hello!
I’ve asked on the Halion sub forum but not sure how populated it is
Question about Halion: I’m learning this big beast and I’m finding one odd feature I hope it can be done more efficiently:
Halion is filled with these parameter sliders and it takes A LOT of click/drag,click/drag to go from 0 to 100 and viceversa.
Some sliders, it’s not obvious that there’s a typable field, but they’re usually there. Hover the mouse over the parameter’s name/type and you can see its current value. Double click it if you want to ‘type in’ a new value. I.E. This “Spread” fader…
If you want to set a wad of different parameters all throughout HALion at the same time, I’d suggest using a lua script. Easier said than done, but with a little time (and help from the forums here) it’s not too hard learn how. Over time you might develop some templates of scripts with your own ‘remark’ system that you can quickly change lots of values in with a text editor.
It might also be helpful to know there are ways to examine all HALion’s parameters in a ‘list’ or ‘tree’ like structure. Sometimes I find it helpful to keep a parameter list open as I do things in different tabs. It gives me a quick way, with a very condensed view to make other adjustments anywhere in the program (different editors) without needing to swap tabs, scroll a lot, open new frames, etc.
It’s also pretty neat that you can ‘copy/paste’ values from/to the fields with the usual key commands. (In widows, stuff like ctrl-c (copy), ctrl-v (paste), ctrl-x (cut).
You can even undock this frame out as a new window so it floats on its own for finding things. The ‘values’ of such parameters are editable in the parameter list.
An ulterior motive to showing you the parameter list now, is because when you’re ready to start building ‘macro editors’ and/or working with LUA scripts, this view will help you a great deal in figuring out how the parameters are structured in memory so you can manipulate them with the script(s).
But do you confirm those multiple click/drags are unavoidable?
I knew about the inputting the value but I never use it since I want to swipe from 0 to 100 in order to find the sweetspot as I listen.
Inputting an arbitrary value is a bit of hit & miss or unnecessarily time consuming to say the least.
It’s a bit weird since Halion has been recently overhauled too XD
Depends on the scale of the value, if decimals are involved, etc.
You might try assigning it to a QC and then manipulating that. Each parent level of a layer can have its own set of 8 quick control (QC) knobs, and such controls are very scalable in terms of range/resolution/density.
Right Click the parameter and assign to quick control…
I’d go into more detail with screen shots and such, but am on my way to a meeting. Will try to revisit later.
To be honest, I don’t want to use workarounds such as QC as this is a basic UI feature that should work like any other VST: hold mouse click on a knob/slider and you can easily reach 0 to 100 with a short move.
Value scale shouldn’t matter: this is just basic UI design.
Even if I just started looking into it and maybe there’s a setting to make it work like -literally - any other VST I’ve used in 25 years, this UI behavior shouldn’t be there in first place.
Even typing in a value manually requires a lot more clicks than simply dragging a slider. And this is already possible in any knob in Halion itself. Which makes it even more puzzling since a knob and slider share the same exact function and behavior.
I still want to believe there’s a setting somewhere🤣
Said so, Thanks again for your inputs Brian
Some controls have a ‘huge’ resolution/range, so it’s not really a work around as much as a method to tune in the range/resolution that you want to work with ‘in real time’.
I missed it before, but now I notice that holding ctrl and clicking it will zero a field.
Holding alt and click/hold/drag, gives a vertical fader instead, and cuts the resolution to something more acceptable (doesn’t change floating point part, picks up with the ones place).
As for assigning to a QC, there can be a number of advantages to doing this anyway. Particularly if it’s something you’ll want to tweak in real time at some point.
Here I’ve right clicked the Speed field and added it to QC1 for Layer 5. This allows more customization (range, resolution, power curve/shape) in how the parameter responds to QC movements.
Notice, I didn’t use the very top program/parent QC set. I put it at the Layer level. It’s also possible to nest layers in layers if you need more ‘adjustable’ QC controls.
Later, you might build custom Macro Editors, and those can access these QC’s deeper down with ease.
Take advantage of these QCs…they come in handy for a lot of things. They can help you remember things you like tweaking in real time the most. They’ll help out when you decide to export individual layers for use again in future programs. And more…
If you later decide it’s not a parameter you want taking up a QC slot, it’s really easy/fast to unbind it. Right click it again, and choose ‘forget Quick Control’.
Reason why I’m not using QC at this point is that this is more of a sound design phase for me: I’m yet to find the right parameter value so I just need that to experiment on the fly.
Def will be using QC but only when things are settled
