Hello, I have a rack instrument of HALion Sonic set up in Cubase Pro.
I would like to automate the DAW to trigger a loading of a multi in the multi chain of HALion Sonic 7.
I set the Halion Sonic 7 to respond to program change as Multi Mode.
The VST seems to respond to the MIDI event only if I manually change the selection of the Multi in the chain first.
Does anyone know why this doesn’t work well?
Hi,
This is possible via Program Change messages, but only on the GM Mode (so only the basic GM sounds).
It’s much more practical to have a track per instrument. Cubase handles very well the VSTi that aren’t currently sounding: they don’t consume CPU at all. Even if you’re using an enormous amount of samples, unused streaming buffers are discarded by the OS. The Program Change mechanism is perhaps relevant only for hardware synths. Personally, I can easily work with 15 Halions (not SE, but shouldn’t make a big difference), half synths, half sampled instruments, on an Intel Gen. 11 mobile 4-core notebook CPU with 32GB of RAM without even needing to freeze tracks while composing or arranging, up to the point where I start mixing and adding FX inserts and busses. This way, it’s easier to see the arrangement when glancing over the project, what plays in whichever section. But the worst of all is automation, which quickly turns into a nightmare when the same track plays unrelated instruments at different times.
What is your use case for switching instruments mid-project in the same VSTi?
Hi @cnyll,
Thank you for your prompt reply.
I have a live show to perform with 17 songs.
I have two M-Audio Oxygen Pro 61 keyboards connected to my laptop (one assigned to channel 1 and the other to channel 2). There are some bounced tracks (or “stems” that are played in the background, but a lot of the parts are played live by me, sometimes with 4 or 5 sounds during a single song.
Currently, I have a Cubase project for each song, and I need to close the project and load the next one between songs.
I mapped the entire set-list of the show, and it comes down to two VSTs that I need to play live (Kontakt and Halion Sonic 7 Collections).
I now managed to find a pretty simple way to import the tracks from existing projects (including tempo and signature tracks) and place them in this one united project.
I thought that having two VSTs and switching their configuration between songs would be the best way to go, but it really seems that this feature doesn’t really work.
It’s a pity that such features are released without passing QA properly, I have similar issues with M-Audio’s keyboards, by the way.
I do have some songs that use specific VST sounds that tend to hog the CPU, and some of them continue to retain CPU resources even when no notes are being played (e.g. Kontakt’s Pharlight).
But, if indeed it is possible to load many instances of the VSTs without overloading the resources, then I will go with that.
However, I’m not sure that an instrument track would be possible, as I would still like to have several sounds loaded in HALion Sonic 7 Collections, and several sounds loaded in the Kontakt instance. And I sometimes need to automate keyboard ranges routing enabled and disabled even during a single song. Having a single VST instance for each separate sound would be too much for me to handle.
Follow-up questions:
Many thanks,
Joel
That has nothing to do with Q&A, it is simply not the design goal.
Load the different presets onto different Instrument Tracks. Or, as it is often the answer to questions in Cubase: Create another track #createanothertrack
If you enable this option in the Preferences idle plugins should not bother your CPU any further.
Hi Johnny, thanks for replying.
I think it is actually a very well-intended design goal.
Notice that HALion Sonic 7 Collections has a Multi list and it even allows one to set the Next Multi button to a specific CC MIDI message - and I tried it - and even that works only intermittently.
But anyway, we can disagree on that.
I will check out your suggestion regarding that check box for the idle VST processing - sounds promising.
Many thanks!
Ok, I have to admit I am a bit behind the train of multi mode usage in Halion.
So, you have this…
If I then load a couple of multis I can select them via Program Changes.
I don’t understand what is not working for you.
Hi,
If I’m not mistaken the full HALion 7 can do this. You can prepare a bank of any sounds, which you can later load via Program Change messages.
I can do it in Halion Sonic. I can create a multi as well as load an entire set and change the multis via program change.
Hi,
OK, good to know.
Edit : Thanks @Johnny_Moneto for clarifying the current HALion family members. 
Hi Johnny,
Yes, your demonstration of the list editor and the Halion Sonic 7 is exactly the way to do it.
It just doesn’t work for me.
Seem to work perfectly if I change the value on the list editor, it will immediately reflect that as a MIDI event and the Halion Sonic 7 responds accordingly, but when I play the timeline, the Halion Sonic 7 intermittently switches the Multi. Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t. I can’t find the root cause of this.
I will continue with the multiple VSTs (one per song) in the unified project, and hopefully it will be CPU efficient enough to work. Otherwise, I’ll have to revisit this Progeam Change issue.
Thanks for all your help.
Joel
Hi,
Do you send any SysEx or RPN/NRPN messages by any chance?
I’m not sure. I think I don’t, at least not intentionally.
