What version of Halion Sonic is included with Cubase Pro 12?

[flugel45]

As someone contemplating a purchase of Cubase Pro 12, I got excited when I saw that Halion Sonic 7 was included for free...

Until I found out that HS is no longer a rompler with a large library - as it's been in previous versions - but instead now a freely downloadable sample-player (like Kontakt Player) with sounds sold separately...

Does it at least include Halion Sonic SE with a small library to play with?

[budweiser]

Yep

[mothra]

The way the Steinberg Download Assistant works is, it gives you the latest version of whatever is available, unless you already have a license for a previous version. With some exceptions of course. I can download Cubase 11 Pro still just fine, but everything like Padshop, Retrologue, Halion Sonic, Groove Agent, etc, are all the current versions. If you really want the older ones, you have to have saved your installers or you go dig through Steinbergs support site for them.

Same with Halion, anyone that owns the full 4-5-6-etc can still install/download it in the manager, but the 'freebies' all got bumped up to the latest versions. My Halion is only Halion 7, but that's when I bought it so.. Think you can still get the last versions of SE and Player, but you have to go dig for them at Steinberg's site.

[kritikon]

The library with Cubase covers quite a lot of ground. There's quite a list of sample material you can optionally dl with Cubase, to the point that I didn't dl it all because it would chew up too much laptop space. Their piano (apparently quite good) is 9GB or something huge. TBH I was a bit surprised when I first got back into Cubase at C10 at how much Steinberg had gone the sample route. Not much in the way of standalone synths but Gigs and Gigs of Halion & GrooveAgent stuff. Even the synths are more sample based...Padshop for example (which doesn't wow me at all). It's not the full Halion in Cubase but it would take you a while to get through every sample set they include. The more I use Halion the more impressed I am with it recently. It doesn't feel limited to me, even though it's not the full one.