Just installed HALion Sonic SE 3 on my Microsoft Surface Pro 6 to go along with Dorico 4. HALion won’t make any sound at all unless I hook it up to a USB audio interface, and then it works fine going through the interface (Focusrite Scarlett 4i4 3rd gen.) Is HALion incapable of playing back through my Surface’s own speakers? I mean, it wouldn’t be the end of the world to have to buy a tiny audio interface to carry around, but I’d obviously rather not. My impression was that HALion Sonic SE 3 could run without an ASIO interface…but perhaps I was mistaken!
System specs:
Windows 11
Intel(R) Core™ i7-8650U CPU @ 1.90GHz 2.11 GHz
16GB RAM
If you’re hosting it in Dorico and do not have your ASIO audio interface with you.
Go into Dorico’s Edit/Device Setup menu, and try the Generic Low Latency ASIO Driver.
If you see that option, give it a try. It should be able to bridge your regular WDM audio interface into the ASIO matrix.
There is also a set-up utility for the driver you can access by tapping your windows key and entering ASIO in the search bar. It’s in the Steinberg folder of the Start Bar if it exists on your system.
It can be used to configure the driver (enable or disable exclusive mode, tell it which device/outputs/inputs to set up, and if you need it, you can make adjustable buffer sizes to attempt tuning out any pops or crackles, etc.
Just wanting the stand alone player?
The Steinberg hosts ship with an ASIO > WDM bridge. Dorico usually installs it.
If you open the HSSE Stand Alone Player do you see a reference to this driver?
“Generic Low Latency ASIO Driver”
If you see no sign of that driver on your system, then you might try ASIO4ALL. This will also provide an ASIO back-end to audio devices that only have WDM/Windows Direct drivers.
When you have a choice, it’s usually best to use ASIO drivers that come with a nice audio interface, but when that’s not available Steinberg’s own bridge or ASIO4ALL are options (I personally prefer ASIO4ALL to the Generic ASIO Drivers that ship with stuff like Cubase and Dorico, but either should be fine for just running Dorico).
If you also need to get the output of Dorico into other apps, like Skype/Zoom/Etc, then try ASO4ALL combined with ASIO Link Pro. ASIO Link Pro would be ‘even better’ with your nice audio interface using its proper ASIO drivers.
Thank you very much for your quick, thorough, and helpful response! Yes, I have this driver – but I guess I had it misconfigured. All it took was checking the “Allow ASIO host to…etc.” box at the top, and presto, I get sound. (FWIW: HSSE came with Dorico for me.)
Again, I’m very grateful for your help!
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Great news! Glad it’s sorted 
Apologies for my many edits. I should have read the OP closer than I did as you stated everything nicely and I neglected to read it closely. I think I’ve gone brain dead for the night.
