sell me on Halion for sound design and building your library

Virtual instruments HALion
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I just now found out there is a sound design forum. Some details about my objectives and eccentric methods; bear with me.

So some time ago I was pretty heavily into experimental sound design for use in my own music. I was using Cubase SX3, and all my design was/is manipulated audio. At the time I created a folder system on my hard drive to manually drag and drop what I wanted into projects. If I made changes to a sound I would then export it to my folders.

I did not have a sampler of any sort and didn’t really need one for the way I was working at the time. I never have owned a hardware sampler either. However I had just purchased Halion 3.X and was trying to wrap my head around it before life rudely interrupted and I never got a chance to use it.

So now Im back in the saddle, have Artist 8.5 and at this point I have too many sounds to organize and access with the primitive method I had used before. If I can get an upgrade to the newest HALion. Im assuming everything I list below is within the capacities of Halion.

I want to be able to import all my created audio sounds into a library, and be searchable, preferably by more than one “tag”.
I’d like to be able to change the sound within a project and if I decide the changed version should be a new sound then I can add it to the library.
I’d like to be able to store a grouping of sounds I like to use together.

Here is where I am confused about whether a sampler is what I actually need: Because I am so accustomed to physically placing the audio into a project, as opposed to triggering it with a keystroke, Im having a hard time picturing what I will be looking at in a project overview window. The SX version of Cubase did not have VST tracks, as I recall I had to use a MIDI track and a VST wrapper to use VST instruments. But I digress.

Would I be using a sampler track and importing from Halion into it as an option?

BTW, broad stroke answers are fine here. I am searching tutorials and answers to these questions, but I’d love direct user feedback.

2

Hmmm. Is my question too general?

Specifically for storing and accessing and loading your own created bits of SFX audio, is Halion a good choice? Anyone using it this way?

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Here is where I am confused about whether a sampler is what I actually need: Because I am so accustomed to physically placing the audio into a project, as opposed to triggering it with a keystroke, Im having a hard time picturing what I will be looking at in a project overview window. The SX version of Cubase did not have VST tracks, as I recall I had to use a MIDI track and a VST wrapper to use VST instruments. But I digress.

Well, it’s up to you to decide whether you need a sampler or not. If you prefer working purely with samples in project window then you would be better off buying sample packs instead of sampler.

But I suggest to download trial and find out for yourself.

Yes, you can point it to your sample folders so that they will be accessible from Halion, you can categorize and tag them as you wish so you can quickly find them. Halion is great sound design tool but you would be creating an instrument which will be be triggered by midi as opposed to working directly with audio files in project window.

Would I be using a sampler track and importing from Halion into it as an option?

Exactly the other way around. You can import from sampler track into Halion.

I want to be able to import all my created audio sounds into a library, and be searchable, preferably by more than one “tag”.
I’d like to be able to change the sound within a project and if I decide the changed version should be a new sound then I can add it to the library.
I’d like to be able to store a grouping of sounds I like to use together.

You can do most of it using Cubase MediaBay

4

Yes, you can point it to your sample folders so that they will be accessible from Halion, you can categorize and tag them as you wish so you can quickly find them. Halion is great sound design tool but you would be creating an instrument which will be be triggered by midi as opposed to working directly with audio files in project window.

Would I be able to create an “instrument” with different sounds for different keys of the keyboard? I know this is exactly what a sampler is supposed to be able to do, in part, but most demos show the more common usage to automatically assigning the one sound (lets say is thunder) across the keyboard, transposed etc. So rather than creating the instrument “thunder” it would be “nature sounds” with maybe 64 different nature sounds assigned as one sound per key.
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Would I be using a sampler track and importing from Halion into it as an option?

[quote}Exactly the other way around. You can import from sampler track into Halion.

OK got it.



You can do most of it using Cubase MediaBay

So that is what I am wondering about. I tried posting on the Cubase forum to see if any sound designers were using Cubase to see if Media Bay was being used in this way and I got no response.

You said “most” of the three things I want to do I can do in Media Bay. Which of the three is the one it cant do?

Thanks for your reply!

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Hey,

I want to be able to import all my created audio sounds into a library, and be searchable, preferably by more than one “tag”.

—) You just need the mediabay in cubase for this. There is a tag editor in mediabay, you can filter in many ways, mediabay will scan any changes on your harddrive and keep track of their location if that changes for a reason. So you don’t need to import anything. You can organize them on the harddrive.

A sampler opens up a ton of new possibilities, but it’s up to you to decide if this is what you need as a workflow.
You can indeed make a library, programs, multi’s, tagging, etc… in halion and program them in a keyboard style layout and you could consider the programs or multis as packages of your samples that you want to use together as “sets” of samples. As misohoza says… that’s what a sampler is doing. But there is a learning curve that you should take into account. In essence, unless you will be making libraries, any sampler is only referring to the location of your samples on your harddrive, just like the mediabay does. So you don’t need a sampler for your first question.
I’d like to be able to change the sound within a project and if I decide the changed version should be a new sound then I can add it to the library.

—) A bit of the same as above. The difference between a library and (just) samples on your harddrive is the reason of a library’s existence. With a library you want to exchange sounds from place A to place B, or person 1 to person B. It’s a package that is being transferred, and in the end it also sits on your harddrive from where you, or the mediabay, or the sampler, or anything else is going to read it. On the other hand your samples will be on the same drive too, organized in any way you want to have it. So for this question you do not need a sampler, but you can use it for those things.

Maybe the sampler track in the new cubase 9 and further is for you a good “something in the middle” between a sampler and samples in an audio track.

When you change a sample, samplecontent or with efx, cubase is not going to change the original sample, but it will make a copy of it and store it in the audio folder on the location where you save your cubase file. That should be something to remember. That will not be the case when you use a sampler. A change in a sampler will change the content of the original file unless you save it under a differend name or it is a different file from start. (eg. exchange a sample within a program)

I’d like to be able to store a grouping of sounds I like to use together.

—) Same as above. Mediabay: yes you can, sampler: yes you can, sampler track: no you can not, but cubase can do multiple sample tracks, and saves it to your cubasefile.

FWIW
kind regards,
R.

6

Thanks to both of you for your responses. Great points and now it all makes a lot more sense.

I found a video tutorial series (kind of summary but still rather helpful) on Halion which featured using foley to make samples, and pretty much what I got out of it was a sampler would be great to have, and I am going to need one, but specifically for my purpose as described I really am just going to have to create a library and make media bay work. Everything I make is for my own personal use anyway, at this point at least.