# Why is Halion 6 not beating Kontakt?



## olmerk (Feb 20, 2021)

I’ve plunged into studying Halion 6 capabilities and I’m finding some of them are really cool, more convenient and advanced comparing to Kontakt. So what is the trick? Why is Halion 6 not beating Kontakt? Maybe there are some serious limitations, which stop developers from shifting to Halion? Would appreciate reviews of those who is familiar with Halion. Thanks!


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## KarlHeinz (Feb 20, 2021)

For me simple answer: steinberg dongle licensing drives me mad evrytime, had spent so many hours with this b...... instead of making music, I have lots of great Halion sonic libraries from sample fuel for example but I just dont touch them anymore cause of this. Evry update of the libraries is a pain, license is only for ONE installation and so on, endless.....

Now on the road with a notebook ? Just forget it, if you dont have that dongle b...... for cubase anyway (and I dont) that is just a mess. With native access evrything fine, wherever you are, licenses just there or could be installed easyly, none of that b.......

I am not a fan of NI anyway, but same goes for best service engine (same: no fan), but this all simply WORKS, for me the Steinberg/Halion stuff simply dont.


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## d.healey (Feb 20, 2021)

I'm pretty sure that Halion was (until I don't know when) only available inside Cubase, so Kontakt had a big advantage for many years by being available for non-Cubase users.


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## Crossroads (Feb 20, 2021)

Answer this question: if you were developing a sample library to be sold to costumers, which platform would have the most costumers and therefore a much larger pool of potential buyers?

That's the one you develop for. And that's why that one gets and stays bigger.


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## Markrs (Feb 20, 2021)

I have been tempted to buy Hallion 6 multiple times as a crossgrade during their half-price sales, but was always put off by the lack of community and tutorials. The only payed library I have that was buit in Halion 6 is Baltic Shimmers (works in Halion SE) and I really like it, more so than the Omnishpere version.


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## Trash Panda (Feb 20, 2021)

Crossroads said:


> Answer this question: if you were developing a sample library to be sold to *costumers*, which platform would have the most *costumers* and therefore a much larger pool of potential buyers?
> 
> That's the one you develop for. And that's why that one gets and stays bigger.


When did this become a cosplay forum?


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## Reid Rosefelt (Feb 20, 2021)

Crossroads said:


> Answer this question: if you were developing a sample library to be sold to costumers, which platform would have the most costumers and therefore a much larger pool of potential buyers?
> 
> That's the one you develop for. And that's why that one gets and stays bigger.



What is starting to happen is that some companies like Cinematique, Sonuscore, and Soundiron are dribbling out libraries for HALion AND Kontakt. But there are only a handful of instruments so far. It's a droplet in the Kontakt ocean. It would take decades of this to make HALion be as successful as, for example, Falcon. Forget about catching Kontakt. That's not going to ever happen.

The big problem is that most of the instruments that come bundled with HALion are not on the level with what's available with Kontakt. If they were seriously interested in breaking through, they would put some things from Iconica and their excellent electric bass library in. They have to either hire top people to sample for them or BUY libraries from other companies. Don't offer them as paid soundware, there has to be quality inside the bundle that comes when you buy HALION. A reasonable amount of high-quality content would push HALion over the top, because it is such a great sampler and has so much to offer without that.

Also, they should make more flex phrases, but according to Steinberg's Greg Ondo, that is something that is not going to happen. It broke my heart to hear him say that. I love the Flex Phrasers and made a video about them. The Flex Phrases are something that no instrument has except for the hardware Montage and Motif. If they would create some flex phrasers for modern musical genres, they would sell a ton of copies of HALion. They have one of the best cars in the world, but don't want to make gas. There is zero interest on their part. They are following this path of signing up a handful of instruments, which isn't going to put HALion over the top.

Any instrument, bundled or third-party, is supercharged when you load it into HALion because of the FlexPhrases. If they upped their game with more FlexPhrases, they would interest a lot more of the top third-party people to get involved. Show them how their libraries would be transformed. Demonstrate it in videos.

Sadly, I think that Yamaha/Steinberg doesn't know what to do with HALion. As they can't figure it out, they are treating it like inMusic treats AIR and SONiVOX. They just have sales where they devalue it by basically giving it away. That creates a permanent dead end. This is ridiculous when they have such obvious, easy paths to make it an instrument that people would happily pay full price for.

I agree with @olmerk The potential is enormous.

Anyway HALion is not in competition with Kontakt. It is much more comparable to UVI's Falcon. And Falcon kicks its ass in the content department.


