Updating to HALion 6 - frequently asked questions

Hi all,

Apologies for the lack of information prior to the release. We have put together a knowledge base article that covers all of your questions concerned with the updates from HALion 4 & 5 to HALion 6 and HALion Sonic 1 & 2 to HALion Sonic 3.

If you are still missing something, please let me know.

In regard to Windows 7, there will be a dedicated notification as soon as we have confirmed information.

Will the HALion 6 update replace my Hypersonic 2 license?

Hi Niles,

if you have a separate Hypersonic 2 license on your USB drive, it won’t be touched.

But HALion 6 does not cover any licenses of legacy products like HALion 5 did. You can get in touch with the support vie MySteinberg in order to get a HALion 5 Add-On license though.

If i have a HAL5 Add-On license, will it work with the new HAL 6 content, lets say in Cubase 8.5 32 Bit?
Example: Project with HAL 5 in Cubase 8.5 32 Bit.
If i update to HAL 6 there is no HAL 5 content anymore, so wtih the HAL 5 Addon License HAL 5 should work, but
i got the new HAL 6 content. Does it work?

No, the HALion 5 Add-On license does not cover the HALion 6 content.

Thats bad !
Because if i update from HAL 5 to HAL 6 and i want to work on a Cubase 8.5 32 Bit project with HAL 5, so it doesn’t work, because HAL 5 got no access to HAL 6 content!

Thats important to know!

Actually this use case does not exist since HALion 6 replaces the HALion 5 plugin. Hence you cannot have H5 and H6 on the same system. But you can get the HALion 5 Add-On license and then install HALion 5 on a separate system without interfering with HALion 6.

As a site note: Even you have HALion 5 32-bit and HALion 6 64-bit installed on one system, the HALion 6 content is not compatible with HALion 5 since HALion 5 does not support the HALion script and the wavetable oscillator.

Matthias,

From my point of view you should automatically provide licenses for all older versions upon HALion 6 purchase.

Since my purchase I’ve been caught in a trap and I cannot work. I’ve contacted support and I am still waiting for a license for HALion 5. VEP won’t replace H5 instances with H6. I need to go back and save every H5 preset one by one.

According to the update FAQ:
They will provide you with a dedicated HALion 5 Add-On license that can be used in parallel to your HALion 6. It won’t be possible on the same system though, since HALion 6 replaces the HALion 5 application.”

I do need to use HALion 5 on the same system (temporarily at least).
So, will uninstalling HALion 6 allow me to use HALion 5 on the same system ?


The lack of this important information about this “vital” issue prior to the purchase is a big mistake in my opinion. :wink:

If you need HALion 5 you will have to un-install H6 and then re-install H5. If you have already entered the activation code of the H6 update in your eLicenser Control Center and the HALion 5 license has been overwritten, you will have to wait for the HALion 5 Add-On license that will be issued by the support. Please excuse the inconvenience.

Thank you Matthias.

I’ll wait then (while exploring the scripting reference… :slight_smile: )

No I don’t have a separate Hypersonic license (apart from the modules) because the Hypersonic license was overwritten by the Halion Sonic 1 upgrade license, the Halion Sonic 1 license was overwritten by the Halion 4 upgrade license, the Halion 4 license was overwritten by the Halion 4.5 update license and the latter was overwritten by the Halion 5 update license. All the time I still could open Hypersonic with the Halion (Sonic) license so it wasn’t an issue. Now it becomes an issue because the Halion 6 license will terminate the Hypersonic license.

Will I get a license for my e-licenser to run Hypersonic on the same system where Halion 6 is installed?

Yes, the HALion 5 Add-on license covers legacy products like HALion 4 & 3 and also Hypersonic.

According to the update FAQ
“HALion 6 will replace your HALion 5 or HALion 4 plug-in installation.
After the installation of HALion 6 HALion 5 will not be available on your system.”

Will next generation HALion installer/license do same behavior like H6?
If yes, do we need migrate preset/instance files AGAIN when upgrade to next generation HALion (7,8,9…) if using VST Host which HALion installer / VST Host apps will not be replaced (e.g. VEP, other VST plugin Chainer)?

Please excuse my poor english.

Yes, all HALion generations since HALion 4 share the same plugin ID. This way the plugin of each generation can just be replaced with the latest generation and full project compatibility in DAWs is garanteed. It would be interesting to know what causes the issue in VEP.

I’m going to update to VEP 6 to see if there is any difference.

(still didn’t get “back” my H5 license)

I understand it.
Thank you so much for your support.

No difference with VE Pro 6.
I posted on their forum. We’ll see if anybody has a suggestion on that.

If VEP uses the dll name instead of the internal plugin ID you could try renaming the halion 6 dll to the name of the halion 5 dll. This should make no difference to cubase and might save you from VEP problems.
Hope this helps.

Nice idea!
I tried. Unfortunately HALion disappears from VEP when I change the name of the dll (dll + srf). Maybe there are other files to modify somewhere else.

Still no response regarding H5 license. I’m still stuck.

That should not happen. Be sure to get the right dll (see in the Vep setup what folder it is scanning) and don’t change any other names as that will probably break halion. The dll has a different name but is still halion 6. Maybe after only setting the right halion to 5 force a rescan. And it must be the exact name halion 5 had when it was used by VEP.