I purchased one instrument that happened to use Halion SE, and it has been a nightmare trying to get up and running on Mac. After jumping through a bunch of hoops to create a Steinberg account and request a download link, I was finally able to download and install Steinberg HALion Sonic SE 3. The install process gave me zero confidence that it was installed correctly, with cryptic messages and unclear instructions throughout. I had to install a myriad of other helper apps to get through the process: Steinberg Download Assistant, the Steinberg eLicenser Control Center, and the Steinberg eLicenses Installation Helper App which was needed to repair the license setup after install. After ~3 days of frustration, I was finally able to get it to play a note.
To be clear, I am generally tech savvy, have a background in software development, and have worked with audio software for both PC and Mac for >20 years. I have never had an installation experience this bizarre and difficult. Not ever, not even close.
I am now trying to get the instrument up and running in Halion SE (Baltic Shimmers from Sonic Atoms). It is installed and I can load up patches and play them, but the UI is mostly cut off. I can only see the top-left quarter, and the rest is cropped out with no way to access those controls, etc. After watching lots of tutorial videos, it seems that there is no way to manually control things and that Halion should be automatically adjusting to the correct size. It’s not.
I thought I would try and update Halion SE3 since I am running version 3.1.10 and there seems to be newer versions available. Of course, there is no easy straightforward way to download even their free software. I had to log into my account and request a download link via email which never arrived. Tried it again, nothing. Tried it again, nothing. Yes, I did look in my spam folder each time. I went back and found my original email from Steinberg, but guess what, that one takes me to a download of the old version. WTF Steinberg?
My next thought was to try the trusty Steinberg download center. After clicking it, it cranked and cranked and cranked for 10 minutes on background tasks, prompting me for my administrator credentials 7 or 8 times, only to produce a window with none of my registered products. No Halion SE download, no Baltic Shimmers, nothing.
I have no idea what to try next, and am ready to cut my losses. Just trying to load up one single instrument should not be this hard.