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## EvilDragon (Feb 21, 2021)

Couple of things spring to mind, in no special order:

* no background loading
* no lossless audio compression
* dongle
* while the GUI is quite a lot more flexible (freely dock/tab whatever, create workspaces), things are still overall quite tiny, here's an example:




* Steinberg is just not pushing it in the market, seems like they aren't even interested in competing directly with Kontakt


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## Reid Rosefelt (Feb 21, 2021)

EvilDragon said:


> Couple of things spring to mind, in no special order:
> 
> * no background loading
> * no lossless audio compression
> ...


I would describe HALion as powerful, but not intuitive. There is a steep learning curve, particularly if you are used to Kontakt.


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## Geoff Grace (Feb 21, 2021)

Steinberg is first and foremost a DAW company, while Native Intruments is exactly what their name implies—a developer of virtual instruments that run natively on you computer. Given this, I'm not surprised that NI has devoted more energy to the success of the Kontakt platform than Steinberg has with HALion. 

Best,

Geoff


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## Robo Rivard (Feb 21, 2021)

I bought HALion 1, 2, 3, and then Steinberg dropped ME. I had to jump in the Kontakt 2 bandwagon, and it's been a good ride so far. No turning back.


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## fuztec25 (Mar 2, 2021)

2 cents for HALion... Seamless patch switching and very good filters built-in. Indeed, all your considerations are correct. The learning curve is a bit steepy but once mastered is definitely a great piece of software. Please Steinberg, bigger chars and more support!!!


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## KarlHeinz (Mar 4, 2021)

If the rumours are true and Steinberg is really becoming dongle-free that would mix the cards new I would think. If I imagine I wont have to worry more about licensing then using Halion comparable to Kontakt, wow, Sample fuel libs here we go again  . Same with Pad shop stuff.....


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## Alchemedia (Mar 4, 2021)

I haven't touched HALion since I got Falcon.


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## mscp (Mar 5, 2021)

Alchemedia said:


> I haven't touched HALion since I got Falcon.


I like Halion because it makes use of several cores - which is very welcoming when dealing with Granular synthesis - unlike UVI Falcon.


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## Alchemedia (Mar 5, 2021)

HALion does have an edge in that respect.


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## Crossroads (Mar 6, 2021)

Alchemedia said:


> HALion does have an edge in that respect.


Halion does also of course have a huge edge when using Cubase. The integration is quite astonishing.

In case somebody wonders, Steinberg have the full package when it comes to DAW/Instruments/Samples and they are a leader in that regard. Now DAW manufacturer comes close.


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## creativeforge (Mar 6, 2021)

EvilDragon said:


> Couple of things spring to mind, in no special order:
> 
> * no background loading
> * no lossless audio compression
> ...


I find the GUI to be an issue as well. Seems like there's a problem for Steinberg's coders to think in terms of workflow. BTW, I'm similarly having issues with PadShop Pro, Reaper, Unify, etc. I need intuitive layout for a better workflow. And having to learn how to navigate (and remember) proprietary GUIs when I don't use them all every day... bit of a hassle in my case.


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## penfever (Mar 6, 2021)

If a sampler has a mediocre/poor built in library, and almost no third party support, then what IS it good for?


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## Alchemedia (Mar 6, 2021)

penfever said:


> If a sampler has a mediocre/poor built in library, and almost no third party support, then what IS it good for?


Sampling perhaps?


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## Pier (Mar 6, 2021)

Alchemedia said:


> Sampling perhaps?


Yeah but to be fair, 99% of Halion/Kontakt users aren't doing that.

Very few people have all the resources needed to make a sample library: time, recording space and gear, musicians, mixing skills, etc.


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## Alchemedia (Mar 7, 2021)

Pier said:


> Yeah but to be fair, 99% of Halion/Kontakt users aren't doing that.
> 
> Very few people have all the resources needed to make a sample library: time, recording space and gear, musicians, mixing skills, etc.


That's true, although sampling is really HALion's best feature.


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## Crossroads (Mar 7, 2021)

creativeforge said:


> I find the GUI to be an issue as well. Seems like there's a problem for Steinberg's coders to think in terms of workflow. BTW, I'm similarly having issues with PadShop Pro, Reaper, Unify, etc. I need intuitive layout for a better workflow. And having to learn how to navigate (and remember) proprietary GUIs when I don't use them all every day... bit of a hassle in my case.


Actually this is why I wanted to go all-in on the Absolute Collection with Groove Agent, Halion and Halion Sonic. To unify my synthesizer, electronic workflow with Cubase. Also, because the mediabay is superpowerful and I want that to be the center of my workflow as well, and these instruments work with that.


