I’m working on an xml import for chamber ensemble and the Halion SE mixer has two instances of the Yamaha piano. I don’t know what they’re doing there as piano is not in the score. I’ve looked for ways to delete them and have tried reloading the template which helped with other instruments but the piano is still there. What to do?
p.s. I can’t seem to get a crotales sound, it plays back as the piano.
These two facts are almost certainly connected: there’s no crotales sound, so Dorico has fallen back on using a piano sound.
is it available as a midi sound?
Actually in the Halion mixer it’s listed and does playback, and it’s listed under the instrument in playback.
Dear Richard,
Could you attach a minimum example file that exhibits that behavior? Or some pictures of your play mode settings?
Here’s a Crotale Sound for HALion SE 3. You get 2 Octaves from C6 - C8. Each crotale can be tuned independently.
Download UI_001_Crotales.vstsound
It is based on samples available from University of Iowa Electronic Music Studios
It’s my first time trying to pack one of these to share, so hopefully it will work. Simply download it then double click the vstsound file once you get it. It should then open your “Steinberg Library Manager” where you can choose how and where on your system to install it.
Brian: thanks for that info. I downloaded it, double clicked and the apps dialog opened but no Steinberg Library Manager" was found and the windows search box didn’t turn anything up nor did a search of Steinberg program files folder turn up anything. Would like to be able to use this tho.
You can get a fresh Sonic SE installer that should make sure HALion Sonic SE is present and up to date. The key you get via email is optional if you’ve got a Dorico key on the target system already.
Brian: thanks for all your help with this. I had thought that Halion 3 had uploaded as part of upgrading to 2.2. I did download it and it fixed the problem of adding the crotales to the proper folder. Now it shows up in setup mode, shows up and plays back in the halion mixer when I select one of the piano keys for it, shows up in play mode, and shows up in galley view as being on the correct stave, but still doesn’t play back. Any thoughts?
It’s only got a 2 octave range…from C6-C8. So far I’ve only got the ff samples in there as well (will revisit it someday and add another velocity layer).
On my 61key controller that means I have to bump it a few octaves to reach the notes in the right hand. On an 88 key controller that’s pretty far to the right.
Sometimes I get the octaves mixed up since it seems like every other brand (Yamaha, Roland, Korg, etc.) does it a little differently. Try some different octaves…I think Dorico can ‘transpose’ a stave if you need it to play in a different octave from what shows on the page. Let me know if I have maybe put the Crotle samples on the wrong octaves of the keyboard…I threw it together pretty quickly and intended to put them on the actual octave that they ‘sound’, but I might have messed up.
I’m going to add crotales as a new player then copy existing music over and then delete old player and see if that helps. I’ve played around with different octave transpositions but still no sound so I’ll see what happens and let you know.
I loaded it and checked things out in stand alone mode.
I’ll try it with a score in Dorico later, but things seem to be in order here. I’ll have to read up on how Crotles should be notated…what sort of staff and what octave, etc. I’m ‘guessing’ that they probably write it on the score down a few octaves than it actually sounds…because who wants to look at all those added lines right?
I.E. I can play it with my MIDI Controller keyboard. I can shift the triggering octave here in HALion itself if desired (as opposed to building a special Dorico Stave, or making a transposing expression map).
I can transpose the instrument to different octaves and such using the “Octave” knob (upper right hand corner of the Edit Macro). Note that using the Octave knob doesn’t change the pitch center, it just shifts the acceptable MIDI trigger notes. So, if I wanted to trigger the Crotales with notes C5 - C7 instead, I could bump the “Octave” knob up to 1. From C4-C6, bump it to 2, and so forth. To slide it to the right on the keyboard, I"d do the opposite, and use ‘negative’ Octave settings.
I also set things up so one could retune each individual Crotale if desired/needed (it’s actually why I don’t have but one velocity layer at this time…still gotta figure out how to drive two layers at once with a single macro control). Sometimes we want them to be a little dissonant, or need to work with alternate tunings, etc.
Here you can see where I’ve shifted everything so it will sound by playing keys from middle C3 to C5.
I’m thinking you’ll end up with some options on how to work this.
A. Teach Dorico to have a transposing stave.
B. Have this instrument transpose itself using the octave and/or Coarse knobs.
Be aware that you can save your own user presets in HALion of any tweaks you might make so they are easy to call up and resuse in the future.
If I’m not mistaken, off the top of my head the transposition is 2 8va higher than written.