FALCON or HALION 6 ?

[Lutin mutin]

Hi guys !

I've read a lot of opinions here in KVR about Halion 6 vs Omnisphere.
I own Omnisphere 1 then 2, so I know this product.
And now, I want to go further in sound design capabilities, and I hesitate between Halion 6 and Falcon. It will be one or the other, but not all of them (1- too similar ; 2- too expensive to buy Halion 6 + Falcon).
For the moment, the only differences I've seen between them are about the quantities of sound presets : Halion 6 comes with a lot of sound presets but Falcon has really few for more or less the same price.
--> But in the sound design capabilities aspect, what will be your advise ? After time passing seeing YouTube reviews or utilisations, it seems to me that those 2 products are really very similar in their capabilities...
Any opinion about users ?

Thanks in advance.

[DJErmac]

What about... both, second hand from the Market Place, so you get both for the price of one so money is no longer a problem ?

The more I think about it, the more I realize that now, I simply couldn't choose ! The one I use the most is Falcon for a question of workflow (layers, fx per layers...), but Halion can do resynthesis and a few other things that Falcon can't...

Seriously, they are both equally interesting. Get them both for half price !

[wagtunes]

More or less, it's a toss up. So just go with your gut. You're not going to disappointed with either one IF you decide to make your own sounds. If you're just looking for preset machines, then HALion 6 has the edge.

[starflakeprj]

As HALion 6 was released not long ago, I think it's one step ahead. The new granular engine seems really nice, and granular synthesis I think is one of the weak spots in Falcon.

HALion has re-synthesis, as mention earlier, and also a very interesting wavetable synthesis engine in general. It does lack an FM synthesis engine though, which Falcon has.

Hopefully Falcon 2 will come this year, but no rumors so far.

[Sampleconstruct]

As HALion 6 was released not long ago, I think it's one step ahead. The new granular engine seems really nice, and granular synthesis I think is one of the weak spots in Falcon.

HALion has re-synthesis, as mention earlier, and also a very interesting wavetable synthesis engine in general. It does lack an FM synthesis engine though, which Falcon has.

Hopefully Falcon 2 will come this year, but no rumors so far.

The granular engine hasn't changed in HALion 6, it's identical with Halion 5, Falcon's multi-granular engine is almost up to par, the only difference is that Falcon has a maximum grain length of 500 ms, Halion does 1 second long grains, another difference is that grain position randomization in Halion goes up to 100% (the full sample), in Falcon the maximum range is 500 ms. Other than that, the granular engines are almost identical.

Falcon has an FM synth, physical modelling, a drum synth, two different types of analog synths, sampling, 4 types of granular (including the IRCAM Stretch), an organ synth, a drum module and a modular structure where you can add as many modulators as needed. Halion has an "analog" synth with 3 oscillators, sampling, an organ module, multi-granular and wavetable synthesis, and Halion is the only "sampler" that actually samples.

Halion is limited to 2 polyphonic LFOs per zone (and as many monophonic LFOs as needed), a step modulator, 4 envelopes (which also function as tempo-synced MSEGs - but atm they're broken and don't sync correctly to the DAW), the filters in Halion are very average compared to Falcon

In Halion the effect parameters can't be assigned in the modulation matrix, only via Quick Controls, in Falcon you can modulate every single parameter be it FX, oscillators, filters, whatever. The effects in Falcon sound better, some FX in Halion are good, some are very average, Falcon has a lot more effects on board including a very good waveshaper (also polyphonic per not on oscillator level)

Wavetable synthesis in Halion is far superior to Falcon, the latter only has a WT player, no WT editor, but Falcon has phase distortion modes which Halion doesn't offer.

Both are able to create/use lua-scripted instruments, Halion also has a Macro page designer, but without scripting the Macro controls always control the entire range of a given parameter, if you want to determine minimum and maximum levels of a parameter you have to use scripting.

I could go on for pages, but that would be boring...

[dmbaer]

Here's a fairly detailed comparison (written before HALion 6 appeared, however). It also throws Omnisphere into the mix:

http://soundbytesmag.net/threehighendhy ... omparison/

[starflakeprj]

As HALion 6 was released not long ago, I think it's one step ahead. The new granular engine seems really nice, and granular synthesis I think is one of the weak spots in Falcon.

HALion has re-synthesis, as mention earlier, and also a very interesting wavetable synthesis engine in general. It does lack an FM synthesis engine though, which Falcon has.

Hopefully Falcon 2 will come this year, but no rumors so far.

The granular engine hasn't changed in HALion 6, it's identical with Halion 5, Falcon's multi-granular engine is almost up to par, the only difference is that Falcon has a maximum grain length of 500 ms, Halion does 1 second long grains, another difference is that grain position randomization in Halion goes up to 100% (the full sample), in Falcon the maximum range is 500 ms. Other than that, the granular engines are almost identical.

