I ran into that with some instruments with Sibelius years ago. Trying to remember what I did to fix it. Some things to try.
- Make sure the instrument is in a polyphonic mode. Make sure it’s not set to ‘mono’.
If you have an instrument that doesn’t have this toggle in the Macro editor, you can find it under Sound/Voice Management for each layer in full HALion.
- Some instruments have elaborate release effects that don’t happen until the key is released. This could have extra layers/voices trying to sound at the same time. I.E. A single key strike of a violin sound might actually need 2 or more voices instead of just 1. In a faster passage it could need loads of voices; so, once a ceiling is reached HALion begins to ‘steal voices’.
Steps to avoid voice stealing issues.
a. Increase the channel polyphony.
Example from a Macro Editor
Example of where to hunt if the Macro doesn’t have the option.
b. Set a higher Max Voices value in Options
It seems like I had more trouble with HALion Symphonic Orchestra than anything else. So lets look deeper into something from that library to see what’s going on. I’ll pull up the Solo Violin combi since I know that’s a pretty complicated instrument.
The first thing of notice is that it uses key-switches. It’s also one of the libraries that uses ‘release’ layers to add pre-recorded room ambience to the sound.
Either or both of these might cause cutting out or voice stealing for a number of reasons.
I’ve forgotten exactly what I did so long ago to fix it, but I do remember with Sibelius and HALion Symphonic Orchestra in particular I got all sorts of issues with HSO snuffing out notes if there wasn’t enough space between them. I kept fiddling around deeper…
If I recall correctly I noticed the problem went away if I disabled the “Ambience” layers.
That was a hint that I needed to make some adjustments deeper in the preset. Or, I could simply use it as is with those ‘release’ layers disabled.
Seems like it was with some of the multi triggers or polyphony settings, but I eventually found it.
For now I’ll need to go see if I can make a project that duplicates the issue, and figure out exactly where the problem was. Forgive me, I’ll revisit the thread and come back here to ‘edit this post’ once I’ve ‘remembered’.
Meanwhile, the most common problem is simply running out of voices. Next in line would be the way instruments that use release layers are set up (In the case of HSO, it’s using mega triggers to fire off the release layers). It’s also possible that mega triggers might be done in a way that key switches cause things to clamp down instead of ring out when bouncing among different articulations.
