Anyone have the same problem? If I start Halion 7 and select options e.g. Single Instrument and insert a program from HS Factory or HAL Factory groups, then the Macro Page does not load
The HS Factory and HAL Factory presets don’t have macro pages. They’re part of the first generation of instruments originally included with Halion Sonic 1 and Halion 4, which was created in cooperation with the Yamaha Motif sound designers.
To edit these Programs in Halion 7, please open a Zone editor (or go to Edit → Zone tab while using the Default or Advanced screensets). You’re free to change almost every aspect of these presets, unlike many instruments with Macro Pages, which limit their editability to a few select parameters.
Halion Sonic opens the appropriate editor instead of a Macro Page when these presets are loaded, like you’ve noticed.
On some of the presets I’m getting “No macro” on others i’m not getting the editor/player button.
Any ideas ?
In short: Not all HALion/Sonic sounds have a Macro. Some factory ‘layers’ that ship with HALion/Sonic are ‘locked/protected/limited’ from deep user edits.
Some content that ships with HALion goes way back to versions before Macro pages existed (I.E. HAL Factory library). You can edit the sounds in full HALion or Sonic (But not Sonic SE) through the Edit/Layer (L1 - L4) tabs in Sonic (Fewer options than Full HALion), or the Edit tab of HALion (Deep editing of sound/zone/maps/etc).
Programs and Layers from the “HAL Factory” library are among the most ‘open and unlocked’ content provided! While they don’t have a fancy macro editor…you should find that the layers within the program are fully unlocked and wide-open to see/change. This includes seeing ALL of the zone parameters, mapping, sample editors, and more. Study those to get a true sense of how begin building HALion sounds from scratch. You don’t NEED macro editors to put together very nice sounds! In fact, not having a macro editor could lead to the sound requiring less system resources (memory and CPU time).
It’s possible to obtain even more ‘legacy’ HALion sounds going back even further that still work in modern release of HALion, but won’t have any macro screens. (Extracted from the ‘content’ iso from HALion 1)
There are also quite a few layers designed for the full ‘Sonic’ (now Collections) lineup that don’t have macro editors, but do have more parameters unlocked for user edits. These programs and layers might be somewhat, or fully ‘locked’ from deep user edits (aside from the exposed parameters for the Sonic player (none were exposed for the old Sonic SE player).
Some sounds might also have fully ‘locked layers’ that don’t allow one to do much if anything in the Edit tabs of HALion/Sonic. Sometimes such sounds have a macro page at the top level (intended for HSSE) unless you incorporate layers from them deeper in one of your own user made programs (Possible to lose the macro depending upon how the layer is implemented and exported).
Examples are sounds from the Basic Library. I.E. If you examine one of the GM Drum kits in the Basic Library, you’ll find that you can export import the full kit layers for your own sounds, but you can’t go very deep into that layer to see/change the zone maps and such…so you can build with the layer ‘as is’, but are quite limited in how much can ‘change/edit’ stuff deep in the layer.
Programs from the new FM lab and Tales guitar do have macros, but happen to have layers that are ‘locked’ in a way that you can’t use the native HALion edit tab (Zones/Sound/Map/etc). For these sounds, you ‘must’ do edits through the Macro tab. Then you can save your changes as a new user Program or Layer.
If you want to work with the Native editor for FM synthesis and export ‘free’ Sonic 7 compatible programs for users who don’t have ‘Collections, or Full HALion 7’, then don’t start with a FM lab program (Free Sonic users won’t have a license/key for the FM lab library). Instead create a fresh new program with your FM synth zone(s) created in the program tree. That gives you an ‘unlocked’ FM synth zone (No Macro screen). If you want a ‘Macro’ editor for such sounds, then you’ll need to build it yourself.
If you had begun experimenting with an FM Lab program and forged a new sound of your own, I think there are ways to save various portions of the synth as ‘presets’ from inside the Macro Screen. Perhaps these presets can speed things up if you need to convert your sound into an ‘unlocked’ FM synth layer.
Tales programs use locked layers. There is no ‘special zone type’ for this library/engine like we get with ‘organ builder’, ‘sample’, ‘wave table’, ‘synth’ and ‘fm synth’. So, you’ll need to edit these with their macro and save your own user programs/layers from there. Anything you ‘share’ from this library will only work for people who have Collections or Full HALion.
If you intend to export sounds to share/sell that will work for users who only have a license for the ‘Free’ Sonic player (No Cubase/Dorico/Nuendo), then it’s important NOT to use any content/layers/macros from the factory libraries. Only use your own stuff.
If your target is for people who have at least one Steinberg host of some sort installed, then your programs/layers to share can use some factory content, but be aware of what HALion libraries come with such a host and avoid using anything people might not have keys for. I.E. A free Dorico SE key comes with the Basic HALion library (and perhaps some of the Artist libraries? So you could build with those libraries for Dorico SE and above users. Just remember that those Basic sounds have layers that are pretty ‘locked down’ from much user editing, and depending on how you incorporate such layers…the original ‘macro’ pages for those programs/layers could get lost in stuff you export).
Obviously people with Sonic Collections, or full HALion 7 will have keys to use all the factory content. Mix and match all the layers and programs and you like to share with people who have the full versions.
Merged with existing topic.
Thanks for your help guys.
