I use HALion mainly for layered sound design to stack presets and build a “monster synth” patch by combining different engines. Quick auditioning of sounds as musical building blocks. Perhaps the strongest halion feature by far.
While looking for FM Lab content inside HALion, I found that a lot of useful layers are technically there, but buried very deeply under folders like:
VST Sound > HALion Content > FM Lab > VST3 Presets > Steinberg Media Technologies > HALion Sonic > Layer
At that point it’s clear that the content is there, but I am having a hard time accessing it.
If FM Lab layers are hidden this way, it makes me wonder what other instrument layers or useful building blocks are also buried under subfolders. HALion is a sound-design workstation, so these layers should feel like first-class creative material, not something I accidentally discover by digging through the file tree.
For my workflow, I would expect FM Lab and similar instrument layers to be exposed clearly by default inside HALion, especially when even old-school General MIDI-style content is easy to find.
Can we include it in a feature request?
Hey there,
These are findable in MediaBay if you change the top left filter to show layers instead of presets (see attached)
Hope that helps.
Hey, Mesayre
Thank you for the rather elegant workaround. It didn’t occur me that it’s a button! Less so what it’s responsible for. Buttons have frames! That solves my issue, but this left me wondering:
After looking into this more, I think I understand the design logic better.
Programs are the polished front-facing sounds, usually with macro controls and a cleaner user experience. Layers are more like lower-level building blocks, sometimes without macros or quick controls. So I understand why HALion defaults to Programs for normal preset browsing.
But the difference is very large. In my installation, the default HALion opening view shows 5721 presets. When I switch to the broader sound view, I see 7825 sounds. That means there are about 2100 additional sounds that are very easy to miss in the default workflow.
For a pure preset-player workflow, maybe that makes sense. But for HALion as a sound-design workstation, layers are not just technical leftovers. They are useful creative material. This is especially true for FM Lab, where the ROM-style DX/FM layers are historically meaningful and very useful as building blocks for layered patches.
So my request is really about discoverability. Keep Programs as the default if needed, but make it much more obvious that there is a large layer/building-block world available inside HALion. This way Steinberg can have its cake and eat it too.
Glad it helped. FWIW I agree layers should be easier to find and use.
