HALion 4 wish list

Parameters Lock

Locking an impressive parameter set (e.g. a special delay or oscillator settings) of a current Program and keep the locked one when a new one is loaded to the same slot.

E.g. I like a delay setting or an oscillator and or a filter in a song… I lock them, then keep changing Programs in the same slot. All new Programs will still sound different, except the delay, or the oscillator, or the filter… depending on what was locked for the first time. This is an idea from a famous synthesizer you certainly know, and it works.

Slot-level editing

The “unlimited layer / absolute-relative / selected-all” concept of editing is fantastic to use!
However, sometime I’d need to edit several Programs in the Program Slots simultaneously.

Two possible method to implement it into next HALion:

  1. Program of the selected slots all gets the same absoute / relative parameter changes. I think this is hard to implement, as the basic concept of HALion already follows the “Always one program is displayed in the Program Tree”. However, it is also true that user does not have visual feedback here (except the field with different values are getting red) when making any setting to multiple layers of a Program either.

  2. Maybe a better one: implement a simple “right click > copy” then “right click > paste” (or simple icons for these) where all module settings (e.g. all envelope and / or filter settings, depending on the selected modules) could be copy / pasted between Programs.
    Sure, I do know that module presets can be saved, however this would be

  • much faster to select and copy/paste multiple module settings in one go
  • and user not necessarily want to save each parameter set as a preset.

I am liking the way you think. This has crossed my mind too, just haven’t got around to posting it here. I was thinking along the lines of envelopes, modulation etc, where you can lock a particular section you have sounding just the way you want and then load different samples to see how they sound with those parameters still left the way they were from a previous patch. This sure saves a lot of time and guess in work in having to reprogram all settings from scratch. My Virus Ti does this and it really is a neat and handy feature.

Thanks. Yes, this idea is inspired by the TI. :slight_smile:

For sample library developers:

  1. “Copy/password protected and licence/trial time scheme with expiration” kind-of authoring. A password should release the content after the trial period has expired. Should be able to generate a list of activation codes as well.

  2. Skinnable gui for developers releasing their own sample-sets… similar to those of current Macro pages of HALion…not mentioning Kontakt.

Kontakt is way ahead of HALion in this regard, HALion is nowhere near to popularity of Kontakt, so opening to 3rd party developers with attractive conditions should necessary to kick HALion into the frontline again. And SB, please not be so greedy as NI regarding the licensing fees. You certainly deserve the cash, but please make HALion licencing fees more friendly to smaller companies as well… in case you want to spread the new HALion fast.

Same for the Sample Positions! :slight_smile:

I’d like to see a “Back And Forth” added to the Playback Mode.

I also would like to see another Loop type “Key Advance/Pause” in which the sample position only advances (within the start and end points, as usual) when a key is pressed down, and when released it simple pauses at that point (no sound) until another key is pushed down again, at which point it continues from the pause position until released again, etc.

I am also a +1 for more synthesis modes!


Added: One of the reasons I am asking for these new loop functionalities is because I like to be able to use the samples more, be able to play with samples in more ways than “just” play it (which is so common), maybe try some stutter-like (without loosing the sample position) effects and so on, without having to literally split a sample into pieces.

One of the Zoolook (J.M. Jarre) tracks (cannot recall the name of it unfortunately, but it stuck in my mind from whenever) uses a sample in this way, and it is absolutely awesome. Enables a very cool way of re-using old samples, and for remixing songs.

That selecting a zone with the midi keyboard when midi mapping select is on
switches between the zones of a variation group instead of selecting all zones.

I don’t have to test it, it’s an obvious thing to my ears. eg: I can take the same samples loaded in all 3 samplers (I own all 3 as well as emulator x3) and can say that to my ears, (sound is subjective btw) it’s a no contest… Mach Five wins easily, then Kontakt, then Halion…

Seeing as you list the RME Fireface among the equipment you’re using, you could take away the subjective element by recording the output from all three using DigiCheck and uploading the results so we can hear them. I’m sure the developers would also be very interested in verifying your claim.

I still say it’s a matter of the content and the way it is processed.

