Confused about Halion platforms

[sma]

I’m trying to create my own Halion instrument for public distribution and am very confused by the documentation. In some places it still refers to 6, sometimes it’s 7, there was Sonic and Sonic SE, but as far as I can see it’s just Sonic now but I’m unsure if those references are 6 Sonic or 7 Sonic, and trying to work out what I can and cannot do is frustrating.

I am happy to target v7 onwards and tell my users that is the version that’s required as it seems sensible to focus on the latest release, but I want to offer them on the free platform so they don’t hve to purchase the ful Halion. I am presuming this is just 7 Sonic now, and that I don’t have to follow all the 6 Sonic or SE documentation anymore? But none of this is very clear, at all.

I would also like to incorporate my own impulse responses in the instrument for added value and uniqueness, but on the comparison page it says that reverence is not available in Sonic. Is this true, if it is it’s a big let down - even the free Decent Sampler lets you use convolution

Would appreciate any info and help, thanks

[David_W]

Before the release of HALion 7, there were three versions of HALion:

• HALion 6 - with design features and the content bundle
• HALion Sonic 3 - no design features, content bundle
• HALion Sonic SE 3 - no design features or content bundle, free, cannot access the content bundle

There are now just two versions of HALion:

• HALion 7 - with design features and the content bundle
• HALion Sonic 7 - no design features or content bundle, free

HALion Sonic 7 users who want the content bundle but not the design features can buy HALion Sonic Collection 7, which is also the upgrade path from HALion Sonic 3.

Eliminating the Sonic SE tier is helpful because it means that the content bundle is available in the free instrument if you have a licence for it. Previously you had to choose between having the content bundle available and being compatible with those using the free player.

This is only a high-level overview, but it is hopefully enough to get you started. If you are designing today, I’d target version 7 and tell users to use the free HALion Sonic 7.

[Brian_Roland]

@sma

on the comparison page it says that reverence is not available in Sonic. Is this true

I’m not sure if this means much but I just tried the following:
I have a full installation of H7 here…

I opened Steinberg Activation Manager and disabled my full H7 key.
I enabled a free HALion Sonic 7 key of which I obtained from the official Sonic Download link.

I started a fresh instance of Sonic 7 in a non Steinberg host (Bidule).

I can see REVerence as an option in the aux FX rack. It seems to be working perfectly.

For what it’s worth, I also loaded a VST2 instance of the older Sonic SE 3.5.10 player. REverence is here and working.

@sma

I am presuming this is just 7 Sonic now, and that I don’t have to follow all the 6 Sonic or SE documentation anymore?

Yes and no. At least from my personal perspective.

In my early experiences thus far, exporting presets from H7 that are compatible with Sonic 7 is easier and less confusing than ever before. Right click a layer in the Program Tree, choose ‘export as VST3preset’, and tick a couple of boxes.

With ‘verify’ enabled…If your layer isn’t set up properly to support Sonic, you’ll get prompts of what is wrong/missing. Examples: Missing flex phaser in parent layer. Voice manager not enabled (where you pick max level of polophony). Missing output bus at parent level. No Marco Editor. Etc.

In some cases it’ll even offer to do the ‘fix’ automatically for you (don’t forget to save a copy of your initial working program if you want to keep those changes there)!

Don’t forget to ‘import’ your new sonic compatible results back in or they’ll never show up in your Media Bay (though you can manually drag it from an OS explorer window into HALion if you’re not ready to import it into the db).

If you want to turn said ‘layers’ into ‘programs’ for Sonic, you’ll need to load the layers into Sonic first, make whatever control tweaks you desire the program to have as a default state when loaded, and then save them as programs from there. After you’ve done that, you can go back to H7 to ‘pack vstsound libraries’ that include the Sonic ‘programs’.

Do you still need to support VST2?

Sonic 7 doesn’t come in a VST2 format.

Some hosts out there with considerable sized user-bases (Sibelius and Finale) still do not support VST3. I don’t know too much about the Apple versions, but some ‘quick and untested research’ leads me to assume that Apple users might have an option to use the AU version of Sonic 7 (and get native support for Apple silicon) in those hosts, but Windows users are in a bit of a pickle.

People with such hosts might could use virtual MIDI ports (such as loopMIDI) to get free Sonic working in stand alone mode, but they’d have to mix it independently of whatever might be going on with internally hosted instruments.

It might be possible to get a free VST2>VST3 bridge going in such hosts with something like Kushview Element? I personally use Bidule, but the VST3 version of Bidule is still in preliminary stages of development and ‘not free’.

Windows users needing a free player in VST2 format could still grab HALion SE 3.5.10 to get a version that works in a VST2 host. You can’t get free HSSE keys for the old eLicenser anymore, but I’m assuming that a Free Sonic 7, or a free Dorico SE key on the newer dongle free Activation system will unlock the SE 3.5.10 player (as that used to ship with the first ‘dongle free’ downloads of Cubase/Nuendo 12 and Dorico 4).

