Halion standalone is quite efficient compared to Falcon 3 or Kontakt 8. I can get twice as many instruments running before I overload a core on my Intel Hackintosh (same buffer size) and get unwanted artifacts.
Of course, this is a bit like comparing apples to oranges, the Halion instruments are maybe less demanding/simpler compared to the stuff I have running in Falcon or Kontakt but it is still quite a difference.
Also, the overview in Halion 7 of a 16 channel multi is much better/easier to navigate than the ones in Falcon and Kontakt.
What I noticed is that the effects in Kontakt are very cpu heavy. They might be quite inefficient with cpu cycles. If it’s possible to deactivate the fx and use third party plugins Kontakt behaves very cpu friendly. I didn’t work with Halion that much but I will check it out for sure.
Halion is great, but a lot of the sample based instruments sound a bit stale, like a ROMpler from the 90ties. And the GUI is overcrowded with lots of weird small icons and too much ‘smart’ behaviour. That’s a Steinberg trademark. IMO, this hinders exploration. Many times I have lost track of where I am or how to get back.
Yeah, it’s a bit daunting at first. But the alternative is more menu-diving. I think I’d rather have an icon to click, at least that way I can familiarise myself (over time), in part with where on the UI the icon is. Appreciate that’s not an awful lot better than menu-diving, I guess.
It’s depends on how you process and remember information. In my case, a screen full of small icons doesn’t work. I would rather have menu’s with clear names. But that’s me.
As a sidenote, I also love key shortcuts. Unfortunately I can only remember maybe 10-12. Over the years I’ve tried to train myself to remember more, but if I don’t use them on a daily basis I forget them.
It’s a good thing HALion allows multiple approaches, all in the same space. You can go with a simple and elegant UI featuring giant virtual controls, or turn it into a massive flat super matrix featuring a hall of mirrors against a multiverse.
Use frames, tabs, and popouts to set up the workflow needed at the moment. Design simplistic and aesthetically pleasing ‘do it all in one spot’ macros. Or, you can even drop back into a workstyle of quickly examining spread sheet like fields, doing your own mental gymnastics, and scripting it all from a single text editor.
It can be shaped into what you want it to be. After all, different sound design projects can have very different interactive and feedback needs, with a variety of design philosophies behind them.
I use Halion for specific things: ROMpler, FM, spectral synthesis. Until now, I haven’t found the time to delve deeper into Halion, as the prospect looks daunting. GrooveAgent, the same.
I would probably need a lot of time to understand it enough to simplify the whole thing, but there’s no need to simplify if you know how it works anyway.
Kontakt, hard to program yourself. I use it as a ROMpler. It has better sounds than Halion thanks to lots of 3rd party libraries.
Falcon, not great for editing either but better than Halion or Kontakt, at least for me.
Of course, all three are huge programs, powerful but unwieldy.
I hear ya. The problem with software these days is that it’s documented in a very constructivist style. They don’t spend time laying a cognitive concept of the overall design of things. You’re left to ‘fiddle around’ and go ‘search for info’ about the bells and whistles en-media res.
Making a sample based instrument in HALion is one of the simpler and more intuitive things it can do. Drag samples onto the map. Size them to fit the note and velocity range you want on the grid. Set up amps and filters if you want them.
If you want to build a macro editor for your sound, it adds extra steps, but the toolbox is really good, and to me is far easier to learn and build with than Kontakt (which even requires a separate app and tool kit for such tasks).
When comparing a Konkakt Komplete bundle that compares in price with Full HALion 7, (I.E. Kontakt Komplete Standard) I don’t agree that the sounds are better. Not even close, plus (in my opinion) while it’s pretty good, the Konkakt interface isn’t quite as powerful and friendly in live situations.
If you step up to the Ultimate and Collector bundles, then I won’t argue with you there. That Ultimate bundle is well more than twice the price of HALion 7. The Collector bundle is over 5 times the price of HALion.
It’s true there are a lot of very high quality instruments for the NI Ecosystem, and if you need them they’re worth the asking price, but you do pay a significant chunk of money for the better libraries too…even if you catch them in the sale bin.
With HALion, you’re getting a decent representation of several generations of legendary flagship Yamaha keyboards over the ages. It’s like getting a MOTIF and more than half a Montage for less than $500 (even less if you catch sale). It’s a very good deal if you like and want that ‘Yamaha’ stage sound. If you design your own content, it’s a beastly powerful and capable sound design engine.
Exactly this. What may work: put the manual in notebook lm (or whatever it is called now), then ask questions. I have done this for Wavelab for example, that helps a lot.