Halion player trial version

A next-generation sound-morphing machine, Auto Filter will take you on a journey through new. Warm up digital samples and recordings with Tape Saturator, an emulation of analog gear that can. Ring Modulator creates new sonic worlds by multiplying two audio signals; its simple GUI belies.

A powerful and useful tool, Envelope Shaper manipulates the transients of signals offering. The reworked rotor speaker cabinet effect has very powerful editing capabilities such as. This graphic equalizer comes with ten bands and features drawing of EQ curves, an invert parameter. High-end sampling and sound creation system HALion is the most comprehensive virtual sampling and sound design system available today and excels the present creative process for producers and sound designers in all areas.

Create professional sound libraries. Slide 1 of 1. Eight fantastic features you need to know. Filter section The powerful filter section in HALion is an essential part of the sound shaping process and directly connected in series to each oscillator zone. Next-generation wavetable synthesis With the next-generation wavetable synthesizer in HALion no questions remain unanswered.

Macro Page Designer Create your own customized user interfaces with the what-you-see-is-what-you-get Macro Page Designer. Xfade provides the most realistic performance, with crossfades between sample layers of different playing dynamics controlled by the Crescendo Controller which uses MIDI Expression, although you can set up the MIDI Modulation to control this instead.

This makes for very smooth and expressive crescendo or decrescendo performances, but given that all the sample layers are playing at the same time it's also therefore the most resource-hungry of the program types.

Slightly less smooth but still very good , and slightly less demanding, are the Xswitch programs, while the Velocity programs control sample layers in the more usual fashion. In the Velocity With Pitch-bend programs, velocity determines the initial sample layer played, while the pitch wheel is used to raise or lower the volumes as the note is held.

In terms of performance articulations, the tutti programs cover similar territory to HSE , with legato, tremolo, pizzicato, spiccato similar to staccato in sound, but achieved by a different bowing action , trills, expression, and accents all available. Many of these come in different varieties. For example, there are loud and soft legato programs and loose and tight pizzicato, while the spiccato includes options for control of the up or down bowing action.

The tutti programs are also split into two sections, with each based upon different samples. Within each section, there are also some 'A' and 'B' programs which use different samples based on slight variations in playing style for example, different attack. Combining the A and B programs can create some very impressive results, particularly if the parts of performed separately that is, the MIDI parts are not just copied or quantised to death and given their own dose of the Crescendo Controller.

The sounds themselves are excellent and, with suitable time and effort to master the different articulations and the various performance controls, it is possible to create some very realistic string sections — from small and intimate to big and aggressive.

Solo instrument programs are supplied for violin, viola, cello, and double bass and these are split into Xswitch, Velocity, and Velocity With Pitch-bend types, with plenty of keyswitch options available. These programs include similar performance articulations to the sections, but with the added bonus of some fast-attack, short- and long-bow staccato as opposed to spiccato and ornament programs.

The violin and viola legato programs feature quite a strong vibrato that is gradually introduced as a note is held. This sounds wonderful in the right musical context sad, lyrical melodies for example , but might not suit all situations. Unlike the Garritan Stradivari Solo Violin reviewed in SOS August , there is no way to control the speed of the vibrato here, but, that comment aside, these are very playable solo instruments and a welcome addition to the palette of string sounds available in HSO.

Many media composers like to have more than one string library available so that they can mix and match sounds for greater variety and flexibility. It also means that 'bigger' string sections can be created without the danger of them simply being based on multiples of the same samples.

If you already own a full orchestral library that you are happy with, then Halion String Edition 2 — which contains the same sample set as the HSO string section — might fill that niche. In fact, 'trade-in' is perhaps not quite the correct term, as all Steinberg require is proof of purchase for the competing product, so you still retain use of your original library.

At this price, HSO is an absolute steal and would be an excellent way of expanding your orchestral palette. For the brass section, the instruments covered include trumpet, trombone, tuba, and French horn. The structure of the programs is very similar to that of the strings.

With the exception of the tuba, both solo and tutti programs are provided and, minus the Xfade options, the same technical options are present. There are fewer programs for each instrument or small group than with the strings, but the choices made by Steinberg seem sensible and cover the key articulations in each case. For example, the trumpet tutti programs include a keyswitched Combi, standard legato, soft legato, loud legato, accent, diminuendo, and staccato.

