Hi
I have Cubase 7.0.2 and i sometimes use Halion SE. i own komplete 8 ultimate and omnisphere, as well as a new kronos.
i was wondering if i have those what the full version of HALion would bring me that is different?
i use most of these for strings and orchestra music, as well as percussion (RMX) etc
i take it CPU would be better, and probably integration? wondering about sounds though?
thanks
HSSE is a mere player of HALion sounds, whereas H4 provides full access to the HALion engine for sound creation.
Both are based on the HALion engine which in terms of CPU basically means there is little difference between the two. Integration wise they both support VST3.5 Expressions (Note Expression, etc.), which is way above the other plugins you mention.
You have used HALion Sonic SE so you know what it provides, so about HALion 4:
What’s New in 4.5
Why HALion 4
cool
thanks for the info, i will check it out more. i love omnisphere alot and get alot of great sounds from it pretty much from the stock sounds with minimal tweaking. is that also pretty easy with the full blown version of HALion 4 or is there alot of “building” of sounds?
Well, I presume that with “building”, you mean involved or from scratch, as opposed to modifying existing sounds. Sure, H4 can be very involved, it depends on the sound you are making. HALion 4 consists of a very flexible sampler and an equally capable synthesizer.
It is not really a performance machine like Omnisphere appears to be, in the sense that you almost don’t need a sequencer, as in the demo video on the Spectrasonics site. I am not familiar with Omnisphere but I checked out the video. Neat instrument! 
HALion can perform too, but does not have the type and scale of integrated tools that was shown in that video.
So yes, in comparison I would say that H4 is more about “building” of sounds, though it absolutely can perform too.
H4.5’s Integration is better because you can drag and drop to it directly from the project window, have note expression, VST3 etc.
It’s a bit embarrassing to compare H4.5 with KU8 though. Price wise KU8 is 3x the value of H4.5, usability wise 1000x.
But you can always trial H4.5 to see if it fills any gaps.
I understand price comparison, but what is the usability index based on?
Well, it IS a bundle of many products, whereas H4 is one product, so comparing them is not embarrassing, it’s illogical.
I am not familiar with NI, so I just assumed we were talking about a product of comparison.
I would find it embarrassing if a competitor can deliver 1000x more for 3 times the price at higher quality.
Especially knowing Steinberg’s task from Yamaha is boosting sales by up-selling and delivering new products.
Cubase is a strong brand and it can take some hits when striving to boost sales (like the risk they took with C7). Halion isn’t a strong brand, so when Yamaha thinks Steinberg’s ROE is too low, products like Halion are the first that need to be ditched in search of new money streams to boost sales (e.g. Apps, cloud services etc.).
Yamaha Co. net sales are close to 3 billion dollars and they lost millions and millions the past three years so boosting sales is everything, customer relations is nothing.
I had to take a look at this 1000x deliverance, because it just seemed to good to be true, and I must say that a lot of the “boxed products” are often just a few drum kits or instruments, some even a single instrument or phrases by famous people (which IMO has debatable value), they seem almost like expansions rather.
E.g. just looking at the “Perfect Piano and Keys”, it consists of a few pianos, a few organs, a clavinet and a pianet and a nice even 500 “soul-drenched” phrases, expressed as 11 “boxes”, with famous artist names like Alicia Keys and texts like “nothing short of inspiring”, “full of charm and character”, “sampled to perfection with all its characteristic dynamic range intact” (duh, or it wouldn’t be to perfection), “beautifully sampled and perfectly preserved in all its brilliance”, “expertly sampled and brimming with unique character”, etc.
Sounds just like how you are portraying Steinberg/Yamaha sales tricks, I would say.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that the bundle isn’t good, because I wouldn’t know anyway. But it’s a clear tie with anyone else in sales tactics. It comes down to who’s a sucker for which pitch.
Apparently you never used the Native Instrument products. Because you’re picking out the least interesting stuff as an argument. Although any NI library (or extensions), runs circles around the Steinberg ones (functional wise and sound wise).
Don’t let the branding fool you, apart from Soul Treasures all the libraries are good sampled, non looped, instruments, nifty programmed and above all very usable en editable through the Kontakt interface (no copyright BS when you want to edit a preset or phrase for instance).
But you forgot to mention the most important ones like Reaktor (and all the instruments that come with it), Massive, Battery, Kontakt, Absynth, Guitar rig, FM8 and the standalone VST compressors, EQ’s and reverbs.
