KVR Audio

Guido Negraszus · Post by **Guido Negraszus** » Wed Mar 30, 2011 1:28 pm

Can Halion Sonic load the Yamaha S90ES piano from the HalionOne library? I think Steinberg said that Halion Sonic replaced HalionOne but I can't see this particular patch in the preset list of HS. If yes, do you need Cubase to do so?

standalone · Post by **standalone** » Wed Mar 30, 2011 3:40 pm

Seymor Skinner wrote: I think Steinberg said that Halion Sonic replaced HalionOne

No, Halion Sonic SE replaced Halion One, it is based in Halion Sonic but it's not the same instrument and is only included in Cubase. You got the option of installing Halion One in Cubase 6 if you need it.

Guido Negraszus · Post by **Guido Negraszus** » Thu Mar 31, 2011 1:22 pm

Thanks for the info. Makes sense. Pitty though, I really loved that piano sound.

budweiser · Post by **budweiser** » Sat Apr 02, 2011 10:25 am

Wrong. I get cubase 6 and the S90 piano sound is available in halion sonic se. I think the whole halion one sound bank is included in halion sonic se.

standalone · Post by **standalone** » Sat Apr 02, 2011 5:17 pm

budweiser wrote:Wrong. I get cubase 6 and the S90 piano sound is available in halion sonic se. I think the whole halion one sound bank is included in halion sonic se.

Of course that's what I said: "Halion Sonic SE replaced Halion One". But I believe that the OP doesn't use Cubase anymore and he wanted to know if that piano is in the full Halion Sonic's library so that he can use it in other host, if I understood it right.

Guido Negraszus · Post by **Guido Negraszus** » Sun Apr 03, 2011 3:07 am

That's correct. I am ex-Cubase but still own Cubase 5 so I can still use that piano sound if I need to. It just would have moved my wallet a bit faster if I'd had that sound in Halion Sonic. At the end of the day I probably buy it anyway.

fgimian · Post by **fgimian** » Sun Apr 03, 2011 3:28 am

Seymor Skinner wrote:That's correct. I am ex-Cubase but still own Cubase 5 so I can still use that piano sound if I need to. It just would have moved my wallet a bit faster if I'd had that sound in Halion Sonic. At the end of the day I probably buy it anyway.

The piano is definitely in Halion Sonic SE, not sure about the full Halion Sonic. However, another way to do it is by using HalionOne. HalionOne is a standard VST2 instrument which will load in any host, so just point your new host to where the DLL is and you should be set

musicdoc · Post by **musicdoc** » Sun Apr 03, 2011 3:59 am

I do have to say, I have a Yamaha S90 as my main controller, and the Cubase S90 is nowhere close to how the Yamaha sounds. It seems like its missing depth, not terrible by any means but not the same IMHO. I use a Hammerfall soundcard and Apogee convertors, so my chain is not too bad.

FrankT · Post by **FrankT** » Sun Apr 03, 2011 4:31 am

musicdoc wrote:I do have to say, I have a Yamaha S90 as my main controller, and the Cubase S90 is nowhere close to how the Yamaha sounds. It seems like its missing depth, not terrible by any means but not the same IMHO. I use a Hammerfall soundcard and Apogee convertors, so my chain is not too bad.

I can confirm this, coming from an XS90. Very different thing playing original Yamaha pianos compared to Halion Sonic, Halion One etc pianos, despite all the Marketing buzz about those VSTs using Motif-sounds. Either this gap is intentional, so not to canibalise hw-sales, or there is way to go in sound-design, Steinberg!

standalone · Post by **standalone** » Sun Apr 03, 2011 8:57 am

I think no one ever dared to compare Halion One to Motif. They do state that their sounds come from Yamaha's instrument but they never say "you'll got a software Motif within your Cubase" or anything similar. The same goes with the S90 patch. Nice little piano inspired in the real one but that's it. It came as a bonus in the 4.5 update.

FrankT · Post by **FrankT** » Sun Apr 03, 2011 9:53 am

standalone wrote:I think no one ever dared to compare Halion One to Motif. They do state that their sounds come from Yamaha's instrument but they never say "you'll got a software Motif within your Cubase" or anything similar. The same goes with the S90 patch. Nice little piano inspired in the real one but that's it. It came as a bonus in the 4.5 update.

