Opinions on HALion. Also, HALion vs Kontakt?

Virtual instruments HALion
1

Just upgraded to Cubase 10.5 Pro from 9 last night and I was considering switching to HALion over Kontakt. I am still using my version of Kontakt from 2014 which I believe is 5. I’ve trended away from using samples but I’d like to get back into it for compositional purposes. I’d rarely have a sample that I didn’t create myself make it to a final mix so HALion’s apparent lack of sound libraries isn’t of terrible concern to me.

I’m having a hell of a time trying to reinstall Kontakt/Komplete without a disc drive and thought it would be nice to have an integrated, purely Steinberg workflow with Cubase and HALion.

If I’m not mistaken, apparently Cubase 10.5 Pro comes with HALion SE. How capable is the neutered version?

2

It’s Halion Sonc SE, that’s included, not Halion.

Halion is the sampler, Halion Sonic is more of a synth/sample player. The SE version is meant for premade libraries, and over the past couple years there have been many new additions, both from Steinberg and 3rd party artists.

I think Halion has a trial you can download and use for a month. It’s a very deep product, and provides the means to create libraries of your own.

I own Kontakt 5 for use with certain libraries that require it, but I won’t be buying anything else that requires it.