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## Publius (Mar 7, 2021)

Too expensive, too few libraries and a counter-intuitive gui. By not addressing the gui, steinberg is telling me they dont take halion any more seriously than most consumers. I did get the full version on sale, but I have all the instruments covered by komplete, so less incentive to wrestle with gui. It is better than its market share, but steinberg needs to get serious about it first. Probably a great all in one first sampler, but few want to go with a relative unknown.


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## heisenberg (Mar 7, 2021)

Thanks for pointing things out Alchemedia. I picked up Halion this past year when it was on sale. Haven't got into it yet but this thread has my motivation up on using it now.


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## Sample Fuel (Mar 8, 2021)

HALion is an incredible tool that has always been available outside of Cubase. UVI Falcon is the only other platform that I think is comparable. The GUI and Halion's capabilities can be daunting for sure. Sample Fuel instruments were conceived to have a simple GUI and workflow for my own personal use for sound design and composing. For years I was making my own sounds in Halion and always wanted a more streamlined approach to the interface.......with HALion 6 they finally opened the platform up to the user to customize the interface, etc....much like you can do in Kontakt.

If you are interested to check out what I am talking about you can see the various instruments at www.samplefuel.com You can also download LITE versions of everything for FREE. You don't need to own HALion 6 just register and download the free HALION SONIC SE player over at Steinberg's website.


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## Flintpope (Mar 18, 2021)

Crossroads said:


> Answer this question: if you were developing a sample library to be sold to costumers, which platform would have the most costumers and therefore a much larger pool of potential buyers?
> 
> That's the one you develop for. And that's why that one gets and stays bigger.


Costumiers prefer their samples in swatch format


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## tremor206 (Jun 12, 2022)

I think Steinberg kind of shot themselves in the foot in a few ways with this. For years Cubase had no native sampling features. Really left a big void in it's feature set, up until Groove Agent One was updated to SE4, and even that is more an MPC style workflow sampler, which isnt as intuitive as most DAW samplers when using harmonic material sampled chromatically for most people.
This was obviously to try & force Halion purchases, but by this time Kontakt 5 had well & truly cornered the soft sampler market, particularly when it comes to 3rd party content being made for it.
This continued even after the introduction of Cubase sampler tracks, which were rendered kind of obsolete for anything more than basic chromatic sample playback for a couple of Cubase versions, until Steinberg introduced slicing & LFOs to it.
By the time scripting for making 3rd party tools in Halion 6 was introduced, it was just too little too late to kompete.
It's largely down to half baked implementation & Steinberg's "too little, too late" approach to modern workflows, that are leaving it way behind DAWs like Bitwig or Ableton for electronic music production & sound design workflows, that forced me to switch to Bitwig 6 months ago. I got excited when they announced new features for 12 included "modulation improvements", but the way it was implemented makes no sense at all. The lack lustre FX modulator was the final straw for me, after years requesting something more resembling Bitwig's modulation system or even Ableton's max4live extensions. I own a Halion 6 license, as well as Groove Agent 5 & Backbone, and since I started using Bitwig, Halion 6 seems almost unusable. It is about the only plugin in my arsenal that frequently crashes in Bitwig, especially when using large multisampled libraries like Vibrant Rhodes. It's clearly streamlined more for use within Cubase, which limits it's potential userbase substantially. I can run insane patches in Phaseplant with all kinds of parallel or multiband processing in snapheap or multipass on one track in bitwig with no dropouts, but loading a multisampled instrument in Halion 6 will often bring my CPU to it's knees. It is horribly optimised for use outside of Cubase it seems. Maybe it's just Bitwig. Anyone else have any experience using it in other DAWs besides Cubase or Bitwig? I'd be interest to know if it's just as poorly optimised.
Then if you factor in that Cubase's userbase is now more of a contemporary mixing engineer or film composer crowd, than electronic producers, and composers are less likely to really dig into a sampler's wide array of sound mangling possibilities, and are more likely to want a sampler for its 3rd party instrument libraries & tweak string presets, then clearly Kontakt has always been the better choice for the very people Steinberg are catering to.
It's a real shame. There's so much I do love about Cubase & Halion 6 is a great sampler, when it isnt crashing. I'm keeping Cubase around, but really only using it for a mixing environment or tasks that can benefit from ARA2 extensions. Bitwig destroys it in almost every other way when using it for the creative process. I recently saw that Nik from Noisia is now doing Bitwig stuff on his Patreon, and Noisia were Cubase users pretty much their entire musical career. Don't really need much more than that to tell me I made the right decision ditching Cubase as my primary DAW. As for Halion 6. Unless preformance is massively improved in v7, I will be offloading my licenses for it & all the libraries I own for it & sticking with Bitwig's sampler, Phaseplant & Grooveagent.


