Basically, what it says in the title - is having both necessary?
I recommend installing it and keeping it on all of your systems thatâll be hosting instrument plugins for a number of reasons. If you can rule these out then you donât really need it.
Sonic also serves as the âfree playerâ for many things âSteinbergâ and all things HALion. In fact, I recommend grabbing a free Dorico SE key for your My Steinberg account (even if you donât install DoricoâŚthe key would unlock Sonic player, and the basic âHALion SE/Soundâ content pack [General MIDI content plus a little]). Having that key on your account could come in handy someday to get a free HALion player with at least a General MIDI library of sounds going on multiple computers. Going through the process yourself will help you understand how to have friends get a working Sonic setup in case youâd like to share sounds and collaborate without them also needing to own full HALion.
Reasons to go ahead and install Sonic, and keep it.
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Itâs the default player for Stienberg hosts like Cubase, Nuendo, and Dorico. Having Sonic installed will help out a good deal when using the Media Bay to âauditionâ much of the content that comes with the hosts. Dorico has an option to have it make full HALion the default player, but sometimes itâs good to revert to Sonic if you know youâll be âsharing projectsâ with people who donât have full HALion.
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If youâll be making instrument libraries of your own and you want them to be compatible with the free Sonic player, youâll need it around to load, test, and make final touches to the programs/presets thatâll ultimately be packed in the library.
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For live situations it has a little different workflow than full HALion when it comes to dealing with remote MIDI program changes. There are situations that I prefer the workflow of Sonic, and vice verse. I find it nice to have both! With Sonic, you can build complete multi-instrument templates that are called up with an assignable program change.
In contrast, with H7 the obvious workflow for remotely dialing up instruments is a bit different. Instead of calling up âcomplete multi-instrumentâ templatesâ with a single PC, youâd instead build a âprogram treeâ and send individual program changes for âeach MIDI channelâ involved. While other remote workflows are certainly possible with full HALion; personally, there are plenty of live/impromptu scenarios where I save time and find it easier if I go with Sonic UI instead.
In Summary, if youâll be using HALion as a live keyboardist, youâll want to familiarize yourself with both UIs. There may well be situations where Sonic is a better fit for the job, and vice verse.
- Sonic is not very large in terms of disk space. It shares the same library/content and db files as full HALion (not multiple copies or anything). Might as well let it install and keep it around.
Reasons not to install it?
You might save a small amount of disk space. I donât think itâs enough to skimp over these days. Iâd just keep it around and only remove it âif and whenâ I end up in a situation where I need to ârecover disk spaceâ (which hasnât happened in agesâŚtoo easy and inexpensive to add more storage to the system).
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Awesome, thanks! 
do not grab anything free from steinbergâŚit will only cause you frustration later!
Iâm curious to know how Dorico SE has caused problems. Even more curious as to how simply claiming a key for it in case you need it later causes problems.
Where I had a âproblemâ was paying $21 a month for Roland Cloud Ultimate, relying on a couple of their most solid âindustry standardâ products, then one day out of the blue they decide to pull the last GM2/GS compatible plugin in the world, because it wonât work on %0.002 of the computers in the wild (Apple Macs with ARM processors and no Rossetta). It was/is fine on 99.999% of the worldâs computer systems. Now goneâŚand no obvious way to buy any kind of access to it.
If you need a General MIDI I compatible plugin, Sonic is now one of the last âmodern and supportedâ all-software-based options remaining (paid or free).
Dorico SE gets you a key thatâll unlock the âSonic Selectionâ content. If you want or need a GM reference player, itâll get the job done.
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