Editing this post to reflect a narrowed down description of the issue:
The HSSE + HSO (pro) playback template does not load instruments into halion. The HSSE (Elements) does load instruments. I have done lots of uninstalling and re-installing. Not able to find any log files that might indicate what’s going on, but I am presuming that something in the template is not where it is expected to be, so the template does not load instruments. Should I open a ticket with tech support?
I note that the pygmalion petite suite loads the halion sounds and plays back ok. Note sure if its using the hsse+hso template or just has its own stuff in the song itself.
Thanks, that did not help. I do note that when I load HSSE (Elements) template, it does load sounds into kontakt. When I load HSSE + HSO (pro) template the sounds do not load. So, I am guessing its not finding HSO where it expects to or some such.
I think the more general problem/root cause here is that the installer fails --it just quits with no message, and I need to figure out how to address that…
Either you are getting confused by the terminology, or something VERY improbable is going on. HSSE and HSO don’t use “kontakt” at all. They use the HALion sample player written by Steinberg, not the Kontakt player written by Native Instruments.
You are probably right that whatever you did when you “had some problems with HSO” is the basic problem here.
You could try uninstalling everything related to Halion, and reinstalling it. By “uninstall” I don’t just mean “delete the files” if you are running Windows - I mean “run the uninstallers that you can find in the Windows Start menu for the Steinberg products.” (I’m not a Mac user so I don’t know if there are any special procedures to uninstall Mac software).
Thanks, any mention of kontakt I meant to refer to halion. I have uninstalled and re-installed sonic as well as dorico, and the HSO product as well. No joy. As I meant to say, the HSSE (elements) template loads instruments into halion, and the HSSE + HSO (pro) does not. Should I open a support ticket with steinberg? I will edit my initial post to indicate the narrowed down question.
It certainly sounds as if Dorico can’t find the HALIon Symphonic Orchestra sounds for some reason. Take a look and see if you have files in the following (default) locations:
C:\Program Files\Steinberg\VSTPlugins\Symphonic Orchestra
%CommonProgramFiles%\Steinberg\Shared Components\HALion Sonic SE
%CommonProgramFiles%\VST3\Steinberg\Symphonic Orchestra
%ProgramData%\Steinberg\Content\Documentation
%ProgramData%\Steinberg\Content\HALion
%ProgramData%\Steinberg\Content\VST Sound
%ProgramData%\Steinberg\HALion\InstalledContent
%ProgramData%\Steinberg\HALion\LibraryInfo
%ProgramData%\Steinberg\HALion\Sub Presets
%ProgramData%\Steinberg\HALion Sonic SE\Sub Presets
%ProgramData%\Steinberg\Symphonic Orchestra
%ProgramData%\Steinberg\VST3PresetCompatibility
Then it sounds to me as if, for some reason, HSO is not installed properly. Could you please try downloading and installing “Dorico Playback 2 – Symphonic Orchestra” from Steinberg Download Assistant once more and pay special attention to the path it says it will install in at the start of the installation process?
Done. I noted that during install, the installer wanted to send ‘hso 64 bit’ to program files(x86) and I steered it to the 64 bit program files locatioon instead–so there are a couple of ‘symphonic orchestra’ items in ‘program files\steinberg\vstplugins’ now…
Still no joy on the template load, though. My sense is that it is missing one of the items mentioned in the template like a pre-set.
The symphonic orchestra is recognized as a vst by both dorico and cubase. I don’t know enough about it to really verify how it works or should work–yet…
Your help here is greatly appreciated. If there was some sort of logging of the template loader, it might indicate where things went wrong.
Playing around in halion se a bit. I am able to load an hso instrument into a halion channel, and it does play back when I put notes in the score–and it saves it and loads it back. So, this opens the door for me to go ahead and prepare a mapping for an empty project.
You don’t need to use the Symphonic Orchestra VST plug-in in Dorico: Dorico will always load the sounds directly into HSSE. In fact, I would actively discourage you from using the Symphonic Orchestra plug-in.
If you instantiate HSSE, can you load e.g. “Violin Solo Combi” by finding it in its MediaBay browser?
I more or less came to that conclusion myself on the hso vst. In halion in dorico, I am able to load the preset as you described and it plays back to the notes in the score–at a very low volume, but its there, nonetheless.
PS. I set the expression controller to main volume so the playback is normal volume now.
That’s a good sign! But if you start a new project using e.g. the “String quartet” template from the Hub window and open the HSSE instance that is automatically loaded in Play mode, it has no sounds loaded?
Hey, I really appreciate your time on this. We don’t have to solve it today. Might want to check with a programmer on this when its convenient-I feel that some sort of logging or debug mode might show where things are not happening. I don’t have an urgent need for this. I wasn’t planning on learning to make my own halion orchestral template right now, but now that this has come up, its as good a time as any for me to put my own together.
Just to give some background, I had my vi libraries in cubase moved to a different drive. I didn’t want the sample libraries on my C drive and I have a dedicated sample drive. However, just to eliminate that as a variable, when I re-installed the stuff, I let it default to the C drive just to eliminate that as a variable. But maybe there are still some things laying around that are getting the program confused.
One more thing to try so that we can get some diagnostics: please start a new project based on the “Solo piano” template, add a few notes, then save that project and do Help > Create Diagnostic Report, which will create a zip file on your desktop. Zip up the project you created and the diagnostic report and send it to my colleague Ulf, who is the audio engine expert, at u dot stoermer at steinberg dot de with a link to this thread, and I’m pretty sure he’ll have an idea what might be wrong.