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## ptram (Jun 12, 2022)

I have a couple beautiful libraries for Halion, and don't use them. The user interface is as hurting and unusable as Best Service Engine. Whichever the technical merits, there is little to do with something one can't use.

Paolo


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## devonmyles (Jun 12, 2022)

Sample Fuel said:


> If you are interested to check out what I am talking about you can see the various instruments at www.samplefuel.com You can also download LITE versions of everything for FREE. You don't need to own HALion 6 just register and download the free HALION SONIC SE player over at Steinberg's website.


 
Good grief, all those LITE versions for the HS SE player..! 

Thank you for the link.


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## Pier (Jun 12, 2022)

tremor206 said:


> It's largely down to half baked implementation & Steinberg's "too little, too late" approach to modern workflows, that are leaving it way behind DAWs like Bitwig or Ableton for electronic music production & sound design workflows, that forced me to switch to Bitwig 6 months ago.


I used Bitwig for two years and recently switched to Cubase.

Bitwig is great for sound design, generative stuff, and probably live performances, but it's lacking a lot of bread and butter features for even basic MIDI writing.


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## Bee_Abney (Jun 12, 2022)

tremor206 said:


> I think Steinberg kind of shot themselves in the foot in a few ways with this. For years Cubase had no native sampling features. Really left a big void in it's feature set, up until Groove Agent One was updated to SE4, and even that is more an MPC style workflow sampler, which isnt as intuitive as most DAW samplers when using harmonic material sampled chromatically for most people.
> This was obviously to try & force Halion purchases, but by this time Kontakt 5 had well & truly cornered the soft sampler market, particularly when it comes to 3rd party content being made for it.
> This continued even after the introduction of Cubase sampler tracks, which were rendered kind of obsolete for anything more than basic chromatic sample playback for a couple of Cubase versions, until Steinberg introduced slicing & LFOs to it.
> By the time scripting for making 3rd party tools in Halion 6 was introduced, it was just too little too late to kompete.
> ...


Halion 6 works very well for me in Studio One, or as standalone. It's never crashed in the nearly six months I've been using it.



ptram said:


> I have a couple beautiful libraries for Halion, and don't use them. The user interface is as hurting and unusable as Best Service Engine. Whichever the technical merits, there is little to do with something one can't use.
> 
> Paolo



That's a pity for you. I understand that can be an issue for some. I actually like the Halion Sonic interface. The main Halion interface is a bit more complex, better in some ways, but for the most part more than is needed just for playing.

But, then, I'm really not bothered by the Engine 2 interface. The vast majority of the time that I look at it, I'm looking at the GUI anyway.


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## muziksculp (Jun 19, 2022)

Hi,

I haven't used Halion 6 for ages, I remember that Steinberg has announced something about a new Licensing/Authorization system. My Halion 6 license is on my e-Licenser dongle. Any feedback on what is the current licensing system for Halion 6 if I want to switch my e-Licenser license from the dongle to the new system (no dongle needed) ? 

I'm guessing I need to create a new MySteinberg account ? I'm also not sure how they deal with transfers of licenses from e-Licenser system to their new system.

Any feedback about this would be appreciated. 

Thanks,
Muziksculp


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## Bee_Abney (Jun 19, 2022)

muziksculp said:


> Hi,
> 
> I haven't used Halion 6 for ages, I remember that Steinberg has announced something about a new Licensing/Authorization system. My Halion 6 license is on my e-Licenser dongle. Any feedback on what is the current licensing system for Halion 6 if I want to switch my e-Licenser license from the dongle to the new system (no dongle needed) ?
> 
> ...


I don't know for this scenario specifically, but I understand that the general rule for moving iLok licences is that you need to contact the developer. However, in this case, you'd be swapping to a new licensing system instead of just deactivating the license on your dongle.

So, I'm pretty sure you'll need to contact support during the process.


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## muziksculp (Jun 19, 2022)

So, did Steinberg drop the e-licenser dongle authorization system ? or are they still supporting it ?

and what is their new authorization system ? Machine based ? or online license ? or ... ?


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## Pier (Jun 19, 2022)

I think Steinberg will transfer all products to their new Licensing system. I think it's only available for Cubase though.

The FAQ doesn't mention anything about Halion I'm afraid...









