Alchemy. After a few DuckDuckGo searches, abandoned hope, not getting any appropriate result (maybe because you hadn’t posted this!). Can confirm that it does work in MainStage.

The relevant folders are here:

 

/Applications/MainStage\ 3.app/Contents/Frameworks/MAAlchemy.framework/Versions/A/Resources/Libraries/

 

(May be easier to read than the picture, for some people. Replace `MainStage\ 3` with whatever’s relevant for Logic Pro X.)

Turns out, some people have already created whole collections of `.raw` files for use in Camel Audio’s version of Alchemy. One of these in a set of 4300 Public Domain waveforms created by Sweden’s Adventure Kid, who was inspired in part by Sonic Pi (a Free Software music creation environment developed for the Raspberry Pi and runs really well on macOS). 

 

Heard about the “AKWF” collection on an Audiobus forum about iOS app Animoog and immediately wanted to add those waveforms to Alchemy in MainStage.

With your trick, @iam3ple, my version of MainStage now has an extra folder in the “Load VA” menu.

Alchemy_AKWF_LoadVA.png

 

Haven’t spent a huge amount of time playing with them, yet, but many of these do sound pretty good and they sure work well with the Alchemy approach to sound design. Will have to get a better grasp of how morphing works in this case. For one thing, it forces me to use the same waveform in all four sources, though `XFade XY` and `XFade Lin` work different waveforms. Haven’t had this issue when importing audio.

 

So, really grateful for this trick. Wish Apple supported waveform import in Alchemy. RetroSynth does import wavetables from correctly formatted sound files. One might even enjoy getting a way to manipulate waveforms to make them into wavetables and “VA” sources.

 

Thanks again!

You're welcome! Always a pleasure to share the knowledge with Logic users :)

Yes the morphing requires the same source, unless it's the Fade option. If you import it as additive, granular, spectral, then you can have different sources, I believe. Nevere really explored that deep, but I remember that was how it worked. 

I'm still trying to figure out how to create proper wavetables for Retro Synth. Sometimes it creates, sometimes it doesn't, etc. It's not like Serum, for example, where you can just drag any audio and it will create the wavetable. 

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  • 1 year later...
Copy the new file (RAW extension) to the location you see below. Just right-click your Logic app, Show Contents and follow the path. You can either drop the file on the root of WaveOsc or create a folder. Up to you. REMEMBER: I don't know if updating Logic will make this WaveOsc folder go back to the default structure so I advise you to always have a copy of all those wavetables on a separate folder, just in case ;)

3ple-wavetable-creation-for-alchemy-6.png

Woohoo! It worked! Thanks a lot for this path. Been looking for the `WaveOsc` folder (and the `WaveLfo` one) after downloading some free patches for Camel Audio’s version of Alchemy. After a few DuckDuckGo searches, abandoned hope, not getting any appropriate result (maybe because you hadn’t posted this!). Can confirm that it does work in MainStage.

The relevant folders are here:

 

/Applications/MainStage\ 3.app/Contents/Frameworks/MAAlchemy.framework/Versions/A/Resources/Libraries/

 

(May be easier to read than the picture, for some people. Replace `MainStage\ 3` with whatever’s relevant for Logic Pro X.)

Turns out, some people have already created whole collections of `.raw` files for use in Camel Audio’s version of Alchemy. One of these in a set of 4300 Public Domain waveforms created by Sweden’s Adventure Kid, who was inspired in part by Sonic Pi (a Free Software music creation environment developed for the Raspberry Pi and runs really well on macOS). 

 

Heard about the “AKWF” collection on an Audiobus forum about iOS app Animoog and immediately wanted to add those waveforms to Alchemy in MainStage.

With your trick, @iam3ple, my version of MainStage now has an extra folder in the “Load VA” menu.

Alchemy_AKWF_LoadVA.png

 

Haven’t spent a huge amount of time playing with them, yet, but many of these do sound pretty good and they sure work well with the Alchemy approach to sound design. Will have to get a better grasp of how morphing works in this case. For one thing, it forces me to use the same waveform in all four sources, though `XFade XY` and `XFade Lin` work different waveforms. Haven’t had this issue when importing audio.

