Halion 6 is very powerful but I have to wonder if Steinberg even cares about this product. I thought Halion 6 would finally be able to compete with Kontakt 5 but how can it with so many bugs. Creating a third-party library is impossible. There are just too many graphical issues in Halion. Bitmaps, frames, Menus and animations that refuse to load. Interface sections that distort or load improperly. I’ve spoken to support and they’ve not been able to fix anything. To top it off most of the post here are ignored. I have to wonder if Steinberg even wants this product to be successful. Where’s the attention? Where’s the updates? When is Halion going to be a legit product that is worth it?
Hi,
The graphical issues will be addressed in the next maintenance update which will be released soon. And yes, Steinberg does care about HAlion. Unfortunately we are not able to answer every post here in the user forum, but you can be sure that the whole HALion team is still very motivated and committed.
Cheers
Matthias
Good to read.
Saw an interesting bit of chatter over at the KVR (“Instruments”) forum; a thread titled ‘Halion 6 & Absolute 3’.
On the whole, the views there express a really good job done with this release. Although they seem generally impressed with its capabilities/sound engines, they aren’t enamoured with the modulation in H6, when compared to more ‘modern’ approaches found in say ‘Vengeance Avenger’ or ‘UVI Falcon’. Microtuning support and auto loop-slicing also come in for some criticism.
And, its KVR - this sort of talk travels quickly; the good stuff can get overlooked… 
Yes, we are aware of these requests and we will address them in the future. The scripting, the macro page designer and wavetable took a lot of resources in the development of HALion 6, but we decided to focus on these topics to have a good mix of sound design, library creation and platform infrastructure features. HALion has taken a huge step with this release and we will address new topics with the next iteration that will fit to the direction we have taken since HALion 4.
Ok, thanks Matthias - will continue watching with interest; haven’t taken the plunge to upgrade yet…
Guess I’m also looking to see how/if any of the ‘bigger’ 3rd party sample library houses (8Dio, Spitfire, LASS, etc…) respond, with (porting) any of their offerings. That might take some time. Or if the smaller independent creators (like Sound Dust - one man operation; brilliant sound libraries.!) are tempted.
Thank you! The silence was very worrisome. I feel a bit reassured. I really just want to see H6 succeed. I’ll be looking out for this update.
I’ll concur with Matthias that they do care about HALion. I’ve used HALion since version 4 and both the v5 and v6 updates introduced a lot of new/improved functionality. It has so much to offer, but I will say there is a bit of a learning curve to get the most out of it. The more time spent with it, the bigger the payoff, it’s well worth it.
I’m also with you hoping to see the likes of 8DIO, Heavyocity, etc…embrace the new library design and scripting functionality. Content is beginning to come out from a few sound designers, time will tell.
Halion 6 is Quite ok, but i think what you mean by comparing to Kontakt 5. Still i have a question standing about making Sample Libs. Kontakt 5 has also been out for a good while now and it is still standing. Halion 6 is really great, but somehow missing handling options and the windows can be a bit confusing to setup. Whorth to say Halion 6 functions audiowise really good. But yeah, kontakt 5 is really the standard now. And i had hopes Halion 6 would surpass that. But i quickly came into conflicts with my sample library and the way Halion saves presets / programs and samples. I thought i came from Halion 3! now Halion 6. But still no way to create 1 file for 1 Program ? Program with Samples included. Not scattered around on my harddrive. I try to build a sample library, all halion does is saving with a next to it sample dir. Confusing if you relocate files, then halion keeps on searching for samples. I want to make 1 FILE for a Program WITH samples. But this function still seems not there afther Halion 3 to Halion 6 ? WTF ? 
I think they do care, must be…
In HALion 6 you can most certainly make a single “Library File” (vstsound) containing all the presets and samples. We could also do this with HALion 5.
Since HALion 6, you can build libraries with or without custom Macro screens, optional LUA scripting is supported, and you can make them compatible with Sonic SE (free download for anyone, and working in most any 64bit DAW), or Sonic 3 as well. You can mount/unmount different versions of your library in progress as well (for testing, or management of multiple versions) in H6 before you actually install it).
http://download.steinberg.net/downloads_software/VSTi_HALion_6/HALion_6_Operation_Manual_en.pdf
In addition to the Operation Manual linked above, you can find all sorts of tutorial videos on the web. Here is one example link that I’ve found useful: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHaTG0IgGxiMeUpWx07VnXKnXDvh_rcQd
I generally like it a lot & enjoy using H6 alongside many other VIs. My primary beef is this: Absolute 3 still is very primitive in terms of installing and understanding where the various sample libraries are installed. It seems to start this again every time in terms of updates (as do the installers for Nuendo and Cubase).
- Requires picking down the lists and manually setting every install (again) for a dedicated path to a sample library SSD.
Still messes this up & when H6 or other Absolute 3 VIs load, there remains some errors (only a few) as to where libraries and presets are stored. It variously & incorrectly stores some of these in system directories; then is a mystery why some provide shortcuts to the correct sample library SSD drive and others do not.
The HALion library manager, ditto. Simply provides error signs but with no documentation of obvious way of permanently resolving matters. This last HALion 6.0.10, exactly the same experience - still can’t find ‘some’ files. The library manager is next to useless and provides no real documentation or advice on how to solve errors other than by hunting and pecking. The ‘managed’ libs are even more mysterious …
There is no real documentation about all of that; at least provide the opportunity to RTFM.
Native Instruments revolve this perfectly in my experience of many versions of Komplete: after the first install of a particular VI, a preference is set to tell that application what the user pathway is to the sample library location. From that point on, new installers know this already. I can ever migrate those prefs and edit paths with a pref-editors if I want (mac & pc). Zero installation issues.
How about SB follow that example. Surely it is conventional to have all libraries (here, over a TB or so) located on a dedicated, fast SSD? For me, the only off-putting feature in SB VIs is this constant fiddling and finding of where the hell the libraries are and what went wrong. This has been the same experience on a number of computers, both OS X and Windows. Ditto for clean installs, then follow-up.
Set a preference path once & never have worry, eh? Change the pref path and the software finds it, surely in 2017?
The Halion Library Manager is for that.
Check out the Media Bay. It essentially does what you were describing. You can mark as many folders as you like on your entire system so they are constantly scanned for HALion compatible content.
Content included with HALion/Sonic/SE typically goes in the same location as long as you are consistent in choosing “install for all users” or “install for just this user”.
On windows machines it goes into “%SystemDrive%\ProgramData\Steinberg\Content”. In some cases you might find content in your %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Steinberg" folder, but you’ll also find a shortcut in the directory above so it is easy to track down.
If you don’t want stuff on your system drive, just move the Content directory to some other drive and put a system “junction” from the original location pointing to the new location.
User content can be managed with the Library Utility…which allows you to put the content anywhere you want.