Halion or Falcon?

[Stan Navi]

For me big thing is that Falcon manipulate sample destructively, while Halion not. Also new Falcon 3 library management system don't count user presets, while Steinberg mediabay can easily found it. Though I like Falcon 3 effects and sequencers.

[zerocrossing]

Halion was out for me because for some odd reason it doesn't have the full feature set unless you use it in Cubase, and I'm not a Cubase guy.

[IvyBirds]

Personally i dont like the Steinberg way of making instruments, don't like the steinberg copy protection,

You prefer iLok? Wow

[dune_rave]

Personally i dont like the Steinberg way of making instruments, don't like the steinberg copy protection,

You prefer iLok? Wow

Before Buying Falcon in the last Black Friday (149
I've examined this ILOK thing.
I was hoping that it will be similar to Universal Audio (that used ILOK Cloud in my setup), but turned out Falcon uses ILOK "machine" - so I was not 100% happy, but I can get away with this.
Most of my plugins use pretty simple authorization so in 1-2 cases I can accept more complicated protection. So I know this is not perfect for a user, but it's not the devil's thing as some persons declare.
In a perfect world, each plugin would have a simple (yet effective) protection, like the serial number protection in U-HE plugins.

[IvyBirds]

Personally i dont like the Steinberg way of making instruments, don't like the steinberg copy protection,

You prefer iLok? Wow

Before Buying Falcon in the last Black Friday (149
I've examined this ILOK thing.
I was hoping that it will be similar to Universal Audio (that used ILOK Cloud in my setup), but turned out Falcon uses ILOK "machine" - so I was not 100% happy, but I can get away with this.
Most of my plugins use pretty simple authorization so in 1-2 cases I can accept more complicated protection. So I know this is not perfect for a user, but it's not the devil's thing as some persons declare.
In a perfect world, each plugin would have a simple (yet effective) protection, like the serial number protection in U-HE plugins.

But Steinberg's is also not the devil's thing. It's just a download manager

[dune_rave]

I have owned cubase 12 for a while and also installed the "free" version of Halion.
I do know what i don't like in them.

[AXF WoNderLanD]

To demonstrate HALion's capabilities, I'd like to contribute the following practical examples to the discussion:
Two elaborate tracks, one electronic and one symphonic, produced with Cubase and a single (!) HALion instance in multitimbral mode, all samples taken exclusively from the HALion factory content, all patches custom-made, complete mix and all effects entirely within HALion, recorded directly from the HALion stereo output. Enjoy and comment!

https://axf-wonderland.bandcamp.com/tra ... d-symphony
https://axf-wonderland.bandcamp.com/tra ... d-orbiters

[swilow11]

For me big thing is that Falcon manipulate sample destructively, while Halion not.

I find this very odd and actually thought I was doing something wrong when i noticed this with Falcon. Destructive editing seems like something one would rarely want to do. I think saving the sample in the preset might avoid this, or at least the destructive editing is done on a copy of the sample (I think).

[kmonkey]

Tried Falcon. Even purchased it (idiot). On big ultra-wide monitors, it's a donut. Panels are not accessible. I thought I must be doing something wrong. Then I found threads and threads on this, and people having the same issue as me. You don't actually see this until you start working with various panels. They go to the bottom of your screen, and you are unable to reach them. I thought it was a joke. You can reach them only if Falcon is set to 100% or 125%, but then you are looking at ants on your screen.

Halion does not have such a problem. It seems that Halion is for deep programming and seriousness when needed.

[Oberheim 8000]

I have Falcon and now I am learning Halion 7. In my opinion they looks similar on first look, but they are different. Falcon is more modular, you can use many oscilators with many filters (unlimited), adsr, msegs, lfos in one keygroup. This is imposibilie in Halion (as far as I know). Halion have zones, or static bundle of one some kind of oscilator(wavetable, virtual analog, FM, spectral, organ, sample) and then one filter, amp and pitch envelopes, one filter and thats all. You can not use more then one filter in one zone (if yes, I am sorry I am just learning it). However you can have many zones as you want. This is main difference.

Another difference is sound quality of oscilators. In my opinion Halion is better (wavetable (it have even a editor), virtual analog, maybe FM but I doesn't have time to test it). Also Halion have better content (presets) and more usable presets as Falcon (for me). Falcon have few cool preset I like, but thats all.

