! HALion Sonic!

Dorico
1

My score won’t play back at all. I rarely use Play Mode and so haven’t yet gotten the hang of the expression maps/endpoint configurations/VST stuff, so I’m not sure what’s gone wrong. Anytime I have playback issues, I try Reset Playback Overrides and/or setting the Playback Template to the default HSSE+HSO (Pro), and that takes care of it—but not this time. Most confusingly, when I open Play Mode, this is what I see:

Screenshot 2023-11-14 at 6.06.03 PM
Screenshot 2023-11-14 at 6.06.03 PM1468×1142 98.7 KB

I know that’s not what that menu is supposed to look like! And yet it persists even through rebooting Dorico.

Can anyone tell me what’s going on here? I don’t need all the advanced DAW capabilities of Play Mode, I just need the score to play when I hit the spacebar and to audition reliably when I enter notes.

2

That just means Dorico cannot find the Halion Sonic VST.
(Sorry, I can’t help you find it!)

3

Ok, does anyone know where it’s supposed to be? I certainly haven’t moved it.

4

Have you checked the (external) Steinberg Library Manager?
I do not think this has anything to do with Expression Maps.

Have you upgraded Cubase recently (if you use Cubase)?

5

If Dorico shows the double exclamation marks in front and after a plug-in name, that means it cannot find or fails to load that plug-in. So this is not a problem around missing sound files, but missing plug-in.

@Coranglais16, HALion Sonic should be installed at
C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3\Steinberg\HALion Sonic.vst3 (Win)
or
/Library/Audio/Plug-ins/VST3/Steinberg/HALion Sonic.vst3 (Mac, just out of my head)

If it is not there, I don’t know how it could disappear.
Have you tried reinstalling it via the Steinberg Download Assistant?
You could also download and reinstall via this link instead.
If that does not help you, please create via the Dorico menu Help > Create Diagnostics Report and attach the corresponding zip file to a reply here. Thanks

6

Ok I just checked that filepath (Mac) and it’s there, but it’s only a couple hundred kilobytes in size, so something’s off. Redownloading now both the HALion Sonic instrument and content from the Download Manager, will advise with an update in time…

1 Like
7

…and in time I appear to be back in business! That same directory still shows files of only a few KB, but there’s sound again so that’s something. I wonder what went wrong.

8

Well, on Mac the HALion Sonic.vst3 is actually also just a folder with subfolders that contain the actual binary plus other needed stuff.
Anyway, you have it up and running again. Well done, have lots of fun with Dorico.

9

Upgrading to Cubase 13 is one thing that causes this.

10

No, that’s not correct. Installing the Cubase 13 update won’t cause HALion Sonic to be uninstalled.

11

It absolutely did for me. The instant after upgrading to Cubase 13 my Halion disappeared from Dorico. If that is simply coincidence in time I’ll eat my hat,