Content Libraries that you purchase from Steinberg (I.E. Iconica, Dark Planet, HALion Symphonic Orchestra, etc.) will work in a free HALion player called “HALion Sonic 7” in any host that supports 64bit VST3, AU, or AAX plugins. Sonic 7 can also run in a stand alone application mode. It is not required to own full HALion 7, or “Collection” to purchase and use these dedicated HALion libraries.
For hosts that only support VST2, one would require an older version of the free HALion Sonic 3 SE player, or to set up HALion/Sonic 7 through some sort of third party VST2<>VST3 bridge.
You can find a full overview of the HALion tiers here:
HALion: VST Sampler & Sound Design System | Steinberg
My Summary:
Sonic 7 can be downloaded and used for free, but the free version does not ship with any sounds/instruments beyond a few basic ‘initialized’ synths. Quite a few Steinberg hosts (some free, like Dorico SE) do ship with various content libraries.
There are also products called “HALion Sonic 7 Collection”, and “HALion 7”. Both variants come with a lot of Content Libraries.
HALion 7 is the most fully featured flag ship product. It comes with all of the “Collection” content, but also provides all of the power user tools to make your own instruments from the ground up, as well as the ability to make scripts, macro editors, and everything you need to ‘package’ your own custom libraries. H7 grants access to a plethora of sampling and synth engines. You can pull in your own custom waveforms and wavetables. There are even some obscure features like pulling samples from old Akai or Roland sample disks (if you make an ISO first and register it properly). Other perks to H7 include support for up to 64 MIDI/VST channels over 4 unique ports/inputs, and customizable program tables (of interest to live/gigging players).
Sonic 7 Collection Is essentially the free Sonic player, but it comes with a long list of content libraries (Same ones that come with full HALion 7).
If you have a Steinberg Host such as Cubase, Nuendo, or Dorico, then you should already be familiar with Sonic. Such hosts all ship with it, and typically come with some Content Libraries as well. At a minimum you will usually get a full General MIDI set of instruments, and most hosts also come with a bit more.
If you have never used a Steinberg product in your life, and would simply like to have a look around then I suggest the following route to check it out.
-
Grab Dorico SE. This is free, and it includes Sonic 7. The Dorico SE key also unlocks Sonic on the same system, and a set of General MIDI compliant sounds plus a little extra.
-
Once you have Dorico SE and the included version of Sonic installed and properly ‘activated’ you should find that in addition to exploring Sonic through Dorico; that, any other hosts on your system that support VST3/AU/AAX will also be able to access Sonic and its registered instruments.
Some extra free sounds and libraries do exist for HALion/Sonic at the following links (and you can probably find more with your own web searches).
Virtual Instruments & Sample Libraries | Steinberg
Free Sound Banks & Virtual Instruments for HALion | VST Warehouse
Latest user-content topics in HALion - Steinberg Forums
You’ll also be able to launch Sonic in stand alone mode if you’d simply like to browse and play sounds, or run some standard MIDI files through its built in player. (Sonic can be put into a General MIDI mode in the OPTIONS tab).
After putting Sonic into GM mode, you’ll find that Sonic automatically loads some EFFECTS on AUX FX1 (Hall Reverb) and AUX FX3 (Chorus). Sonic will also accept RPN events for the basics like tuning, pitch bend range per channel, etc.
While Sonic doesn’t accept GS,XG,GM2 style sysex events to choose/manipulate effect setups, you can manually set them up as you like here in the Sonic UI, and save your favorite configurations a number of ways (effect presets, or save the entire Sonic instance as a ‘multi program’. Also, in a true VST DAW all of this stuff can be ‘automated’ via VST lanes. You can also have Sonic controls ‘learn’ CC events and automate things via MIDI).
As per the GM2 protocol, each of the 16 MIDI channels can ‘share’ these ‘reverb and chorus’ effects via ‘aux sends’ from each instrument slot using CC91 for Reverb, and CC93 for chorus.
At this point you have a respectable reference player for Standard General MIDI files (Better than the GS MIDI player that ships with Windows, and easily on par or superior to products like the classic Yamaha S-YXG plugins, or Roland Sound Canvas GS plugins) that conform to GM or GM2 standards (minus the sysex stuff, or extended program banks…rather than having GS/XG/GM2 banks, you’d ‘number and rate’ replacement sounds if you want/need them), with the ‘Standard Drum Kit’ being forced on Channel 10. If you want a different Drum Kit locked in then you’ll need to rate the preferred kit with more stars in the media browser.
From here, the question is do you want to buy the “Collection” of sounds?
Do you want the full sound crafting and editing abilities of HALion 7?
To answer this question, the best thing to do is apply for a Demo Key for Full HALion 7 and try it out yourself! The HALion 7 demo will allow you to try the content through both players (Sonic and HALion).
If you like the sound of Yamaha MOTIF keyboards, and want a big box of easy to use/mix sounds, to me it’s worth it. If you want a good bread and butter platform that covers many ‘eras and genres’ for playing live on stage for doing quick and easy demo tracks, the content is quite nice. Loads of pianos, organs, legendary synth leads/pads, some stashes of more ‘modern sounds [Granular/Wavetable]’ and more.
For orchestral stuff, it’s fine for testing arrangements or laying simple background beds or establishing easy to mix ‘symphonic like sonic textures’, but if you’re looking for huge sample sets with loads of round robin style variance and loads of hot-switching articulation choices…the HALion Collection won’t help you much there…Iconica or other ‘orchestral suites’ might be a better investment.