As with the strings, there are also a small number of legato and staccato ensemble programs offering combinations of either trumpet and trombone or tuba and horn — another way in which computer resources can be saved if you just need these instruments to play in unison. Using Halion Player's 16 stereo outputs, it is easy to tailor individual instruments or sections via the host mixer if required.

The sounds themselves are very good indeed. While I occasionally found myself adjusting the amount of ambience for certain programs, the trumpet and trombone go from soft and warm when played pianissimo through to strident when played fortissimo.

Philip, your case is really strange. Please install and see if you can get sound out with that. OK, Ulf.

I installed Cubase LE as you asked. The instructions were reasonably staightforward. I wrote a small piano test file, but it produced no sound on my system, although it clearly was meant to be doing so, as the levels monitor showed sound being generated. It did not detect my speakers at first, and I had to switch them on manually. I also tried the keyboard. I noticed as I noticed in Dorico that its response was always rather delayed and stuttering. But I could hear no sound, though the sound system of the computer clearly works just before and just after running Cubase.

The other thing that happened was that Cubase would not exit cleanly. I had to use the Task Manager to kill it. Finally, I reinstalled the low latency ASIO driver as I had not loaded it at first, due to it being already on my computer from Dorico. It made no difference - still no sound. Clearly, there is some sort of incompatibility with the sound conexant speaker chip on my laptop - a Lenovo G laptop with Windows 10, bought months ago. Hi Philip, thanks for your effort. I mean, your computer is not a no-name brand, Lenovo sells millions of those models, I also have two laptops of that line at home.

This is the most basic, trivial setup and must produce sound on your system. Then hit the space bar which will start the transport. The Player Options window customises some basic playback and operational functions — note the window with the list of MIDI controllers.

The drum kits are especially good — one of them takes advantage of Halion's rather confusingly named 'round robin' facility to create more realistic drum rolls by rotating between several different samples for each successive hit, thereby reducing the 'machine-gun' effect you get when you repeatedly trigger the same sample several times in quick succession. I also liked the detailed six-string basses and the surround synth pads, and the raw Minimoog oscillator set was great, with appropriate Q Control assignments.

If your system can handle it, you should go for the XXL Programs, which have the most samples and layers and so on. Mid-quality programs reduce the number of samples by about 40 percent and Eco by about 65 percent, compared to an XXL program.

In many cases, the Eco and Mid options still sound good, but could be used in situations where the part you're using them on isn't too prominent. And I guess you could use Eco programs whilst working on a track and then change to XXLs during a mix or when bouncing to disk, or if you take your session to a studio with a more powerful computer.

This is all good stuff — I just wish there was more in the library. And how strange that space has been taken up with a handful of loops, as HP doesn't have the option to change the tempo of sampled drum loops. Instead, the collection is divided into fast, medium and slow tempo sets oddly, no tempo values are given in beats per minute , which is of limited use to serious programmers — although some of the loops do sound pretty good.

While it might seem initially that there will be some redundancy if you buy a third-party Halion-based library due to the inclusion of another Halion Player, this isn't the case.

Whilst the Player supplied with third-party content may have been jazzed up graphically by the third-party library developer, it will only ever be able to play that library. The ability of HP to load programs from any library means that it's possible to mix and match favourite Programs from any banks that you own.

And as I hinted earlier, Halion Player can also accommodate your own samples, within certain limits. On the plus side, HP can load a wide range of sample types though not quite as wide as the full version of Halion — see the comparison table below. The limits appear as soon as you try to do anything too fancy.

The Mapping window, used when importing your own samples. Loading samples into the currently selected Program slot is simply a matter of using the Program browser and choosing the Load Sample function. You can replace what's in the current slot or merge the new sample with it.

A pop-up Mapping window lets you determine how a sample is treated once it's loaded into a slot. You choose a start root key and then decide how the sample will be played back.

If you choose the Chromatic option, one sample will be played across the whole keyboard, centred on the start key.

In addition, the program can automatically set the start key if it's included as part of the sample name. So, if you add something like 'C3' or '60' ie.

Alternatively, if the file has root key data embedded in it, the software can be told to detect this. Finally, there's an option for assigning samples to just white or black keys. What's missing is a way to assign key ranges to samples. A loaded sample is either playable across the whole MIDI range the Chromatic option or by one key only.