Hey all, I am new to HALion and wondering whether samples included in instruments, for instance the Turkish Tambur preset from World Instruments, can be accessed when creating user Programs. When I go to the Sample tab, the samples for the tambur are located at vstsound://. When I click on Load/Replace Sample, I get directed to my Windows folders and cannot find these samples.
The reason I ask is because HALion includes a lot of awesome samples, but they are not easily accessible via Instruments (for World Instruments the samples are in the Program Layer so cannot be as a preset).
Another question I have is: why does the HALion Sonic Factory Content Instrument not have a Macro page in HALion 6? In HALion Sonic I am able to change the instrument/sound in the Edit Layer page, but not in HALion 6.
You can make new instrument presets that use locked layers. You could also package such presets in new VSTSound Libraries and they will ‘reference’ the original content. If you intend to share them, the target system also has to have the required original libraries containing the layers installed and the corresponding elisencer key for the original content as well.
Quite a few locked layers have been saved independently and can be browsed with the H6 and Sonic instrument browser (see the icon to filter and show only layers), but you can also borrow layers from complete instrument presets. I.E. Saving a layer (or copy and pasting) from a World Instruments preset, something from a Raven Piano preset, then mixing the two layers in a fresh new instrument preset of your own. Again, if you wish to ‘share’ the presets, your end users would require both libraries being installed, and proper Sonic or HALion eLisencer keys.
Some layers are locked so you can’t get at the samples individually deeper down in the layer (Common for the Basic, Artist, and a lot of the stuff for Sonic). In those cases, yes, you can mix and match the complete layers in your own presets, and you can even pack such presets into new libraries. Again, if you share them…say it uses something from the World Instruments library…then the recipients of your presets will also need the World Library installed and have a proper key (Full Sonic or HALion).
In cases where you can get to the samples that are packed in a VSTSound archive (More common in the H4 and before only libraries [one can get even older HALion content off the ftp site: ftp://ftp.steinberg.de/Archives]). Sometimes they might be locked so they cannot be ‘exported’ in raw sample form, or extracted and packed into new libraries. Sometimes they aren’t locked, and samples can be ‘exported’ outside the VSTsound archive to be used directly or repackaged in a new library.
For personal use, sometimes you might want to resample locked layers (setting up a MIDI track to play what you want, then instant render is a quick and easy way to get it done), and then use your track results to slice/dice/edit/trim/drag/drop directly from Cubase in HALion, and build new sounds and libraries of your own based on your ‘resampled’ versions.
In such cases where you intend to distribute something that’ll work in the free version of Sonic SE…it’d probably be wise to get permission from Steinberg before ‘distributing’ a library that uses ‘resampled’ content like this. It shouldn’t be a problem if your end instruments/libraries also require a version of HALion that comes with the original content, or in the case of making SE compatible instruments where the end results are significantly ‘different’ from the layer(s) you’ve ‘resampled’, but it’s a courtesy, and nice to get a go ahead from Stienberg on resampled instruments that can be run by people who don’t have legit ‘rights’ to use the sample(s) in question.
I.E. If you resampled some stuff that came with H6, and only share H6 presets…no problem, because H6 users will have the rights to use the sample too. If you make it also work in Sonic, and it’s an instrument/sample that comes with Sonic 3…still good. Say you want to make it compatible with Sonic SE…then the ethics of using resampled stuff might come into play, as those with the Free SE player, but don’t own Sonic, HALion, or a Stienberg host (includes Basic, Artist, and possibly other content) do NOT have a license to use said sample.
Some Sonic instruments have things that can be tweaked with Sonic’s native UI in ways very similar to what one can do in HALion. I.E. Start a fresh preset in Sonic, and build something new using the Sonic Layers. You’ll notice quite a few adjustments can be made using the Sonic UI that clearly don’t show up in Sonic SE. They don’t use scripted macros…and you can make all the same changes (and more) in HALion through its native UI. Save that same sound in Sonic as an SE preset, and then load it in SE. There you’ll notice that other than things assigned to the Quick Controls, or hard coded into the MIDI Matrix and done via CC/PC/RPN/etc, it cannot be tweaked much at all in SE, and there is no macro.
Thanks for your quick reply. I was able to find locked layers of VSTSound Libraries and load them into blank Programs. I was also able to change such a sample to a Granular Zone. Cool stuff!
The second question was not Sonic vs Sonic SE, but Sonic vs HALion. The Sonic UI does not show up in HALion.
This is true, but HALion has its own UI for tweaking all the same parameters (and more in depth at that). There are no ‘scripted macros’ in such instruments.