HALion 7

[mothra]

What kind of stuff would you use that for anyways? I'm guessing like holding your finger down and wiggling it to modulate a cutoff or something??

I never even really payed attention to AT until I got my MPC Live about 4 years ago. Its the first thing I go and delete in every track. MPC seems to pick up so much of it, I've actually made the machine lock up and freeze trying to select all of the Aftertouch data for a single track in the list editor heh. Nowadays its the first preference I go and turn off after a new update comes out heh.

[BoogerSnot]

Can't emphasize enough the importance of setting up the interface to your liking, if you're new to HALion like me. I recommend the Program Tree and Slot Rack 1st things on the left, then add your workflow left to right as needed...

Another small tip, for new HALion users like me:

To get a control to show up in Ableton for use with automation/macro, right click the control in HALion and select Assign to New Automation. By default nothing shows up.

This was driving me crazy trying to figure it out.

From there you can add the Automation section to the interface, to manage your selections for whatever reason.

[zerocrossing]

Maybe if I had a keyboard with polyphonic aftertouch I would use it more. But a piano doesn't have aftertouch and I consider that my main instrument.

It could totally be because I didn’t come to synthesis from piano. I came from guitar, so it just makes sense to me. I once bought a keyboard that had no aftertouch at all and I spent an hour trying to figure out what was wrong. after a decade with an Ensoniq TS-10, I just thought it was something that synths now had, like cars got airbags.

[JiggSaw]

Can't emphasize enough the importance of setting up the interface to your liking, if you're new to HALion like me. I recommend the Program Tree and Slot Rack 1st things on the left, then add your workflow left to right as needed. Everything fell into place for me after that, and HALion became a really nice piece of software rather than a convoluted mess.

Can you post a screenshot of your interface setup? I'm curious.

[BoogerSnot]

Can't emphasize enough the importance of setting up the interface to your liking, if you're new to HALion like me. I recommend the Program Tree and Slot Rack 1st things on the left, then add your workflow left to right as needed. Everything fell into place for me after that, and HALion became a really nice piece of software rather than a convoluted mess.

Can you post a screenshot of your interface setup? I'm curious.

I’m not at my desktop, but it can be explained easily enough, again this is for sampling.

Three main columns, window made as big as possible, and columns so that there’s room underneath for things like effects and modulation (so you don’t have to scroll).

The one on the left has the program tree, then also the slot. These two you can make relatively thin.

Middle column has four tabs: mapping, mixer, automation, modulation. Then the mapping consists of the mapping, but also sample library underneath, so you can see both at once and easily drag and drop.

Then on the right you have: zone, sample, and wavetable. The zone, which is the main oscillator page, has a bunch of tabs built in which takes a bit to get used to but it’s not too bad. The sample tab allows you to set up the sample settings like loop or slice, and it’s non destructive editing so you don’t have to worry about saving.

Workflow is: Keep the program tree open on the left to easily switch between zones, the mapping in the middle which also shows your sample library underneath (as noted above), then on the right the zone is the main oscillator editor with the sample and wavetable next to it to make edits there as needed. Then once you get all your mapping and oscillator settings done, you can switch the middle column to the mixer to add effects.

That’s the gist of it, still perhaps a bit on the convoluted side simply because you can do so much, but actually fairly easy to use once you get the hang of it.

[BoogerSnot]

Can't emphasize enough the importance of setting up the interface to your liking, if you're new to HALion like me. I recommend the Program Tree and Slot Rack 1st things on the left, then add your workflow left to right as needed. Everything fell into place for me after that, and HALion became a really nice piece of software rather than a convoluted mess.

Can you post a screenshot of your interface setup? I'm curious.

File and screenshot (tabs in lowercase were renamed):

BoogerSnotSampler.halpreset.zip

(on Mac, place file in: Documents > Steinberg > HALion7 > Sub Presets > Editor > Screensets)

BoogerSnotSampler.png

[BoogerSnot]

Can't emphasize enough the importance of setting up the interface to your liking, if you're new to HALion like me. I recommend the Program Tree and Slot Rack 1st things on the left, then add your workflow left to right as needed. Everything fell into place for me after that, and HALion became a really nice piece of software rather than a convoluted mess.

