For various reasons I have installed all the included samples on a non default disc (I have 4 internal discs in my system). Halion4 does not automaticaly set the new path upon loading, even if the location was set in the installation dialog box. In other samplers (like SampleTank) it is easy to reset the path. How is this done in Halion4? The manual does not include this information. It tells me that the path is set automatically during installation. Alas not if you choose a non default path. Shurely I can find the path upon loading an instrument, but then I need to do this one by one for each instrument sample. Tedious. How do I set it “once and for all”?
create a shortcut of the path which contains your samples (right click, create shortcut while highlighting the directory in question) and drag and drop this created shortcut file into the following directory:
documents\VST3 Presets
I do something similar with the SAGE directory of Stylus RMX where I want its data stored on a separate drive, but located and loaded from within the program installed on the main drive.
No guarantee this will work as I installed the Halion 4 content on the main drive by default, but it won’t hurt to try.
Best of luck, let us know how you make out. Failing above, hopefully someone from Steinberg will finally chime in and help out with your issue.
I do this with my sample library. Thankfully, you’re on a mac too, since i don’t know how to do this on Windows. Cantankerous is definitely onto the right idea here, but I did it slightly differently, if I’m understanding correctly that you want H4 to see the path to your factory sample set. If this is the case, try this:
Quit H4.
Go to the Finder and set up two windows.
The first window should be set to this path:
/Library/Application Support/Steinberg/Content/HALion/VST Sound/ (this is the system library, not the user library)
The second window should be set to the folder that contains your H4 library. In my library I start with FCP_SMT_001_HS_Synths_01.vstsound and end with FCP_SMT_105_HAL_Ethno.vstsound.
Select all of the contents of your H4 library and make aliases of them by pressing the Command and Option keys and dragging them to the VST Sound folder in the first window. You should see all of the same names you saw in your original folder but the icons will have little arrows on the bottom left to indicate these are aliases.
You should also check this folder for the preset files:
/Library/Application Support/Steinberg/Content/VST Sound
This is what I see there:
FCP_SMT_001_LoopMash_Loop_Set_01.vstsound
FCP_SMT_005_Reverence_ImpulseLibrary_01.vstsound
FCP_SMT_057_HS_VST3_Presets_01.vstsound
FCP_SMT_078_HSSE_GM_Presets_01.vstsound
FCP_SMT_099_HS_VST3_Presets_02.vstsound
FCP_SMT_106_HAL_VST3_Presets_01.vstsound
If you aren’t seeing these files or something similar, then you should find them on your system and either drag them over to this folder or make aliases and drag them over. The Presets files are pretty small, so you can drag those in without making aliases. I also have Halion Sonic installed, so some of these libraries may be for that application and won’t show up in your folder. I’d assume that the FCP_SMT_106_HAL library would definitely be necessary along with the Reverence impulse library and loop library.
I think that’s all you need to do. With any luck, the next time you launch H4, all the factory content will be available.
The H4 installer is definitely in need of improvement, but then again I reckon it’s got to deal with many potential situations regarding previously installed content. In my case (C6 on W7x64) it was convinced I had previously installed HALion content (I had not, unless it was referring to what gets installed along with C6), and it was convinced it was installed in “C:\Program Files (x86)\Steinberg\Content” which doesn’t exist on my PC. I just let it install content into a temp folder and then copied the contents into a general “VST Sound” folder on a separate disk with my previously installed HSSE and HSO content (skipping duplicate files), and subsequently deleted the temp folder.
It shouldn’t be this difficult, though – for sample player software, it still important to be able to place content on a disk other than the OS default disk, and the installer should pay particular attention to this.
First: Thanks for all your contributions on this problem and for a solution that works (it does, I have tested it). I do however not know how this solution behaves under future updates of the library.
I must also agree that this is a major discrapancy in HALion 4.
As previously mentioned has SampleTank had a “reset path” solution for a long time. It takes three - 3 mouse clicks! It is a sampler for the same systems (XP/VISTA/WIN7/MAC OSX). Same “problem” of previous installed samles, and different versions of SampleTank. If IK Multimedia can, Steinberg should be able to.
This is last century programming Steinberg!
Some of the instrumentsounds are great. More variety than Kontakt 4 and better sounding than SampleTank 2 (Sampletank feels the age). As a “litte bit of evverything” sampler HALion does a decent job on instruments. Loops in HALion 4 however are very poor and not up to standards. Steinberg shold leave that to other companies.