Alchemy Pitch and Keys Pitch, Side by Side

Paraflex Alchemy is a synthesizer. Up to six elements share a chamber. The pitch switch decides whether those elements keep their own notes or follow yours.

This release is VST3 and a standalone app on Windows and macOS. The Alchemy guide covers the whole window. This note is only the pitch switch, because it changes what the instrument is for.

Alchemy pitch

Alchemy pitch plays each element at its own pitch, transposed from the blue reference key. The keyboard still matters: it shifts that set of pitches together. You are not playing a scale the way a piano plays a scale. You are moving a small chord that the elements already form.

Use it when the part is a texture, a hit, or a designed tone and the interesting intervals are the ones on the table. Hover a cell and read the pitch in hertz. Two elements close in hertz beat slowly. Two far apart sound like two registers. That is the harmony, before any reaction.

The on-screen keys run from C2 to C7. A MIDI keyboard plays the same instrument. Pitch bend is plus or minus two semitones on every sounding voice, in both pitch modes.

Keys pitch

Keys pitch plays the notes you play. Each element keeps a small detune that belongs to it, so a chord is still a chord, with a little of the element's character in the tuning.

Use it for bass lines, pads under a vocal, and anything another musician has to follow. If you hand someone a session and the part has to sit on the grid of the song, Keys is the mode that behaves like the other instruments.

Switching mode does not require a new preset. The same six elements can be a sound-design cloud in Alchemy pitch and a playable chord in Keys. Listen to both before you commit the part. The product page has a short demo of the same melody in each mode.

What stays the same

The chamber, the Reactor, and the bench do not change jobs when you flip pitch.

• Drag an orb to move it. Scroll it for volume. Closer to the Reactor is brighter.
• At Reactor zero every reaction is off. You still hear the elements.
• Above zero, pairs that have a chemistry light a bond. The legend names it.
• Envelope can be per element, or one global Attack, Decay, Sustain, and Release.
• Poly, Legato, and Retrig run up to 128 voices.

A volume of zero keeps an element in the chamber and takes it out of the sound and out of the chemistry. That is useful in Keys when one element is pulling the chord out of tune and you want it present for a reaction later.

A practical pair of takes

1. Load two or three elements. Leave the Reactor at zero and listen in Alchemy pitch. Learn the interval.
2. Raise the Reactor until the legend names a reaction. Decide whether that motion belongs in the part.
3. Switch to Keys and play the chord the song actually needs.
4. If Keys sounds plain, you wanted the element's own pitches. Switch back. If Alchemy pitch will not sit in the progression, stay on Keys and use detune, not a different mode, to keep the colour.

Factory presets are grouped as Signature, Chemistry 101, Chemistry 201, Reactions, Harmonious, Waveforms, and Words. Harmonious groups elements into musical intervals, which is the fastest way to hear Keys doing something intentional.

Alchemy · Guide