Can you post a screenshot of your interface setup? I'm curious.

File and screenshot (tabs in lowercase were renamed):

BoogerSnotSampler.halpreset.zip

(on Mac, place file in: Documents > Steinberg > HALion7 > Sub Presets > Editor > Screensets)

BoogerSnotSampler.png

And use the Program Tree on the left as the main manager, in other words if you want to add a zone do it there. Or if you want to make a variation of a zone, copy and paste it there, etc. Then move to the middle column to map the zone and add a sample if needed, then move to the right column to the Zone tab to edit the oscillator while using the Sample and Wavetable to edit the sample/wavetable.

[BoogerSnot]

Can't emphasize enough the importance of setting up the interface to your liking, if you're new to HALion like me. I recommend the Program Tree and Slot Rack 1st things on the left, then add your workflow left to right as needed. Everything fell into place for me after that, and HALion became a really nice piece of software rather than a convoluted mess.

Can you post a screenshot of your interface setup? I'm curious.

File and screenshot (tabs in lowercase were renamed):

BoogerSnotSampler.halpreset.zip

(on Mac, place file in: Documents > Steinberg > HALion7 > Sub Presets > Editor > Screensets)

BoogerSnotSampler.png

One other thing about this, in the Program Tree on the left you can actually delete the Sample Instrument Layer and add all your zones under the Init Sample Instrument. You don't need layers unless of course you want to organize your layered samples, and having Layer sections in the Program Tree tends to make things more complicated than they need to be.

Also, when adding a Bus to the Program Tree you can choose multiple samples at once to route to that bus. Choose the samples in the Program Tree, then go to the Zone section on the right and in the Amplifier Section you will find the output. If you want to route ALL the samples to a bus you can simply choose the top of the tree, the Init Sample Instrument (or whatever you may have renamed it), and go the Zone > Amplifier Section and choose the bus you want to route them to. Different buses with different effects is good for perhaps creating variations of samples that have different effects applied to them.

Like I say, HALion is still a bit on the complicated side, but it's pretty easy to get a handle on things and once you do its power becomes evident.

[havran]

I'm thinking of upgrading from Halion Sonic 3 (not SE) to Halion Sonic Collection. Is Steinberg likely to have a summer sale for that?

[BoogerSnot]

Man, the sample slicer works great in HALion. Again, perhaps a touch on the convoluted side, but once you figure out the needed controls it's all good. Main thing is it dumps all the slices to separate zones for you, where they can then be turned into different synth styles (wavetable, spectral, granular, etc.) on their own.

[mothra]

I'm thinking of upgrading from Halion Sonic 3 (not SE) to Halion Sonic Collection. Is Steinberg likely to have a summer sale for that?

It's possible, but now that the new Spectralayers is out, Cubase 13 is due soon, so that is probably going to be the next big sale..

[WasteLand]

has Halion 7 per voice effects?

[Examigan]

I don't know of it can do that somehow, but it doesn't seem to be in the documentation. If there's a way to set that up, it would deserve a video tutorial.

I am going to check out this series of videos to see if it is mentioned. They are for HALion 6, but should work basically the same in v7.
https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3 ... se7uy-Hwup

[monomaker]

has Halion 7 per voice effects?

Not exactly, but a program can have a layer, a layer can have a bus and a bus can have an FX module. Then you can have a bus on the program, which will apply to all layers inside the program.

Using this structure you can effectively make it so there are per sample effects.

[Examigan]

has Halion 7 per voice effects?

Not exactly, but a program can have a layer, a layer can have a bus and a bus can have an FX module. Then you can have a bus on the program, which will apply to all layers inside the program.

Using this structure you can effectively make it so there are per sample effects.

So if you wanted a 4 voice preset/program with per voice effects, would I need to add four busses for one layer, each with an effect in it? I'm not sure how that all works. It would be nice to have some type of basic templates setup already (e.g.) for 4-voice or 8-voice presets, etc. as it sounds like that could get a bit complex.