These 2 instruments are in totally different categories in my opinion. Halion 7 is a synthesis “World”…where Sampletank is much less flexible.
Halion can simply put down unlimited synthesis power that Sampletank cannot. There is no VA, wavetable, FM…on and on. It’s all samples…cause it’s a tank of 'em!
You do get some access to ADSR type stuff. Filter types. Etc. But it’s very locked. I would not call it a sound designers’s platform of choice.
Plus on my system…it’s super unstable! POOFS GALORE in Logic X. Just playing the thing and all of a sudden you’re looking at your wallpaper like a dork.
The download manager has been a super big hassle. Downloads not completing. Over and over. They updated it. It’s a little better…but still a very terrible experience in my opinion. Steinberg’s download manager always delivers…even though it looks Prince “Little Red Corvette” era in its graphics style.
The effects. This is one of its powers. It has the T-Racks effects built in! If you haven’t used their effects before…you are truly missing out. T-Racks has some of the best DSP on the market. The effects sound very very similar but not as “clear” as if you used them outside the VST.
The LIBRARY: They did an excellent job! Lots of variation sound design. What is that? Preset with no reverb. Same preset with reverb. Same preset with reverb and distortion. On…and on. Halion has a lot of this too. I wish sound designers would knock off padding their numbers.
But overall…the library is an EXCELLENT bread and butter workhorse. The keys, strings, bases and horns are better than Halions by a measure. A little dark sounding…and some bass issues in the core samples…but not bad at all!
I got the super package for like $50 bucks and if you own Halion I would suggest you pick it up. Sample that stuff into Halion and make some magic! Woot woot!
Blockquote 640 GB (SampleTank 4 MAX) of hard drive space
If you want emulations of old school synths, better off waiting for a few weeks and picking up Arturia’s bundle.
I had ST 4 Max, bought in the everything max bundle (which I bought solely for the B3 /Leslie bundle) - it was a waste of space. And time.
Even $50 is too much.
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I am a big SampleTank user and fan of the product. I would probably compare Halion more to something like UVI Falcon than ST. That being said, ST is a mature product and you can get a lot of mileage out of it depending on what you are looking for.
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Greetings GS,
I got the Arturia bundle already! I think it’s one of the slightly older versions…but to my ears…the sounds are not analog at all. Getting past that “VST” sound requires some clever programming.
The other thing is that the Aurturia stuff is musically off the mark out the box. You can literally go dozens of presets until you hit something you can actually use in a song.
Lots of R2D2 noises and stuff like that. I guess people like those types of sounds. I prefer something newer.
Totally agree nitra. I think that’s why Sample Tank is a good fill in for BOTH of these synths. They both are mega powerful, with awful sound design and dated effects.
The one area that IK nailed it is in the Keys. Their keys that come with Sample Tank 4 Max sound better than the stand alone UVI Keyboard bundle by quite a lot. UVI’s sampling is just off or something. Love the company. The sounds are not that great.
In fact…if IK could add some synth engines (VA, Wavetable, FM, Virtual Acoustic (for you Yamaha EX5 lovers out there)…they could be formidable.
In comparison to Halion 7:
FOR: Superior Library, Superior Effects, Much bigger variety of sounds, better bread and butter sounds. Much better piano, strings and keyboards. Better bass.
Against: No ability to go outside it’s limited 2 tone/synth/sample engines or however you want to put it. You can’t do a sound with 15 layers. I mean you could use it in Multi-Mode but it’s a chore.
Poor interface. Poor download experience. Download manager need to be redone. Stuck using samples. Lots of library “stuffing” to get 10 different sounds out of the same preset. Poor user preset system. Nobody touches Halion’s Media bay. It’s the best in the game. Super limited sound design. Super limited.
Overall, it’s probably what you people who need a Yamaha Motif ES level set of bread and butter that Halion sorely lacks.
Here is to hoping and PRAYING they give us a new library with some better effects.
What I like about ST is that its fairly straight forward to use. As long as you understand a bit about samples and synthesis and how to tweak it, you can get good results.
Very cool! How are you using it specifically? As a bread and butter romper or are you deep diving its synthesis capabilities?
It seems very strange to limit it so much. The samples are of pretty high quality, but there is a LOT of dated stuff in there as well.
But for $50 bucks? There literally is no better deal on the market right now.