Hi guys,

first of all I have got to say, that it is a little bit too early to create a HALion 5 wishlist.
We are currently working on Updates for the HALion 4.5.

Maybe you can send me a small feature request within a pm .
I will collect and forward them.

I also watch this forum for issues as well and forward them to our QA or developers.
At the moment we are thinned out in the support department due to summer vacations.

So feel free to send me PMs if we missed something.



Cheers,

Marcus

Hey Marcus, thanks a lot for the reply into this thread. So… Halion 5 is still aways off, and there IS going to be further updates to Halion 4.5?! I must say, I am quite surprised by this, but certainly not complaining! I am unsure what bugs are left outstanding, as all the ones I had encountered previously were fixed in 4.5.2. I really hope there are some new features coming in a future update though, Halion 4.5 is the best addition to my studio in many years and I am loving the thought of getting more of it.

Keep up the great work over there Steinberg!

Thanks Cantankerous for your reply…

and surely we will go on with HALion 4.5…


Cheers,

Marcus

:astonished:

In the past, Steinberg has never offered an update beyond a x.5.x with the .5.x portion only being bug fixes to the x.5 release. After that, it comes time for another payed release with a fresh version number, so this is what I expected.

I suppose you could still charge for another update to Halion 4.5, but I hope not! :stuck_out_tongue:

Either way, I know myself and probably everyone else is very curious to see what Halion has in store in an upcoming update.

Even if not specifics, can you state when approximately a new update will be released?

Thanks again for the reply.

+1 :smiley:

PM sent to Marcus with a detailed list of features (including all here) for future versions of HALion.

Keep up the good work Steinberg!

That’s a pretty good list of suggestions, but I’d rather see another 4.x update than full version update.

In reality 4.x is still relatively new, and still IMO, hasn’t worked it’s way into the market well enough to warrant a full new version. Additionally, I DO NOT want to see 5.0 WITHOUT a extensive and extremely high quality sample library update. As in, getting rid of all content that is not AAA quality sample material. This is subjective I know, and perhaps not a good statement, but oh well. I hate updates that just tack on a few extra features and leave everything else the same…

My suggestion for 4.x (4.x is truly amazing.

Display playback position of all playback of sample view -HQ mode - Eg. Have a sample mapped across the keyboard and press one key and watch the playback on the GUI waveform. Press another key and see now both playback positions. Press more keys and see all waveforms that are still playing.

Just a GUI enhancement.

The other thing I want is more of a Cubase Feature, to be able to [in 2 clicks] to create hitpoints in audio then drag directly to the Key Editor in Halion, bypassing all other steps.

cheers

Hi again @ all,

I am very happy about all of your forwarded PMs.


And I am proud to moderate such a good and helpful user- community here in the HALion 4 section of our forum.

So, many thanks for all guys and I will do my very best to present your ideas to our developers.


Cheers,

Marcus

I don’t know what is it, but I also notice the same, definitely. I’m not really happy with the sound. It seems to do the things right on the screen, but for whatever the reason it doesn’t sound “nice” or pleasant to my ears. The same waveforms even with LPC compression sound better on a Motif synthesizer, and without effects.

I could say the same for most synths and effects from Steinberg included in Cubase, they lack “something” in the sound. And I’m not happy to say it because almost all my software is from them.

Oh, about my humble suggestions: :slight_smile:

  • avoid sample retriggering in mono-legato mode between key zones (How to avoid sample retriggering in mono-legato mode? - Virtual instruments - Steinberg Forums)

  • improve (hugely) the graphic render speed of the GUI by using any sort of hardware acceleration from the OS. It’s really too slow and un-enjoyable to work with.

  • make it use less memory. it’s too big for the program alone without samples. Since working with instrument tracks is desirable, you can imagine how much memory would use using several instances, even without samples. Or provide a lighter version to use on instrument tracks (sort of Halion 4 SE capable of using Halion 4 programs).

  • fix allowing to set sample end point and loop end positions outside valid ranges. Now you can set the loop end point and sample end point out of the real sample length. It’s scary! and a possible source of memory corruption.

Please :slight_smile: