I’ve downloaded Halion Sonic SE3, and I can open it from my desktop; but I can’t get it to show up in Dorico VST instruments the way the YouTube tutorials show. How do I get Halion Sonic SE3 to show up in Dorico for playback?
First, IIRC, HALion Sonic SE3 is a player; it contains no sounds.
Second, IIRC, theSE3 player has been superseded by the HALion Sonic 7 player.
Hi @ethanjesseholmes , welcome to the forum.
Derrek is quite right with what he says, but HALion Sonice SE should be still possible to use in Dorico. However, as Derrek also says, you better update to the latest HALion Sonic 7, unless you have a very specific reason.
You could also do from Dorico’s menu Help > Create Diagnostic Report and post here the corresponding zip file. From the contained logs and files I might be able to spot the issue.
Ok, that’s helpful! The video tutorial indicated I should see HALion Sonic SE in the VST instrument dropdown, but I have no particular reason to use it if something else works better. I do have HALion Sonic 7 downloaded as well, but I’m still not getting any sound through Dorico (input or playback). I could send you the diagnostic report, but the file is too large for this platform. Any other suggestions that might help?
If it is less than 10 MB you can send it directly to me at u dot stoermer at steinberg dot de
Likely an older video, when Sone SE was current.
Dorico comes with a HALion Player – if you have that installed, you don’t need another one.
Thanks for the data. And yes, you have installed both HALion Sonic SE and HALion Sonic.
HALion Sonic is always picked, because in your Play preferences (Edit > Preferences) Dorico is told to use per default the best available HALion derivate and in your case that is HALion Sonic.
But there is actually no reason why to change that because HALion Sonic is better and still gets supported (HALion Sonic SE not anymore).
Contents/sound files you also have plenty installed, so sound should come out with you.
Please try again. Load a project and then from the menu choose Play > Playback Template. Choose a template and press Apply and close. Does then sound come out?
What version of Dorico are you using?
If it’s one of the last releases of Dorico 4, or newer, use Sonic 7 instead. Remove/uninstall the old Version 3 SE player, run Steinberg Download Assistant, and allow it to ‘update’ anything it recommends.
The older versions of Sonic SE and Sonic 7 share the same ‘plugin id’, so Sonic 7 should take over and automatically replace anything that was using Sonic 3 or earlier. The only exception to this rule ‘might’ be in 3rd party hosts where you might have been using VST2 versions of Sonic SE instead of VST3 (On some systems, even this works OK if Sonic 3 is still installed, but there are also hosts that choke if both Sonic 3 SE and Sonic 7 are installed at at the same time on a system).
The only reason to even consider keeping Sonic 3 plugins (or older) on a system is if you are on Windows, and have purchased some 3rd party libraries that you want to use in some hosts that cannot do VST3, AU, or ATX plugins (I.E. Finale or Sibelius for Windows). It can be a ‘tricky’ situation to keep that old plugin around. Personally, I’d recommend not even trying it anymore, and instead using a VST2>VST3 bridge of some sort, and keep Sonic and all of its libraries ‘up to date’. If you need a ‘bridge’ for an old VST2 only host, let me know and I’ll follow up on some free and paid solutions that are out there to get Sonic 7 working in such hosts.
If you’re on older versions of Dorico that still require the dongle and such, then you can still update to Sonic 7, but you’ll also want to allow the Steinberg Download Assistant to update all of the HALion content/libraries. If you do stick with Sonic SE 3 on an older setup, please make sure that you’ve also got the older versions of the content/libraries installed rather than the latest. This might require using the Steinberg Library Manager to remove all of the HALion/Sonic content, and reinstalling it from the Download Assistant, specific to the version of Dorico that you are using.
Since Steinberg began doing away with the old dongle/eLicenser requirements and replacing them with the new Steinberg Licensing system, the libraries/content for HALion, as well as the universal ‘Steinberg Content Database Sever’ (this runs in the background and can be shared by all Steinberg Hosts and Instruments. It allows Steinberg Hosts and instruments to track and tag all sorts of stuff like the contents of vstsound archives, VSTpresets in your user content directories, samples and MIDI-loops installed on your system, and more) have been ‘updated’ as well.
- They no longer need the dongle (when properly activated/registered via the Steinberg Licenser App)
- The Macro Editors have been updated (new look)
- Various other ‘issues’ have been fixed over time.
Note, even after updating Sonic and its content, older hosts that required the dongle or the old soft eLicenser will still need the dongle/eLicencer plugged in. I.E. The first releases of Dorico 4 and older. Any version of Cubase/Nuendo from versions 11 and older. Those still need your dongle…
I also recommend that every week or so, it’s a good idea to just launch the Steinberg Download assistant and see if there are any ‘updates’ in order for all of your Steinberg software.
On some slower systems, I’ve also found that after changing/updating Steinberg stuff, it can sometimes take a while for the DB server to scan everything so it shows up properly and is ready to use. So, after making changes or doing updates, it’s not a bad idea to reboot the system, and open some Steinberg host or instrument and allow the system to just ‘sit there’ for a while. That gives the underlaying Steinberg Database server time to scan and sort-through whatever it needs to do in order to get the database tidy and up to date.
Yes, I have sound now! I’m not entirely sure what changed, unless it’s like Brian mentioned below and everything needed time to show up in the system ready for use. I do think my computer has been running slower than usual of late, so that might be a factor. Thanks for helping me navigate these issues.
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Thanks for that information; I’m now getting playback sounds. I’m still new at managing all the components of Dorico, so I’m definitely feeling my way through. I do suspect that computer speed was a factor and it took awhile for everything to integrate.
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So you’re on Dorico 5 (The latest)?
Dorico Pro, Elements, or SE?
What computer and OS?
I’m just asking in case some simple checks and adjustments might exist to maybe get your system running a little faster/smoother.