[IvyBirds]

I have Falcon and now I am learning Halion 7. In my opinion they looks similar on first look, but they are different. Falcon is more modular, you can use many oscilators with many filters (unlimited), adsr, msegs, lfos in one keygroup. This is imposibilie in Halion (as far as I know). Halion have zones, or static bundle of one some kind of oscilator(wavetable, virtual analog, FM, spectral, organ, sample) and then one filter, amp and pitch envelopes, one filter and thats all. You can not use more then one filter in one zone (if yes, I am sorry I am just learning it). However you can have many zones as you want.

In HALion7 in the Modulation Matrix you can set the same Modulation Source no matter what it is to multiple destinations. For example one of the MSEGs. So it can then modulate a wavetable, sample, VA, or whatever. You can even invert it where if the VA gets louder the Wavetable gets quieter, or use the X-LFO which acts like a vector synth. You can also modulate a modulator in the matrix, say you want to have a common envelope and then further shape how that effects your Wavetable for example

You can then route the audio to a bus and then apply a common filter to that bus and control that filter with an envelope

You can have up to 4 elements in a layer and 64 layers total. That's up to 256 different elements if you have enough CPU. It's exceptionally modular in nature and each element can be a single Oscillator or a full blown synth. When I say elements in a layer that's up to four full blown multi osc Synths, 8 operator FM, multi samples etc

In theory as long as you have enough CPU power you can have hundreds and hundreds of various Wavetables, samples, VA Oscillators, FM Operators as you want all as a single "Synth" with a common amp envelope, filter and effects, and various modulation, filters, effects etc along the way

One nifty trick is that you can use the output from any element which can be a single Wavetable, sample, or whatever as a modulation source on something else, so you can experiment with using a Wavetable as an LFO for example

[dune_rave]

Okay, so those, who want more options and more sequencers will go with falcon

[SamDi]

Halion was out for me because for some odd reason it doesn't have the full feature set unless you use it in Cubase, and I'm not a Cubase guy.

What do you mean exactly?

[zerocrossing]

Halion was out for me because for some odd reason it doesn't have the full feature set unless you use it in Cubase, and I'm not a Cubase guy.

What do you mean exactly?

I’m specifically looking for instruments that respond to polyphonic aftertouch. Halion needs to be running inside Cubase for it.

[IvyBirds]

Halion was out for me because for some odd reason it doesn't have the full feature set unless you use it in Cubase, and I'm not a Cubase guy.

What do you mean exactly?

HALion7 is built to follow the VST3 specifications. That makes sense because Steinberg created the VST3 format

That means it uses VST3 Note Expressions at the DAW level or VST3 host level for times when you want to assign a specific Modulation to a single or specific note(s) while not applying it to other notes. Things like volume, pan, tuning, and pitchbend for example

Not surprisingly Cubase does a kick ass job with VST3 Note Expressions. To utilize it efficiently you need an MPE capable controller, a Guitar that can output MIDI, or a keyboard controller that just provides polyphonic after touch.

So with HALion7 in Cubase you can take your incoming MIDI from your controller that uses MPE or Polyphonic after touch and tell Cubase what parameter(s) inside of HALion7 you want to control with whatever polyphonic expression you send Cubase

All of that data then gets stored at the individual note level in the Cubase sequencer. So you just click on a note and see all of the MPE associated with that note. Then when you go to quantize, move, copy, duplicate, or delete MIDI notes, all of their associated controller information follows. This allows for an intuitive and accurate editing of note-related data. You don't even need an MPE or Polyphonic Aftertouch controller to use this you can just click on individual notes on the timeline or piano roll and make make adjustments

If you are into using MPE you quickly come to realization that this method inside of Cubase, of having all your MPE existing outside of the plugin itself at the DAW level offers many advantages and you really start to wonder why people who claim MPE is so important to them don't use the DAW that gives them the absolute most powerful way to use that

So with HALion7 if you want to use a MPE controller or Polyphonic Aftertouch you need to use a VST Host or DAW that supports Polyphonic Note Expression, currently the best DAWs for this are Cubase and Bitwig

Again if MPE and Poly AT are ACTUALLY important to you, you should be using one of them anyway in which case HALion7 will be perhaps the best plugin on the market for doing cool things with it