HALion 7

[digitallysane]

None of the synths mentioned are multi-engine instruments like Halion is. Maybe you don’t want that kind of thing, but it’s not nothing. One could use layering and more focused styles of plugin to achieve similar results, but I personally sometimes like an all-in-one environment when doing sound design.

Falcon certainly is
And so is Pigments? even if much more limited in scope...

[zerocrossing]

Just did a search and it seems you cany modulate FX in Halion? I find that a bit hard to believe, its a feature on any basic synth?

I don't know many basic synths that do that. Maybe you mean automate in a DAW?

No, modulate - apply LFO, ADSR etc to fx like delay time or reverb size…you can definitely do it in Falcon.

Unless you have per voice effects, things like this are only so useful, and sometimes better to do with your host’s automation. Hopefully, as more developers adopt Clap, these issues will become moot.

[SLiC]

No, modulate - apply LFO, ADSR etc to fx like delay time or reverb size…you can definitely do it in Falcon.

Interesting example of a basic synth

OK how about Pigments, Phase Plant, Modwave, Serum, Rapid, Avenger, MasiveX, Synthmaster, all the Dawsome synths (even via MPE!). Honesty, I am having a harder time thinking of synths that I use that cant do this alone very expensive flagship synth...

Just seems lazy not exposing those parameters for modulation - perhaps to do with the (over) complex mixer system. The need to add this (and scaling and MPE ) in my opinion to be a competitive synth with some of those I have mentioned.

None of the synths mentioned are multi-engine instruments like Halion is. Maybe you don’t want that kind of thing, but it’s not nothing. One could use layering and more focused styles of plugin to achieve similar results, but I personally sometimes like an all-in-one environment when doing sound design.

That depends what you mean by 'multi engine' I guess- if you mean multiple different oscillator types (VA, sampled, granular, FM etc) then most of them are, and Falcon has 17 'zones'/engine types and 100+ effect that can be modulated in a scalable interface with MPE. Many of the synths I mentioned will let you have 'layers' of multi instrument, Rapid is a good example of this and ve4ry easy to use as the 8 layers have dedicated mixer slots pre-set etc- I haven't needed more than 8 layers yet, but things like Phase Plant are modular and pretty much unlimited.

Halion seems to suffer (like Kontakt) with being an old program with a lotv of legacy code an workflows needed for backward compatibility, I guess more modern synths just do things differently. Also a lot of cool stuff works in 'Cubase Only' which is pretty unique to HALion.

[zerocrossing]

None of the synths mentioned are multi-engine instruments like Halion is. Maybe you don’t want that kind of thing, but it’s not nothing. One could use layering and more focused styles of plugin to achieve similar results, but I personally sometimes like an all-in-one environment when doing sound design.

Falcon certainly is
And so is Pigments? even if much more limited in scope...

You didn’t quote the post, but Falcon wasn’t mentioned. Pigments… not really in the Falcon/Omnisphere/Halion camp.

I’m not a proponent of one type of instrument or the other. I use both for different purposes. I totally get why people wouldn’t like a megasynth like Halion, but I really like things like that sometimes.

[zerocrossing]

No, modulate - apply LFO, ADSR etc to fx like delay time or reverb size…you can definitely do it in Falcon.

Interesting example of a basic synth

OK how about Pigments, Phase Plant, Modwave, Serum, Rapid, Avenger, MasiveX, Synthmaster, all the Dawsome synths (even via MPE!). Honesty, I am having a harder time thinking of synths that I use that cant do this alone very expensive flagship synth...

Just seems lazy not exposing those parameters for modulation - perhaps to do with the (over) complex mixer system. The need to add this (and scaling and MPE ) in my opinion to be a competitive synth with some of those I have mentioned.

None of the synths mentioned are multi-engine instruments like Halion is. Maybe you don’t want that kind of thing, but it’s not nothing. One could use layering and more focused styles of plugin to achieve similar results, but I personally sometimes like an all-in-one environment when doing sound design.

That depends what you mean by 'multi engine' I guess- if you mean multiple different oscillator types (VA, sampled, granular, FM etc) then most of them are, and Falcon has 17 'zones'/engine types and 100+ effect that can be modulated in a scalable interface with MPE. Many of the synths I mentioned will let you have 'layers' of multi instrument, Rapid is a good example of this and ve4ry easy to use as the 8 layers have dedicated mixer slots pre-set etc- I haven't needed more than 8 layers yet, but things like Phase Plant are modular and pretty much unlimited.

Halion seems to suffer (like Kontakt) with being an old program with a lotv of legacy code an workflows needed for backward compatibility, I guess more modern synths just do things differently. Also a lot of cool stuff works in 'Cubase Only' which is pretty unique to HALion.

Well, things are definitely getting blurry, that’s for sure, but I still think that Pigments is in a different category than Halion, Falcon or Omnisphere. It’s one thing to add a few phase modulation abilities to a plugin, compared to adding a full DX engine.

[digitallysane]

I totally get why people wouldn’t like a megasynth like Halion, but I really like things like that sometimes.

I almost exclusively use Falcon and my MODX, so I really like these kind of synths.
I'm evaluating HALion mostly because they got the MODX FM engine and having that in a virtual instrument workstation is certainly appealing.

And I was genuinely surprised by how dissappointing HALion is to me, both when compared with its direct competitor Falcon and with the MODX.

Even the FM engine is dissapointing: the GUI is truly awful and makes for a very slow workflow. They almost directly took the touchscreen GUI of the MODX, with separate pages for each OP and then subpages for Pitch and Levels, and ported it for a computer screen.