It’s possible to have a setup with both Sonic 7 and HSSE 3.5.10 working at the same time. Personally, I did not uninstall HSSE 3. Instead I left it installed, but ‘moved’ the VST3 version of HSSE out of the system VST3 directory, but I do keep the VST2 version in a place such hosts can still find and use it. Why do I move the vst3 plugin for HSSE 3? Having both Sonic 7, and HSSE 3 in the VST3 directory isn’t a problem with the latest Steinberg hosts, but it can be confusing to other hosts. Note, I do need to move it back if I want to use HSSE standalone for some odd reason.

I think apple users with Apple Silicon ‘might’ need Rosetta to use the VST2 version of HSSE 3.5.10, meanwhile, I ‘think’ the VST3 version supports Apple Silicon natively. Hopefully they don’t need HSSE at all though, and could simply opt for the AU variant of Sonic 7 in hosts like Finale and Sibelius instead.

As far as I can tell thus far, if you want to make content that works in the older SE 3 player (or older), then you’ll need to roll back to H6 to build those presets. I could be wrong on this, but I’ve not yet found a way around it. I see no obvious way to export ‘Sonic SE’ compatible presets.

If you have a dongle or soft eLicenser with the H6 key (or Updated to H7) on it, rolling back is quite easy. Just uninstall H7 and install H6. (Just the main apps and plugins. You don’t need to change anything in terms of the content libraries).

Naturally you won’t be able to build sounds that use the new H7 synth zones and features for the old HSSE player. So keep that in mind if some of your target users for your sounds are still ‘stuck in VST2’ world.

If you’re brand new to H7 and don’t have a dongle, and never did, I’m not sure what to do. I’d say check your MySteniberg account to see if there is a way to get an H7 key in your old Steinberg soft eLicenser. If not…file a support ticket explaining why you need to ‘roll back’ to older versions, and see if they will set you up with a way to get a key on your soft eLicenser.

[Brian_Roland]

P.S.

Just in case one of the ‘hosts’ was unlocking REverence and not the Sonic keys…

I also tried it with everything ‘Steinberg’ deactivated BUT my free Sonic 7 key.

REverence is there and working.

I do still have my dongle plugged in though (with keys for all this stuff on there). Not sure if that effects things. I’d take it out to test but it’s kinda mounted ‘inside’ the rack connected to an internal USB port ATM.

If you try these tests yourself, pull your dongle, and release keys you might have on the old soft eLisencser and check if you can.

[sma]

Thank you, it’s useful to have the perspective I had confirmed as the right way to proceed.

[sma]

Thanks, that’s a lot to go through! I think the product page is either wrong or misledaing, I appreciate the time and effort taken to help

[Brian_Roland]

@sma

I think the product page is either wrong or misledaing

It’s correct for the most part. Sonic 7 is intended to ‘fully replace’ all previous versions of HSSE.

If you’re building with HALion 6 or 7, I see no reason that REverence wouldn’t work in any of the Sonic or Sonic SE players.

The potential snags to accepting the update are few and probably rare for most users.

The benefits are pretty real if those new features are of interest/use.

My only real ‘upset’ is the lack of a VST2 plugin for Sonic 7. I’m still forced to use Finale and Sibilius under Windows a good bit, so those hosts fall back to HSSE for the projects that used it. I only need to ‘roll HALion back’ if I’m targeting a set of sounds at VST2 only hosts and the older HSSE 3 player. Hopefully those hosts get VST3 update soon!

BTW, I’ve run a few tests with that Kushview bridge. It’s working for the most part, though for some reason it won’t pass program change events. Better than nothing though. At least I can get an instance of Sonic or HALion 7 into them. I’ll check ‘channel bouncing’ next. If that works…we have a decent free bridge to get Sonic 7 working well enough to bounce around for different ‘articulations’ in those VST2 only hosts!

For everything else I use, the transition has been seamless. Projects that used VST3 HSSE before now load Sonic 7, and it works/sounds exactly as it did before without any extra tweaking or reloading the sounds.

[sma]

I know there were limitations on REVerence before 7 that meant you could not use custom IR’s, maybe this is what they mean in the comparison table? So technically the effect is in both versions, but the functionality has changed.

And yeah 7 is a nice improvement, it crashes my Unify host where 6 did not (which is a big issue for me personally) but I think that’s possibly an issue with Unify not Halion.

Also Kushview is great, I’ve spread the word about it to a few people

[Brian_Roland]

@sma

you could not use custom IR’s

Something I’ve not tried yet. I never looked up if and how one could add an IR for REverence, but it would make sense that the little brother Sonic/SE versions might not be capable of this. HALion likes set file paths/names. The included IRs are probably packed away in one of those VSTsound files somewhere. You’d need full HALion to ‘point’ to the proper IR and get it into one of those ‘vst parameter lists’ that HALion seems to be built around in nearly every respect. If a proper path packed into the preset/vstsound file, etc, I see no reason why Sonic couldn’t use it though? If there’s a way to get it ‘added to the list’ of possible IR maps…

I’m guessing it’s something that you’d ultimately pack in with your vstsound distro files so the path/name never changes. In theory there could be code to check a certain path for new/changed IR files, refresh the list, and even track them in the DB, but has that ever been done for HALion? Can we add an IR to that list at all?

Good questions…