HALion 7

[tripleflows]

Grace Period: Customers who have activated HALion 6 since November 1 2022, are eligible for a free, update to HALion 7. Go to your MySteinberg account. Go to "Vouchers". If you don't see a voucher, please make sure that the eLicenser containing the license is registered in MySteinberg. After registration, it can take up to 24 hours until the free update is available.

Let`s move on...

After so many years, HALion finally arrived as the most versatile sound designer tool. The spectral synthesis with the new time-stretch alone is awesome, and the old-style modulation system has been modernized.

[FakeNatty]

AFAIK they only announce the grace periods when the products are launched.

Oh I see. That makes sense too.

Thanks for answering

[wvshpr]

[maximoog]

No CLAP version?

I can't imagine that Steinberg plug-ins will ever be available in CLAP format. Why should they?

[wvshpr]

[Bee_Abney]

So wait: FM, Granular, Sampling, Spectral, and Wavetable synthesis? I'm not familiar with it so I don't know how powerful its arp is, but it sure sounds like it's now in the Alchemy/Pigments/Falcon school of VSTi's. I wonder how taxing it'll be CPU-wise?

Comparing to Alchemy/Pigments makes not much sense imho, since they are not designed as instrument development environments. More for quick and dirty, on the spot sound design (Alchemy was my favorite, until it became logic exclusive ).
Halion and falcon are instrument development environments, which allow mapping and creating elaborate sample/synth, hybrid instruments in a large scale (think: orchestras and deep sampling) with scripting for interaction logic, automation and macropages etc. etc.
Also halion has that handy free player, which allows to load all kinds of free and commercial libraries. So better not compare apples and pears, even though they look somewhat similar.
This makes me wonder, are there other cross platform dev environments, as capable as halion, with free player for their instrument design clients (asking, because I once built a halion instrument for kick drums)?

Only MSoundFactory, as far as I know, which has the MSoundFactoryPlayer.

https://www.meldaproduction.com/MSoundFactoryPlayer

UVI has their free Workstation, but you can't just create instruments for it in Falcon and release them. I believe that there may be a licensing fee, and, of course, the instrument would have to be coded to work in Workstation.

[wvshpr]

[fmr]

On a slightly more serious note, it's baffling how an instrument with so many creative possibilities has no MPE.

Maybe because of that, exactly.

Another thing: Anyone knows if there are any new presets using the new Spectral feature? So far I didn't find any (but I spent a lot of time around the FM)

[aMUSEd]

Hope the interface is properly resizable now

[tekknovator]

On a slightly more serious note, it's baffling how an instrument with so many creative possibilities has no MPE.

Maybe because of that, exactly.

Another thing: Anmyone know if there are any new presets using the new Spectral feature? So far I didn't find any (but I spent a lot of time around the FM)

Hm, I don't understand. I use halion 6 with my linnstrument all the time. It is plug and play in cubase. I just have to select the note expression instrument input and then I can play with all controls supported. Did I miss something?

[tripleflows]

Hope the interface is properly resizable now

Unfortunately no, still resizes with the OS dpi setting, at least on Windows.

[FakeNatty]

For people who have this:

Can the FM module be used as an additive synthesis module with 8 oscillators?

Are the individual frequencies definable as ratios of the each other?

Are the FM operators' individual frequency, amplitude, and phase all available for modulation from lfo, envelopes, etc.?

[v1o]

Sorry, I don't pay attention to this sort of thing - is the Cubase Halion version the full one? This new release will be included with Cubase? (I'm assuming it's a lesser version of Halion in Cubase, certainly seems that way in Artist, but I haven't seen the Pro version...). For a sampler it's looking like quite a capable synth in its own right - can samples be used for FM operators?

Cubase comes with Halion Sonic which looks like it might be gone now. That would've been nice to have an actual Halion Lite in it like Logic has Sampler and Quick Sampler, but all you get is a 'Player' version that will only load pre-made libraries. Groove Agent at least has an "SE" version that lets you do just about everything Groove Agent can except some MIDI playing stuff and you get 'lite' versions of a few kits that come with the big one instead of all the content. If you just chop up drum loops and make your own kits, Groove Agent SE is fully functional unlike the Halion "freebie".

n/m

[billcarroll]

For people who have this:

Can the FM module be used as an additive synthesis module with 8 oscillators?

Are the individual frequencies definable as ratios of the each other?

Are the FM operators' individual frequency, amplitude, and phase all available for modulation from lfo, envelopes, etc.?

I'm still waiting for my grace period upgrade, but they have some videos up on youtube that might give you some of the info you're looking for.

FM Lab Walkthrough | HALion 7 new Features

[dionenoid]

Looks interesting.

They added the 'decompose' function from Backbone also it seems. And the envelope/lfo shaper from FX Modulator. Plus a bunch of new fx included a new Clipper. Curious. High price tho, hopefully they come up with a good upgrade path for Cubase owners...