Falcon has an FM synth, physical modelling, a drum synth, two different types of analog synths, sampling, 4 types of granular (including the IRCAM Stretch), an organ synth, a drum module and a modular structure where you can add as many modulators as needed. Halion has an "analog" synth with 3 oscillators, sampling, an organ module, multi-granular and wavetable synthesis, and Halion is the only "sampler" that actually samples.

Halion is limited to 2 polyphonic LFOs per zone (and as many monophonic LFOs as needed), a step modulator, 4 envelopes (which also function as tempo-synced MSEGs - but atm they're broken and don't sync correctly to the DAW), the filters in Halion are very average compared to Falcon

In Halion the effect parameters can't be assigned in the modulation matrix, only via Quick Controls, in Falcon you can modulate every single parameter be it FX, oscillators, filters, whatever. The effects in Falcon sound better, some FX in Halion are good, some are very average, Falcon has a lot more effects on board including a very good waveshaper (also polyphonic per not on oscillator level)

Wavetable synthesis in Halion is far superior to Falcon, the latter only has a WT player, no WT editor, but Falcon has phase distortion modes which Halion doesn't offer.

Both are ale to create/use lua-scripted instruments, Halion also has a Macro page designer, but without scripting the Macro controls always control the entire range of a given parameter, if you want to determine minimum and maximum levels of a parameter you have to use scripting.

I could go on for pages, but that would be boring...

Well, if someone knows about this it's you I could swear HALion 6 had an updated granular engine though, because in videos I have watched I think they have been looking different. I haven't tested HALion 6 myself, but I do own Padshop Pro and Falcon, and between those two, I think Padshop is the better one. Probably not on paper though, but I get much better results with Padshop Pro than Falcon. So therefore I thought the HALion 6 one was superior.

Thank you for the detailed comparison between HALion and Falcon, and trust me, I wouldn't be bored reading several pages about the differences between the two, but maybe you were talking about yourself?

Anyway, based on your comparison, I'm glad I chose Falcon before HALion, and I feel the urge getting HALion 6 as well is not as demanding now

[EvilDragon]

Halion also has a Macro page designer, but without scripting the Macro controls always control the entire range of a given parameter, if you want to determine minimum and maximum levels of a parameter you have to use scripting.

Wow, really? That's so bad. :/ Falcon totally wins in that regard.

[Sampleconstruct]

Halion also has a Macro page designer, but without scripting the Macro controls always control the entire range of a given parameter, if you want to determine minimum and maximum levels of a parameter you have to use scripting.

Wow, really? That's so bad. :/ Falcon totally wins in that regard.

Furthermore one can only assign one parameter per control in that Macro page designer, if one wants to assign multiple parameters per control one has to use a Quick Control or scripting.

[Sampleconstruct]

Thank you for the detailed comparison between HALion and Falcon, and trust me, I wouldn't be bored reading several pages about the differences between the two, but maybe you were talking about yourself?

Anyway, based on your comparison, I'm glad I chose Falcon before HALion, and I feel the urge getting HALion 6 as well is not as demanding now

I was talking about myself actually
It boils down to: if you want state-of-the-art-resynthesis-to-wavetable, get HALion 6, if not, get Falcon or stay with Falcon, although the sampler in HALion 6 is extremely capable with a plethora of extra functions but Flacon's sampler does the job alright.

[ErikH]

Being a Cubase user, I have been tempted for a short while to sell Falcon and get Halion, but finally decided against it because I would exchange a lot of HQ functionality against an instrument that goes further in a few specific directions but is not as versatile.
And UVI are, my idea, much more agile when it comes to creating new functionality than Steinberg which is more of a traditional value.

Plus: It is a safe bet to say that UVI won't stop the developement of Falcon and also look around at what the other companies offer.

[Echoes in the Attic]

There's also the issue of sound character obviously. They really sound quite different. I had falcon for a while and had mixed feelings about the sound. I heard Halion has the same va components as retrologue which I think sounds quite good. So I'm surprised by the comments that the filters are average in Halion with falcon having the edge. I actually found the falcon filters to be rather average. It's personal preference but the two synths definitely sound quite different.

[Sampleconstruct]

There's also the issue of sound character obviously. They really sound quite different. I had falcon for a while and had mixed feelings about the sound. I heard Halion has the same va components as retrologue which I think sounds quite good. So I'm surprised by the comments that the filters are average in Halion with falcon having the edge. I actually found the falcon filters to be rather average. It's personal preference but the two synths definitely sound quite different.

It might be a personal preference, but fact is, that Falcon has a lot more filter types like formant filters, a comb-filter which can be perfectly tuned (unlike the comb-filter in Halion), various complex hybrid filters, better band reject filters and more.

[dellboy]

Download both demos and decide by listening.

Oh,hang on,Falcon has no demo.

Ok then, download the full Halion 6 demo (all 30 gigs of it) and try that for a very generous 30 days.

Then based on the sound from both demos,buy Halion 6 cause it will be miles better than the invisible Falcon demo.

[bundoo]

I much prefer Halion...especially being a Cubase user.
Falcon is nice but found it clunky.
WTs/resynthesis in Halion insane.