Well as you say, Halion was advertised as joint effort with the Motif sound programmers. Also, when you call a sound S90, you might want to expect the sound of this instrument, especially when it is coming form the same company

"Piano inspired by" nails it! And leaves much room for interpretation

JorgV · Post by **JorgV** » Sun Apr 03, 2011 10:13 am

Having a Motif XS, I can confirm it uses a lot of the same samples, just in a lower quality/less samples per instrument kind of way (less keygroups per octave, no or fewer velocity layers).

Just like a Yamaha PSR-keyboard is also based on the same samples. They do sound alike, but the Motif really sounds better (a lot...).

Halion One's (don't own Cubase 6 yet, but it's probably the same) sound is comparable to the lower end PSR-keyboards, now that I think of it

Usable and not bad at all for doing quick demo's or something that is a little buried, but not 'professional' sounding.

Guido Negraszus · Post by **Guido Negraszus** » Sun Apr 03, 2011 4:04 pm

soundpalace wrote:
Seymor Skinner wrote:That's correct. I am ex-Cubase but still own Cubase 5 so I can still use that piano sound if I need to. It just would have moved my wallet a bit faster if I'd had that sound in Halion Sonic. At the end of the day I probably buy it anyway.
The piano is definitely in Halion Sonic SE, not sure about the full Halion Sonic. However, another way to do it is by using HalionOne. HalionOne is a standard VST2 instrument which will load in any host, so just point your new host to where the DLL is and you should be set

That worked except that I can't seem to locate the halion library banks. I right click in the HalionOne window and it says locate soundbank but it ignores everything I do. No idea why its doing that.

PAK · Post by **PAK** » Tue Apr 05, 2011 12:52 am

I've seen incorrect info posted in several threads about all the differences between the various versions (Nice job creating confusion Steinberg). The following numbers are from what actually shows up. Based on various factors, not least the jumbled directory structure Steinbergs VSTpreset browser system seems to have created, these numbers might miss something out, but they should hopefully be pretty accurate.

"Halion Sonic SE" includes 957 sounds, of which 707 are sounds from Halion One (which is everything Halion One had with the extra addons). So Halion Sonic SE still has access to the S90 piano (included from the original 707 Halion One sounds).

There are 250 new presets in Halion Sonic SE. This seems more than it is, because that 250 total includes 128 General Midi presets. This leaves 122 non-GM presets unique to Halion Sonic SE (which aren't in Halion One). The Halion Sonic engine has also changed from Halion One, so some of those original 707 Halion One presets will sound slightly different in the new engine. Where there are differences it's mostly for the better, in that they sound less "lo fi" than Halion One.

The full Halion Sonic can use all 957 sounds from the SE content too. However it also adds 1,335 of its own presets (for a total of 2,292 sounds - 707 H One + 250 HSSE + 1335 HS).

Btw - a fair number of Halion Sonic's sounds are made entirely with either the VA engine or the VA engine layered with other samples. The sound programming is of a decent standard and, in particular, gives a good feel for the possibilities of the VA engine. Halion Sonic SE gives a relatively poor idea of what you're likely to get with the full Halion Sonic even from a preset perspective because it's mostly Halion One. Never mind the totally crippled editing meaning you won't get any proper idea about the layering system, much less the power of the VA engine or things like Flex Phrase.

I really think they should've labelled Halion Sonic SE differently. Even though it makes sense in some regards (when looked at in a marketing department) it's really not very representative of Halion Sonic other than the GUI. Plus, with these similarly named products, people don't know what the hell is included with what (as is evident by several threads on here).

Personally, I still prefer the sound of Paul Kellet's engine in Hypersonic 2. Just personal taste, because I think it has a bit more "personality", but Halion Sonic definitely sounds more "hifi" in some regards. Other than that my main criticism is the GUI. Unfortunately, since they wanted to make the preset browser centre stage, like Hypersonic 2 you're stuck with a smaller editing GUI than need be. When people say they want a software rompler, they don't actually mean the 320x240 editing interface too! That said, it's still probably the best software rompler available (now that HS2 is no more) if you don't count Omnisphere..

Halion Sonic: Yamaha S90ES piano