Halion or Falcon?

[AcrossTheSky]

> just curious - will the $50 voucher be ok to use while a sale is on on soundwares etc at UVI ? and is it only valid for 60 days? Thx

[Gam456]

And with the $149 price, plus a $50 voucher, it's in the no-brainer territory now.

Falcon's price dropped so fast... I'll wait for $99.
At least.

Is on sale at 149€
The regular price is 299€

Falcon goes on sale a lot. When this sale ends, it will go on sale next month for Black Friday, then in December for Christmas, then in January for New Years, then in February for Valentine's Day

Like almost 80% of music software. Nothing new.

[Samiver]

> just curious - will the $50 voucher be ok to use while a sale is on on soundwares etc at UVI ? and is it only valid for 60 days? Thx

The $50 voucher is valid for 2 months and I was able to use it to buy 2 soundpacks due to the current buy one get one free deal. Hope that helps

[SamDi]

Also the fact that in Halion you can set up the GUI exactly to your taste.

If this would just be valid for the GUI size, I would be happier with Halion, as I am today. According the GUI it‘s not Steinberg but Steinzeit.

[Casio del Diablo]

I purchased Falcon, then HALion. Always hated Falcon because of its many glitches and hangs. For example, it doesn't recognize – or rather crashes when you try to use – file paths containing umlauts, i.e. "åäö". This makes it impossible to use eg. with cloud storages like my university's OneDrive that contains umlauts.

The UI looks deceptively nice, but the workflow I find impossible to befriend. Bought HALion and happy days.

Personally, if I don't gel with the workflow in a week, it ain't for me. Yes, HALion introduced a relatively steep learning curve as well, but right from the get-go it at least gave me the feeling of being fully understood the more I use it.

I'll toss in a bit a weird alternative here: I also use Redux, which is a plugin version of the tracker-based DAW Renoise. Not comparable to Falcon/HALion when it comes to synthesis, but man! It brings stuff that none of the others can even remotely resemble. In particular, its Phrase mode, which lets you string together super complex pattern-based arpeggios/sequences. It also has proper slicing, timestretching, macros. It even has multiple keyzones and built-in recording (making it an actual sampler) and it's actually pretty damn competent.

https://www.renoise.com/products/redux

[starflakeprj]

I own both, but Falcon has been more straight forward for me. Not digging the workflow in HALion, or the GUI. Both have their pros and cons feature wise though, I guess. Like most software there is no "one size fits all", or "one to rule them all".

[dellboy]

I bought Absolute 6 a while back which includes Halion,but have yet to get to grips with the simplest of things like changing patches. I find it very frustrating. The actual sounds and synths are great,but loading and auditioning sounds is not easy. I am sure that there is a knack,but it eludes me at present.

[Alexander_D]

Halion is really powerful!

[mothra]

I bought Absolute 6 a while back which includes Halion,but have yet to get to grips with the simplest of things like changing patches. I find it very frustrating. The actual sounds and synths are great,but loading and auditioning sounds is not easy. I am sure that there is a knack,but it eludes me at present.

What's so tough? You double click or drag/drop a patch in the Media Bay window, audition, doesn't work, go to the next one, etc..

If you haven't yet, it's a good idea to take a day or two and clean up your libraries so Media Bay works for you, not against you. If you don't own Cubase (where the 'real' Media Bay lives), set up a Window Set with the Browser full screen, set up the columns and tag away to your hearts content.

[Kalamata Kid]

I prefer two or three smaller synths rather than one Falcon sized synth.
I then put the synths inside Bidule or other modular environments with a mix of fx.

[dellboy]

I bought Absolute 6 a while back which includes Halion,but have yet to get to grips with the simplest of things like changing patches. I find it very frustrating. The actual sounds and synths are great,but loading and auditioning sounds is not easy. I am sure that there is a knack,but it eludes me at present.

What's so tough? You double click or drag/drop a patch in the Media Bay window, audition, doesn't work, go to the next one, etc..

If you haven't yet, it's a good idea to take a day or two and clean up your libraries so Media Bay works for you, not against you. If you don't own Cubase (where the 'real' Media Bay lives), set up a Window Set with the Browser full screen, set up the columns and tag away to your hearts content.

The problem I have with using Halion in the Media Bay is that instead of changing patches when double clicking, Cubase creates new tracks for every patch. I don't want a new track. I now just use Halion outside of the Media Bay where I can double click to change patches.

[mothra]

The problem I have with using Halion in the Media Bay is that instead of changing patches when double clicking, Cubase creates new tracks for every patch. I don't want a new track. I now just use Halion outside of the Media Bay where I can double click to change patches.

Ahh gotcha, yeah that is a bit annoying. I don't understand the point of using a single instrument as a 'multi' instrument when I can just go open another instance of it myself, but whatever Steinberg heh.

Drag and drop does the trick, I've just gotten used to doing it that way over time, but I can totally see where you're coming from with that.

[dellboy]

The problem I have with using Halion in the Media Bay is that instead of changing patches when double clicking, Cubase creates new tracks for every patch. I don't want a new track. I now just use Halion outside of the Media Bay where I can double click to change patches.

Ahh gotcha, yeah that is a bit annoying. I don't understand the point of using a single instrument as a 'multi' instrument when I can just go open another instance of it myself, but whatever Steinberg heh.

Drag and drop does the trick, I've just gotten used to doing it that way over time, but I can totally see where you're coming from with that.

I just found out that if you gently single click on a preset in the Media Bay it auditions the sound without creating a track. In fact I am now just using the laptop arrow keys to audition sounds. Each sound takes a second to load, but sometimes the annoying memo recorder at the bottom plays a series of notes for some reason and I have yet to find a way to disable it.

[mothra]

I just found out that if you gently single click on a preset in the Media Bay it auditions the sound without creating a track. In fact I am now just using the laptop arrow keys to audition sounds. Each sound takes a second to load, but sometimes the annoying memo recorder at the bottom plays a series of notes for some reason and I have yet to find a way to disable it.

Oh I didnt know that was a thing either???? I better hurry up and finish moving some crap around in here so I can fire everything up and check that out haha. Man that will save me loads of time here too. I have a lot of my older Akai format discs ripped in Halion, now I can dig through a couple of these without guessing what is what haha.

[dune_rave]

These two are equally good plugins.
But having both seems a bit overkill.
So if you a "like both" person. You should decide.
If you are not a "like both" person, then things get interesting:
Either you are a "Halion fan"
Or you are a "Falcon fan".
There are small things that makes you one of them.
Personally i dont like the Steinberg way of making instruments, don't like the steinberg copy protection, their GUI.
On the other hand I like the creative sequencers in Falcon 3 and many other things so these makes me a "Falcon person".
Of course sometimes i'd like to try the new FM module in Halion, but just for this, it would be a silly thing to buy halion.(IIRC Fm Lab can be bought separately, but will not buy that, coz i already have korg opsix, plogue ops7, dexed ...so i am covered for FM).
One more thing:
In the past, way before even falcon existed, i used plugsound that i had found quite good that time. So my first meeting with UVI brings back pleasant memories.
Thats all i wanted to say this time.