Controlling and automating Halion 4

Virtual instruments
#1

I can’t get it to work easy.

control via automap

In my automap software there are endless rows of the same parameters:

mute_solo_level- Quick control 1 to 10 and program change. Then it starts over with the same parameters.
I suspect that this is because you can add more programs. Each program has it’s own set of q-controls etc.
But within a program each layer get’s it’s own Quick controls and these I can’t find in the automap software.
They are simply not assignable?

control via midikeyboard

On my M-audio I only have 8 knobs and 9 sliders, so also impossible to control all the layers of quick controls.
Plus I can’t find the setting to remember the midi control map when mapped to my M-audio.
In automap I can add infinit pages but again, the additional quick controls within a program are not visible to automap.

automating through the automation lanes

Then all the buttons and sliders in the GUI are not responding to the read/write protocol, it’s not implemented.
The only way I figure is to first assign it to a quick control because these are the only ones that respond to read and write.
Automating on the fly is not possible.

How do you guys automate and control Halion 4?

Now I think the only elegant way is with a CC121, but I just bought Halion 4 so to buy CC121 on top of that just for that purpose is a lot of money.

Any other suggestions?

Greetz Dylan.

#2

You figured out that assigning a command to a quick control will get you what you are after, though it is limited yes.

What you can do to remedy this is the following. Right click on a parameter you want to automate and click on Learn CC then press a button, slide a slider or turn a knob on your keyboard that you want that parameter to be assigned to. It will then be assigned that parameter and you can verify by right clicking and it will show what midi CC is currently assigned. You can remove this CC and start over if you like and even change the type of control the physical midi command will over the parameter as well as change min-max value for the parameter to respond to.

You can then click the read and write buttons and play with that physical midi control and it should record. Right click in Cubase when you are done and choose show all automation data and the lane should show up where you can fine tune the automation that you just drawn in.

Just so you know, the parameters in Halion 4 do not chase with the automation itself. You will not see knobs turn in realtime for a filter cutoff for instance, only the quick controls visibly turn, however, you can hover your mouse over an assigned parameter and you will see a tiny text box appear that will show you current position of the parameter.

I also feel that the automation in Halion could be handled better and I did start a thread about this very thing last summer when Halion 4 was originally release. I will see if I can track it down and post it here. I would like changes to be made to this as well, but hopefully the above will help you out a little more then you are currently getting out of Halion 4’s automation.

EDIT… here is the link…

http://www.steinberg.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=10924&p=90726&hilit=[feat+req]#p90726

#3

Please close this thread, I will join the other posted by Cantankerous

/Thread.