Is HALion 7 just a myth?

It’s the same cost to update from from H6 to H7 as it is to update from Absolute 5 to 6, at least. I’d rather this option than have to wait another 6-9 months for Absolute life cycle to come around again so I could get H7 and go dongle-less.

Does seem a bit sucky to be paying for the new licensing, however - That’s my primary reason to update… But i’ll see what the FM synthesis is like later when i’ve finished work… I really like the montage so doubt I will be disappointed.

It’s mad that you can buy, download and use it yet there’s no announcement here though!

100% this, for me.

$99 just to move it off the dongle. Absolute 6 doesn’t really offer much value and if you already have FM8 the FM Lab isn’t really giving you something you don’t already have.

I do like some of the UI improvements. new Media Bay looks nice. Wish it didn’t require another bloatware installation on my computers, though. I’m guessing that will come to Cubase soon…

I stopped using HALion when i started traveling more and avoiding the dongles in my laptop.

I might wait to see if it gets more ecosystem traction. If not ill prolly abandon it.

I didn’t feel the urge to impulse buy, though…

Do HALion Sonic 3, SE, HALion 6 remain on your system or does HALion 7 overwrite everything. I’ve been burned in the past by other software, new versions over write the previous version.

I did not find anything that says HALion versions can be run side by side and since HALion SE is replaced, I would like to know if SE will remain or if it gets removed.

Has anyone update from Absolute 5 to 6 yet?

Yes I finally managed to upgrade to Absolute 6. HALion 7 will not overwrite everything. HS7 is separate program.

HALion 6 and HALion Sonic 6 replaced by HALion 7 and HALion Sonic 7.
HALion Sonic SE 3.3.0 standalone is still available, but not visible anymore inside Cubase VST Plug-in Manager

There are now 3 HALions:
HALion 7, HALion Sonic 7 Collection and HALIon Sonic 7. You can comper editions here:

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Thank you for the feedback. I’ll probably update later.

Totally onboard with this. I was hoping for more for a version jump. Yikes!

Amadeus e.d.p.

Wow…to be honest…I’m a little underwhelmed? I just expected more. I wouldn’t update at ALL but my Mac Studio and Logic don’t like V6. This was a long wait for so little.

Amadeus e.d.p.

SE has been replaced by Halion Sonic 7. Mine’s gone from the Download Assistant, and Im downloading Sonic 7 now… I couldn’t really decipher from the comparison on the website whether this new version is more of a ‘lite’ Halion or just a player like Sonic SE was so might as well check it out…

For now I’ve just clicked to my old Default Layout (which was preserved) since I know my way around it.

Liking what I see thus far and all I’ve done is browse some of the new sounds.

(Tails Guitar at the moment)

I’ve piddled with Acoustic Guitar Libraries that cost as much as this upgrade and don’t sound a lick better.

Only a few minutes into it…

Here’s my thinking on HALion upgrade value. While it’s true they don’t come out very often…when they do have a release it’s pretty significant what all is added (might not be stuff of interest to all users, but once one digs in, it tends to a good bit of very complicated/intricate details…LUA and UI/Macro tools for users alone in the last round was HUGE).

It’s been what…five years since I paid a cent to update/upgrade HALion. This comes out at $99USD on the day of release (sales and such for considerable discount usually happen for those willing to wait some months).

Contrast this with other products. They might have more regular upgrades that pipe in a few new features at a time, but by now, how much would you have spent on 5 years worth of upgrades for those products? Quite likely…way more than $99.

With all the other stuff that is constantly hitting me up $50 or more every year (or worse, monthly subscriptions)…I’m kind of glad HALion isn’t on the list of stuff I’m constantly having to shell out money to keep up to date and working.

I did notice with both H5 and H6, that the HALion team was quite good at knocking out bugs and doing service releases at no charge. If you find a real bug, and send them a proper report to reproduce it and all, the HALion team has been pretty darn good about having it fixed in my experience (found a few myself over the years, and they DID get fixed…usually within’ a quarter…and when people found ‘show stopper’ bugs…well…they didn’t waste time gettiing out a service update [less than a month for a public release to fix it]).

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Great work for me, special thanks to new FM management to Steinberg.
Time to test and use now.

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Couldn’t resist . ALL Dx algo’s , ALL rom banks , the interface is snappy and looks cleaner , the way you can now modulate by just grabbing the the source and placing it on the destination is brilliant , the way to adjust the depth of the lfo’s is a great feature , there’s quite a few tweaks that haven’t been mentioned but after an hour im pretty happy with the update .

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5 posts were split to a new topic: About the New Halion

Basically. HALion Sonic 7 is equivalent to what people would have expected HALion Sonic 4 to be at this release, and SE users get a free upgrade to the Sonic 7 player instrument (which also functions as a subtractive synth). More FX and some other nice convenience features.

I’m a bit curious about how seamless this works with Dorico Pro 4, though.

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How many new presets are included (minus the FM presets?). Is there more sample content (minus the guitar?). I think I had my expectations WAAAAAAY up in the clouds and so I’m experiencing reality right now.

It just seems to me HALion could have been taken so much further for how long it took to do a version 6 to version 7 update. UVI’s free updates to Falcon have more features added then this entire update.

Well at least we have the dongle gone and FM finally. Wish we had VL, FDSP and ANX engines as well! DANG I wanted soooooo MUCH MORE!!!

Amadeus e.d.p.

Have you watched all the HALion 7 videos with Dom Sigalas on Steinberg’s VST Instruments & Plug-Ins YouTube channel? There are a lot of workflow improvements in HALion 7, especially the new MediaBay. The new modulation and envelope options open up new possibilities. There are significant improvements in the wavetable and spectral functions.

HALion 7 is rather deeper than HALion 6 plus FM, the Tales guitar and a coat of paint.

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Does Dorico behave the same as Cubase and Nuendo? It uses the same audio engine, after all.

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Not saying it’s not a decent release. I’m just saying that for THAT many years…I was somehow thinking they were gonna do some BIG things. Like give us a Motif ES soundest included. Improve the VA Engine. Improve the Virtual Organ. Give us double the sample content. Etc. Etc.

Again, not trashing on H7. I just PERSONALLY thought it was gonna knock it out the park.

Amadeus e.d.p.

That’s the only thing that is disappointing to me, too. The core HALion sound content is quite out-dated and there’s nothing else new like that. I was hoping for a new HALion 7 section that had some new/improved bread and butter sounds.

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