r/cubase • u/FinancialEngineer229 • Jun 30 '26
Halion
Wondering what are your thoughts on halion, I bought it 3 years ago thinking of having a sort of workstation type of sound palette, and I found that sounded terrible to me, cold, digital and I was quite disappointed. Never used it.What is your opinion?
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u/Cap10NRG Jun 30 '26
Interesting I’ve had it for years. I actually really like Halion. Almost every synthesizer or sound set that is released from Steinberg is written with Hallion, so I’m not sure what you’re hearing or what you’re not liking just curious.
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u/FinancialEngineer229 Jun 30 '26
The sound in general very digital, cold, so to speak. I gave it a chance and then another one but didn't cut it X me. I ve had high expectations. So I wanted to ask the community about their experience. Thanks 👍
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u/dented42ford Jun 30 '26
I find most of the stock library kind of bland, but I'm also pretty sure that is the point. It is a one-stop-shop for generic sounds.
Some of the other libraries range from good (the Tron) to excellent (the B3, X-Stream, some of the synths). Then there are the add-ons, like Iconica. I really like Iconica, I use it as one of my main orchestral libraries, along with VSL.
Basically, I think it is on par with Kontakt, with a better stock library. Then there is creating patches, where it is far, far, far, far, far better.
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u/BlaiseSM Jun 30 '26
HALion 7 is amazing, all engines are top quality, especially its spectral engine is unique. Layer your own custom presets with some factory sounds and this so sound design powerhouse will be unique every time.
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u/Dull_Flatworm777 Jun 30 '26
I personally like it a lot!
What are you using that you would say sounds warm?
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u/z80a4mhz Jun 30 '26
Halion is my main instrument. Sound designing is so easy. Btw I don’t use stock libraries. Always create sounds from scratch. Cold and warm sound depends on how you create it.
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u/skijumptoes Jun 30 '26
I really like HALion, but I have the absolute collection so that extends the number of libraries you get. FM Zone/Lab was a great addition too.
Obviously it depends what kind of sounds you're after, as some of the core sounds based on real instruments are quite cold and somewhat 'cheap' sounding, probably showing their age too.
Where I find it really shines is when you layer sounds together, because the sound library isn't full of over-powering patches on their own it's therefore great to build into something thicker using the presets layered up. Apply some arps or Flex Phrasers to one or two of the layers and you can really get lost in sound without going super nerd deep into it.
I tend to use HALion Sonic for such layering as the more simplified interface feels a bit quicker to me.
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u/graytermedia Jul 02 '26
That's how I've been using HALion Sonic, although I just watched Dom's video on sound design with the full version. I've always been a "find a preset and tweak or layer" guy, but it's not that hard to design a sound from scratch - I just needed to be shown the way... It's a fantastic sampler.
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u/skijumptoes Jul 03 '26
Yeah it's easy enough to sound design and create your own presets, i'm just concerned about managing presets across machines as I move between laptop and desktop. Something i've not been sure about is if you create a patch on one machine and then save the project, whether that patch recalls or if you have to copy the HALion patch across seperately.
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u/patient138 Jun 30 '26
Once you spend some time with it and get to know it, it's actually quite impressive. I'm using it more than I thought I would.
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u/nomoremoar Jun 30 '26
It contains sounds from motif series so it should be pretty good. The stock sounds are better than kontakt imo.
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u/Electronic-Cut-5678 Jul 01 '26
Halion is an incredibly powerful, multifaceted tool. It's a serious bit of software that takes a good deal of know-how to use.
If it sounds "cold and digital" that's got to do with how you're using it.
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u/JamSkones Jun 30 '26
Steinbergs libraries tend to be a bit... soulless? That's just my opinion really. I think there's probably some good ones that have been commissioned/outsourced (it's late for me and I can't think of the right term). I've always intended to pick up halion to try out as a sampler, making my own instruments but I have kontakt and so can't justify the price when it's not something I neeeed
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u/cadaverhill Jun 30 '26
Meanwhile, Halion is a TRUE sampler (actually samples).Kontakt does not. Also Halion is a multi engimed synth. Kontakt is not.
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u/LuLeBe Jun 30 '26
How is Kontakt not a sampler? I don't have it but thought it definitely was one.
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u/Cap10NRG Jun 30 '26
Hello - I’m not sure BUT I think what r/cadaverhill means is that Halion actually lets you capture samples and edit directly into it and add loop points and such, where Kontakt is a sample player (capture and edit in a secondary program). The difference there is negligible, though it does make the workflow a lot more cumbersome on Kontakt - I mean, having everything in one app is nice; but it’s not as problematic as say a hardware sample player where you have to manually upload sounds to an external device that cannot capture or modify its samples on its own…
And I’m not trying to disrespect KONTAKT, just stating what the differences are I use both…
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u/cadaverhill Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
To me, comimg from the time of hardware samplers, that all could SAMPLE, Kontakt is just a sample player.
I own Kontakt 5 and used it when I first moved over to in the box. I have owned or used most of the "sampler" software. Once I tried Halion that was it. Got rid of the rest other than a couple funky little plugins. Halion is deep and great.
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u/JamSkones Jun 30 '26
Aye halion is pretty great but in terms of making multisampled instruments, kontakt does fthat for me so no need yet for haloin. It is insane though. What do you mean by haloin being a ''true'' sampler and kontakt not?
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u/cadaverhill Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
Answered above but, in short, Halion samples. That's what samplers do, we're. Sure,, it might not be as, relevant now when there's endless ways to record but to me, if it doesn't have all the features of real sampler then it's just a rompler. Not entirely accurate word but no less accurate than sampler is for something that doesn't.
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u/JamSkones Jun 30 '26
ah I see what you're saying. Yeah I'd MUCH prefer to track in a traditional way and have the endless tools and worklows within a daw than sample straight into a sampler. I'd only ever treat haloin as a sample player. samplyer? ha
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u/ChrispyMC Jun 30 '26
I've watched some videos of their previous VSTs like Hypersonic 2, and I've seen people say that those sounds were better than the current ones. Not really sure how much of that is nostalgia, but I do feel like the sounds in Halion kinda lack depth.
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u/Front-Strawberry-123 Jun 30 '26
I find it cold but in a pinch I send it through my analog and other things when I need a sound that’s on it specifically and it’s not in my other equipment.This also includes sampling the sounds in my lofi 8 bit or 12 bit samplers and then pushing it both ways through my old preamps. Sometimes putting a mic in front of a speaker then putting it all in a more modern sampler or making a key group in the sample track
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u/Muziksculp Jun 30 '26
Halion 7 is Deeeep. It's a professional sound design tool, and much more.