 

So, really grateful for this trick. Wish Apple supported waveform import in Alchemy. RetroSynth does import wavetables from correctly formatted sound files. One might even enjoy getting a way to manipulate waveforms to make them into wavetables and “VA” sources.

 

Thanks again!

 

 

Would you mind sharing those wavetables with it? I was trying to find them online but I couldn’t :) thanks

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Thanks for this. I think you will have to replace them every time there’s an upgrade - it’s a recurrent problem I have with old presets imported from Alchemy 1 ..

 

Yes you need to replace them. That’s why it’s good to first save them on a folder somewhere else and then make a copy into that alchemy’s folder :)

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  • 2 months later...
Great stuff, much thanks! I'm a little confused by the last image in the original post, the one with a waveform length of 83622, circled, and made up of a variety of different waves. There's no explanation of what this is, and it doesn't seem to follow any of the requirements spelled out above it…?
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  • 3 months later...
Alchemy doesn't work the same way other wavetable synths do (hopefully in the future they will work on this). The morph is just for when you use Additive, so basically the waveforms you import are just for the VA synthesis. Still a good thing, but I wish we could morph as well
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  • 1 year later...

Thanks for this find, I had purchased a wavetable pack in the past and one of the packs (ALC) had the file extension .raw. A little research told me that this file extension is for Alchemy. I remembered that Apple bought it from Camel Audio and added it to Logic Pro X (though I don't use Logic much), so I set off to find out if and how these waveforms could be added to Alchemy... and I arrived here. They were made in 2010 for the Camel Audio version and they do work in Logic . There are over 25,000 waveforms in this pack, included were waves and wavetables that work in Absynth, Serum, Pigment and more too.

Thanks again!

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  • 1 year later...
Alchemy doesn't work the same way other wavetable synths do (hopefully in the future they will work on this). The morph is just for when you use Additive, so basically the waveforms you import are just for the VA synthesis. Still a good thing, but I wish we could morph as well

 

Amazing Hack! Thank you for detailing this information on how to add a huge plethora of sounds to my arsenal. I was able to find add Adventurekid's waveforms for Alchemy

https://github.com/KristofferKarlAxelEkstrand/AKWF-FREE

 

I'm so overwhelmed with the amount of sound possibilities. That said, is it possible to use the VA Oscillator control "Sym" as a substitute for the WT Position?

va-osc-controls.jpg

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Alchemy doesn't work the same way other wavetable synths do (hopefully in the future they will work on this). The morph is just for when you use Additive, so basically the waveforms you import are just for the VA synthesis. Still a good thing, but I wish we could morph as well

 

Amazing Hack! Thank you for detailing this information on how to add a huge plethora of sounds to my arsenal. I was able to find add Adventurekid's waveforms for Alchemy

https://github.com/KristofferKarlAxelEkstrand/AKWF-FREE

 

I'm so overwhelmed with the amount of sound possibilities. That said, is it possible to use the VA Oscillator control "Sym" as a substitute for the WT Position?

va-osc-controls.jpg

 

Hey! This is my new account (former 3ple).

The Sym is not the same as WT Position. Actually, I was using the word "wavetable" over and over again, but it should actually be called just waveform. I guess at the time I was a bit confused about what a wavetable actually is...

That being said, the SYM affects the waveform itself.

 

For you to emulate a wavetable (kinda) with up to 4 sources, you need to use the Morph feature which uses Additive synthesis. Then you can morph between 2, 3 or 4 sources.

Hope it makes sense ;)

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For you to emulate a wavetable (kinda) with up to 4 sources, you need to use the Morph feature which uses Additive synthesis. Then you can morph between 2, 3 or 4 sources. Hope it makes sense ;)

OK that makes more sense now. Logic's Alchemy can get pretty CPU heavy when using multiple sources and I'm afraid CPU usage will be an issue if I'm morphing between the different sources. I'm guessing it would be better to use a true wavetable synth like Serum or or vital instead doing it this way. That said, any wavetable synth will be heavy on the CPU, nature of the beast.

 

It frustrates me that Logic does not have a decent wavetable synth, And no, Retro synth will not do. I wish Logic would redo their ES2 Synth to allow wavetables, that would be EPIC! I love that synth.

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