FALCON or HALION 6 ?

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Falcon HALion 7

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I'm more into the Falcon camp, the sound and features fit me better and the development is much more interesting. So excited to see the implementation of Rotary, supporting the new B5 V2. Especially when it comes with more organ oriented materials using the Organ and other oscillators.
Kaossilatron - Voicillator
Station: Ableton Live 10 Suite, Obscurium, Push 2, Ultranova, MS-20m, Wavedrums

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Hi guys !

Thank you very much for all your inputs on a very complicated decision ! ;-)
Still playing here (a few days more) with the Halion 6 demo... I have some little problems with the workflow (a little bit too sophisticated and too confusing for me - A lot of very small buttons or check squares to memorise the place... very small written words, despite easy enlargement windows... etc...)... and not totally convinced by the "acoustic (instruments) sounds presets" compared to the equivalent in other softs I own yet...
I've read here in your comments that for some of you, Falcon has a "better" workflow than Halion 6. Unfortunately because there is no demo version, I cannot play with to verify it at "my hands"...

A complicated decision... so, why not to wait for the Falcon 2 version before to buy a... non enthusiastic relation with Halion 6 - 30 days demo ?

But, your comments have been very very much appreciated.
Thanks a lot again !

Cheers !

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I finally downloaded the Halion 6 demo and I personally really like the sound. I have definitely not figured out the workflow yet and yes there are many small buttons, it's sort of hard to figure out what's going on. However at least there are many different simplified synth interfaces provided which allows you to use it as a more straight forward synth. I definitely prefer the Halion sound to Falcon. The VA and the wavetable oscs are excellent in Halion. I will probably pick it up soon...

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Well after playing with halion 6 for a while, I'm extremely impressed with the sound. The VA section is already one of my favorites of any analog style vst. The wavetable is crisp and ballsy. Granular is good of course. And so many presets are just excellent and very playable. I have a new found appreciation for the falcon flexibility and signal path though, as halion is missing alot that falcon can do. But I just wish Falcon sounded like halion. There's just no comparison. I primarily wan to use Halion as an mpe synth but I can't figure out how to assign cc74 as a modulator. The independent note pitch bend works and I assume the aftertouch is polyphonic (haven't tested that actually) but I'm worried that I won't be able to modulate per voice with cc74 and haven't gotten any answers yet to this. Anyone know?

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Echoes in the Attic wrote:But I just wish Falcon sounded like halion. There's just no comparison.
Sure there is, they both sound great, neither is "worse" than the other. They are just steered in different directions. IMHO filters are definitely much better and more flexible in Falcon, and that Sparkverb and Phasor and Thorus... *_*

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EvilDragon wrote:
Echoes in the Attic wrote:But I just wish Falcon sounded like halion. There's just no comparison.
Sure there is, they both sound great, neither is "worse" than the other. They are just steered in different directions. IMHO filters are definitely much better and more flexible in Falcon, and that Sparkverb and Phasor and Thorus... *_*
Well I guess I should have qualified that with an "imo", as of course I see how you could like either more than the other or equally. I just mean for me there is no comparison in terms of the sound character (as opposed to the "quality") and Halion has the sound I love, more so than Omnisphere (which I own) and falcon.

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I guess I also think Falcon sounds better easier. The filters are better and several of the effects are lightyears better. I also think there are good and bad in both workflows. Falcon is far more flexible and accessible to parameters IMO. But, I'm totally hooked on the WT in H6+sampling.
If you have to ask, you can't afford the answer

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PACE or eLicenser?
For me, it unfortunately came down to copy protection method.
While eLicenser still takes its USB port, it at least doesn't run software that continually sucks system resources like PACE does. I find that company to be quite manipulative, disingenuous and even downright deceitful to deal and communicate with.

The moment Falcon kicks PACE to the curb, I'd probably buy it.
And I liken any good software that uses it to a runway model with an incurable case of scabies.

Until then, I'm more than okay with just HALion 6.

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PACE doesn't suck any more resources than your graphics card drivers. In fact, quite a bit less. Just one process taking about 24 MB of RAM and NO CPU utilization. Big effin' deal.

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EvilDragon wrote:PACE doesn't suck any more resources than your graphics card drivers. In fact, quite a bit less. Just one process taking about 24 MB of RAM and NO CPU utilization. Big effin' deal.
:lol: At least you admit it does suck system resources, which PACE will flat out deny until you show it to them. Then they switch to your response. At least that's how they handled it the last time I caught them in it. And I've also observed it cumulatively adds to the other non-PACE plugins being used at the time. You know a tick on your scalp doesn't really eat much either. Still the wise thing is to remove it.
A graphic card is a system component. PACE however, is not.

