I’m trying to to practice with managing those 4 “layers” that HS provides inside every program.
I understand I can use that feature to create, for example, a single “sound” which actually contains up to four different sounds mixed together, with separate settings, volumes and effects.
I learned from the manual that if I want to load a layer, in order to add or replace a sound inside the program, I have to choose the “Load Layer” option inside the corresponding slot in the “program” section:
The user manual says that that option “opens the Load Layer dialog”.
However I don’t see any dialog.
What I get instead is the MediaBay window with the “LAYERS” preset selected:
But the shown list seems to include only some layers, quite few actually, mostly belonging to the “Iconica Sketch” library, while I expected to see all the available layers, including the ones I can find inside the HS preset programs (such as the “Flux” layer which can be seen in the first image above).
Is there something wrong with my HS or am I missing something?
Hi @MarcoRo !
You can check the available layers from each library by choosing the tile and switch “Preset Type” to “LAYERS” (like in your screenshot)
The example given by you, does indeed only contain a single “Init Flux” layer preset.
To be honest, there is no particular reason. Some of our instrument designers create layers and create their presets from there, some didn’t bother and saved to presets directly.
Structurally though, each preset DOES contain at least one layer. They are just not accessible from HALion Sonic 7.
In HALion 7 (The instrument design environment) you CAN drill down to the layers, inside the presets, by using the browser.
If you do not have HALion 7, or just want to keep working inside HALion Sonic, there is a click intensive workaround:
Load the program whose layer you want to have into a slot, right click the layer, save the layer.
It will now be accessible in the media bay under the All tile, as a USER content.
Just loading the layer from the browser, like in HALion 7 would be easier though.
I will put this on the list of feature requests for HALion Sonic 7, no promises if this will ever be realized, but it will be discussed in one of our brainstorming sessions.
Thanks for bringing this up.
Many thanks, Philippe, for you kind and useful answer.
Actually I only have HALion Sonic, as I honestly think its features are quite more than enough for my “needs” (I’m not a professional).
Anyway, the two… workarounds you suggested (browsing layers by selecting one library at a time AND saving here + loading there) are definitely acceptable, bearable, not to say decisive.
Moreover, a certain amount of clicks is indisputably gymnastics; and we always read and hear everywhere experts saying that gymnastics is good, especially at a certain age…
Sometimes I’d like to treat a Sonic ‘program’ as a ‘layer’ (clone another copy in the same program/instrument slot or to a layer in a different slot). I’ll load it in a slot as usual, copy the layer portion of the program I want to duplicate elsewhere, then paste it where I want.
Example: Building a Clarinet Section
Load a Clarinet sound in slot 1, click the Edit tab, right click the Layer I wish to clone and choose ‘copy’.