[skijumptoes]

I’m not a proponent of one type of instrument or the other. I use both for different purposes. I totally get why people wouldn’t like a megasynth like Halion, but I really like things like that sometimes.

It's interesting to read people's opinions on different instruments.

I use HALion for bread and butter sounds and it's a bit of an aged friend, as such I don't view it as a megasynth.... more something that i'd use for multiple instances of across a project. To me, it's always been quite lightweight and on hand, so i use it.

But something like Omnisphere, Falcon etc. - they do seem more in the 'megasynth' domain to my mind, as i'm more likely to reach for them for big single patch sounds.

I guess with most of these instruments you can go from a dry, simple sine wave to overly complex layered, FX infused patches. It's all very subjective really - those in the higher complex domains are going to be far more affected by feature sets I guess.... For me, CPU is quite a factor.

[zerocrossing]

I totally get why people wouldn’t like a megasynth like Halion, but I really like things like that sometimes.

I almost exclusively use Falcon and my MODX, so I really like these kind of synths.
I'm evaluating HALion mostly because they got the MODX FM engine and having that in a virtual instrument workstation is certainly appealing.

And I was genuinely surprised by how dissappointing HALion is to me, both when compared with its direct competitor Falcon and with the MODX.

Even the FM engine is dissapointing: the GUI is truly awful and makes for a very slow workflow. They almost directly took the touchscreen GUI of the MODX, with separate pages for each OP and then subpages for Pitch and Levels, and ported it for a computer screen.

I’ve not yet had time to demo Halion 7, so I may come up with the same conclusion. I was more talking about these types of instruments in a general way.

[felis]

About Halion fx - if you highlight an fx in the program tree and go to 'edit/sound', you can right click any control and get 'assign new automation, learn cc, forget cc, set minimum, set maximum, assign quick control, set type', and so on.

Not the same as having it in the mod matrix, but there's probably workarounds/alternatives for most anything you'd like to do with a little messing about.

[BBFG#]

I totally get why people wouldn’t like a megasynth like Halion, but I really like things like that sometimes.

I almost exclusively use Falcon and my MODX, so I really like these kind of synths.
I'm evaluating HALion mostly because they got the MODX FM engine and having that in a virtual instrument workstation is certainly appealing.

And I was genuinely surprised by how dissappointing HALion is to me, both when compared with its direct competitor Falcon and with the MODX.

Even the FM engine is dissapointing: the GUI is truly awful and makes for a very slow workflow. They almost directly took the touchscreen GUI of the MODX, with separate pages for each OP and then subpages for Pitch and Levels, and ported it for a computer screen.

I’ve not yet had time to demo Halion 7, so I may come up with the same conclusion. I was more talking about these types of instruments in a general way.

So I went to download the demo yesterday to test on my Win 7 and 8.1 systems and the email confirmation says the thirty day trial starts from this day I registered for the download and not from the time I'll install it. Storms just hit our area and I won't be able to get to those systems for probably two weeks (maybe more).
Can anybody confirm or inform me if I'm not understanding this right?

[SLiC]

None of the synths mentioned are multi-engine instruments like Halion is. Maybe you don’t want that kind of thing, but it’s not nothing. One could use layering and more focused styles of plugin to achieve similar results, but I personally sometimes like an all-in-one environment when doing sound design.

Falcon certainly is
And so is Pigments? even if much more limited in scope...

You didn’t quote the post, but Falcon wasn’t mentioned. Pigments… not really in the Falcon/Omnisphere/Halion camp.

Falcon what what I quoted in the original post It seems like the most direct comparison(and certainly still the benchmark for this type of synth as far as I am concerned) the other list was just synths that can modulate FX (and as it happens most are multi-engine)

I can see how HALion may be attractive to Cubase users as it has some integration, but to most people who could only needed one mega synth (I seem to have collected them all!) it would be Falcon I would recommend personally, but each synth has some pros/cons.

[SLiC]

Here is a HALion 7 tutorial on how to edit multiple spectral zones at once in Tree View, using a patch from my library Aureus Ventus.

Very nice, I was surprised Steinberg didn't include any pre-sets at all for the new Spectral Synth, maybe you should do some for them!

[billcarroll]

Easy walkthrough building an instrument in HALion 7

[twal]

I’m not a proponent of one type of instrument or the other. I use both for different purposes. I totally get why people wouldn’t like a megasynth like Halion, but I really like things like that sometimes.

It's interesting to read people's opinions on different instruments.

I use HALion for bread and butter sounds and it's a bit of an aged friend, as such I don't view it as a megasynth.... more something that i'd use for multiple instances of across a project. To me, it's always been quite lightweight and on hand, so i use it.

But something like Omnisphere, Falcon etc. - they do seem more in the 'megasynth' domain to my mind, as i'm more likely to reach for them for big single patch sounds.

I guess with most of these instruments you can go from a dry, simple sine wave to overly complex layered, FX infused patches. It's all very subjective really - those in the higher complex domains are going to be far more affected by feature sets I guess.... For me, CPU is quite a factor.

Oh so it's not so good for Brass, orchestral, woodinds. What about Falcon or is there a megasynth better than these at bread and butter?

[SLiC]

I would go Kontakt for bread and butter sounds, Kontakt 7 comes with a really nice library of high quality instruments included.

Falcon has all the great UVI libraries, but these cost extra, it’s more of a synth until you load in some libraries (you do get a 100E voucher so you can buy a nice library ) It does come with 1500 presets if that’s your thing!