To be clear, I don’t say NI’s sales strategy isn’t aggressive and they don’t abandon products (B4, Kore, Pro-53, Spectral Delay etc.), but at least they finish a product before ditching it. Of course their business model is a lot smarter than the one from Yamaha, because they sell the buyers the same product numerous times. But the big benefit for the user is, a product keeps receiving maintenance, even after a few years, because it’s still in the loop.
I really don’t mind when companies up-sell their products by introducing or implementing new products (that’s business). I DO mind if they leave the previous product unfinished, or with bugs or limitations (that’s bad business).
It’s funny you bring up marketing because when you compare the marketing of Steinberg against the marketing of NI you caught my point in one word. Take for instance the launch videos of the app’s (there dozen of examples). It’s not about if you like it, it’s about the MO.
Steinberg marketing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-ek0PByfVg
Native Instruments marketing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhSNwChdaWM
Native’s marketing is refreshing, funny, on the point with the product and appeals to the imagination of the potential customer.
Steinberg’s marketing is old fashioned, dull and so badly performed it’s almost a cult product right away.
I’m happy Steinberg does make better products then they do/approve marketing material, but I recognize the same dusty, unpolished, conventional feeling I get from the videos in the products. It does not breath “made by creative people for creative people” or “We love what we do”. Anyway it feels like the marketing department is selling an IT product instead of a creative product.
Well, funny really is the word here, because unlike you, I couldn’t care less about a companies marketing. As far as I am concerned marketing has become far to organized and as such predictable. It’s all the same to me. I don’t care what they say, because that is all it is, talk, means nothing. I’ve become numb to it.
But hey, if marketing is something you enjoy, be happy with NI and others. Why come here and barf? You got 29 posts at this point, and most of them are just gripe. Why not go somewhere where you’ll be happier, mate. I think that it would be better for all. Sometimes you just have to cut your losses and move on.
That almost sounds like your personal marketing for not being responsive to marketing.
I’m a customer, just like you, that’s why I stay here and keep barking as long as I feel it’s justified. I just want better and longer after sales on a product.
By the way, apparently you are more accessible to marketing then you would like. Because you are valuing me and yourself on post counts and you even took the time to remember or research my other posts in other threats. So my statements got under your skin quite easily.
Anyway, it seems very hard for you to concern about the actual content in your replies.
The point is, it’s not solely about marketing, it’s about the complete business model and management. Marketing is a part of that.
Yamaha’s managament direction from now to 2016 are:
The first point is hopelessly failing. Steinberg is not the company that is gaining trust at the moment. Not because their initial products are bad (admiration is in place there), but because of the low level service, very poor PLM, low level after sales and mediocre branding. At this point Steinberg even finds it necessarily to close topics on the forum when customers are to critical about bad development choices. This tells me enough.
Luckily for us customers, Yamaha isn’t blind and will invest in enhancing specialization and professionalism to support management-level personnel to manage Yamaha subsidiaries like Steinberg.
Of course, because your posts are one-track minded and very annoying, when plowing through new posts.
BTW. You click on a user name and then on search user’s posts, nothing to remember or research and very easy with someone that has relatively few posts.
Ok… enough of all that marketing-discussions. The question was why somebody who already owns Omnisphere and Komplete 8, should buy HALion 4.
Well, I also own NI’s Komplete package and I gotta say if you’re just looking for some new sounds, it might not make you that happy as you already own so much stuff with the NI package.
Though I gotta say that there are a lotta add-ons for HALion, too. They made a package a while ago called Absolute which contains most of the stuff (Neo Soul Keys, Dark Planet, Triebwerk, Hypnotic Dance, Halion Symphonic Orchestra).
But when you’re also using Cubase, the integration of HALion is way better than Kontakt, as Kontakt is still VST2.
So, especially when it comes to keyswitches, you’re able to import and edit them in a controller-lane of the midi-editor, instead of drawing midi notes to change the expressions which also has influence on the notation.
One remarkable thing about HALion is to built up your own sound designs. Once you studied the interface a little bit, everything (the mapping, the layering, the key-switches, the midi modules, round-robin and so on) is way easier to approach than in Kontakt. I love the workflow. The megatrig is a great tool. The modulation matrix is also very slick to handle. And the integrated Mixer is also a bonus. The window management makes it very flexible to use for different demands. You should get the 30-days-trial and get your own impressions.
The NI packages are great. But I also love HALion and use it most of the time.