But regardless, if Falcon ever comes to its senses and realizes how much of a market they are missing and at the very least gives us an option to use literally anything else except PACE, (even eLicenser), I most likely would own both. But PACE is a no-effin way.

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I don't think that 24 MB of RAM counts as "sucking the resources". And it works very well overall. For sure it's not harmful to the system in any way.

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EvilDragon wrote:I don't think that 24 MB of RAM counts as "sucking the resources". And it works very well overall. For sure it's not harmful to the system in any way.
Again, ticks don't eat much either.
A parasite is a parasite.

Regardless still, in comparing the two, how it installs and runs is something that most of us look at.
In this regard, HALion is the better of the two IMO.

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What about the fact that uvi gives you 3 licenses and Steinberg only gives you one. Halion 6 comes with a 25+ gig library and Falcons factory content is 600 mb.

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I haver both, like has been said before you can go on and on with pro's and cons- Halion was IMHO always more of a challenger for Komplete (lots of real piano, brass, strings etc, could be a workhouse for traditional arrangements). The fact that it can now give Falcon a run for its money as a synthesis workstation is a great testament to how much Halion has been developed. I realise people with good ears and experience may sound one filter sounds better than another etc in isolation, but the 'overall' sound of the two massive multi-layered instrument is definitely comparable (a in they are both superb all-rounder's!). For what its worth, Halion is also a bit cheaper than Falcon and you get Halion Sonic as well which is a useful pre-set player (I guess somewhat equivalent to the free UVI workstation other than you get almost 30Gigs of content)

Halion is definitely more of a sampler (it can actually sample and is arguably one of the best software samplers available) and has a reasonable wave editor now- can also window out full screen (Falcon looses may points for me for being top small to actually see on my 4K)- I hope Steinberg keep heading in this direction, maybe add auto-sample (no more waverobot or samplit) and add more 'wavelab' for editing- you know they have it!

I haven't got in to it yet, but the instrument creator (running in free version of sonic) looks pretty powerful, graphics editor looks like you could make your own GUI without having to script etc. I have watched a few videos on this and it looks pretty strait forward.

I will never get rid of Falcon, I have some great UVI libraries for it (synth anthology, drum anthology 2...etc- another big plus for UVI...) but I found the GUI uninspiring and difficult to get around when making new sounds, I personally find Halion much easier, far more configurable and they have released some great free tuition videos...Halion is probably a point or .5 release of being truly great, and is now my one and only 'desert island' VST (if I had to pick 1!!)
X32 Desk, i9 PC, S49MK2, Studio One, BWS, Live+PUSH 3 Standalone, Reason, Osmose, Summit, Pro 3, Prophet8, Syntakt, Digitone, Drumlogue, OP1-F, Eurorack, TD27 Drums, Guitars, Basses, Amps and of course lots of pedals!

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Wondering if anyone is still watching this old thread?!

I've been trying to make up my mind between halion 6 and falcon and came across this thread - I'd just about decided on falcon but now I'm not sure again... I want a good modern software sampler to replace my emulator x 3. I came very late to the party with the emulator x and it's such a massive shame this amazing sampler isn't supported any more - the sound is amazing with some great effects and loads of ways to play with samples to make interesting sounds. Unfortunately the interface is a bit broken on modern windows (drag and drop not working, features not working like midi selection), and the copyright protection is messed up (it's 50/50 whether it'll load up in live whenever i try to open it, although it still works well in Renoise). And windows only is a problem too (the main reason I didn't try it earlier at full price)

I've been trying out the Halion 6 trial and it seems like a pretty good sampler with a nice sound but there are a few niggles for me, the biggest one being the quality of the effects - I just can't get along with them, i'm disappointed by every one that i've tried. Add to that the ability in falcon to add effects parameters to the mod matrix and I was just about sold until I read a few people have issues with falcons raw sound quality compared to halion... Halion does have a nice full sound to the sampler section which compares ok (not quite as good imo) to the emu, and without a trial of falcon I'm worried I'll be disappointed by the fundamental sound of it. I'm not too fussed about wavetable synthesis i have that in zebra which sounds great, I thought the granular synthesis was disappointing in halion (maybe it's just my lack of skill but I can't get anything decent out of it except some gliutchy lofi rice crispy sfx i quite liked).

Ironically I like the fact falcon is a small install - i have enough sound libraries filling my drives, this is going to be a sound design tool for my own noises, so the mediocre and large halion library is not a pro for me..

Anyone had experience with the emu and falcon sound?

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