New Steinberg Licensing FAQ


The introduction of Steinberg Licensing is a big change for our customers, as well as for us at Steinberg. Find here answers to some frequently asked questions.




www.steinberg.net


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## muziksculp (Jun 19, 2022)

Pier said:


> I think Steinberg will transfer all products to their new Licensing system. I think it's only available for Cubase though.
> 
> The FAQ doesn't mention anything about Halion I'm afraid...
> 
> ...


Hi @Pier ,

Thanks.  

So, I don't need to do anything regarding Halion 6. 

I used to have a Cubase License (old version, I think ver 8), but I don't use Cubase any more. So, nothing to do for me at this time. 

I'm interested in using Halion 6 to make my own custom sampled instruments, and for sound design as well. It is one of the plugins I never touch much, yet it can do so much. I need to study it, then use it.


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## Bee_Abney (Jun 19, 2022)

muziksculp said:


> Hi @Pier ,
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> ...


I don't know how Halion is authorised now. I recently had trouble with iLok and Halion stopped working. But when it started working again afater I'd fixed the problem for other plugins, I didn't autorise it in the iLok app and I don't see a license there to be activated.

Sorry, but I am so confused about what is going on in this case, all I can do is warn of potential issues without having grapsed what they might be.

On the plus side, with emails/contact forms to Steinberg and possibly iLok (if that is relevant) will sort it out.


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## muziksculp (Jun 19, 2022)




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## muziksculp (Jun 19, 2022)

Bee_Abney said:


> I don't know how Halion is authorised now. I recently had trouble with iLok and Halion stopped working. But when it started working again afater I'd fixed the problem for other plugins, I didn't autorise it in the iLok app and I don't see a license there to be activated.
> 
> Sorry, but I am so confused about what is going on in this case, all I can do is warn of potential issues without having grapsed what they might be.
> 
> On the plus side, with emails/contact forms to Steinberg and possibly iLok (if that is relevant) will sort it out.


I think Halion 6 still uses their e-Licenser system, which requires the e-Licenser hardware dongle, they don't use iLok. VSL is the one who switched from e-Licenser to iLok.


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## Bee_Abney (Jun 19, 2022)

muziksculp said:


> I think Halion 6 still uses their e-Licenser system, which requires the e-Licenser hardware dongle, they don't use iLok. VSL is the one who switched from e-Licenser to iLok.


I have never owned a dongle and I use Halion. I bought it in January this year.

You are right - as you know! - Halion is brilliant for making sample instruments, or synth patches using individual or multiple samples. I suspect that it is a rough tie between Halion and MSoundFactory. To my heavy metal and Walkman-damaged ears, Halion sounds better with nearly all kinds of processing, including just playing samples. MSoundFactory is good at ultra-polished over-sampled sounds, Falcon at bold, in-your-face sounds, and Kontakt at basic, nothing-to-see-here samples; but Halion tends to sound nuanced and detailed with a distinctive character of its own.

My ignorance about what is going on with authorising it is of a piece with general ignorance about how Halion works. I'm still leaning heavily on Falcon as I already know where I am with that (iLok, samples as oscillators, multiple choice for filters and effects).


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## rrichard63 (Jun 19, 2022)

Halion Sonic SE 3 works on a soft eLicenser. Do Halion 6 and/or Halion Sonic 3 require the hardware dongle?


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## Bee_Abney (Jun 19, 2022)

rrichard63 said:


> Halion Sonic SE 3 works on a soft eLicenser. Do Halion 6 and/or Halion Sonic 3 require the hardware dongle?


They don't.


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## rrichard63 (Jun 19, 2022)

Bee_Abney said:


> They don't.


In that case, Steinberg might never replace the current protection scheme. If that's so, it would be nice of them to allow those of us who put Halion and Sample Fuel, etc., on a dongle to move them back to soft eLicenser. But I got the impression several months ago that they were going to drop soft eLicenser, as well as the dongle, and move everything.


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## Bee_Abney (Jun 20, 2022)

rrichard63 said:


> In that case, Steinberg might never replace the current protection scheme. If that's so, it would be nice of them to allow those of us who put Halion and Sample Fuel, etc., on a dongle to move them back to soft eLicenser. But I got the impression several months ago that they were going to drop soft eLicenser, as well as the dongle, and move everything.


Yes, that's what I thought too.


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## doctoremmet (Jun 20, 2022)

They’ll have to because they are going to kill eLicenser


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## ennbr (Jun 20, 2022)

They started moving to the new soft licenser with Dorico 4 and Cubase I'm pretty sure Nuendo recently switched as well. I would expect that Halion and the other products are in the works.


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## Robo Rivard (Aug 8, 2022)

I was an early adopter of HALion... I moved from Bitheadz Unity to HALion 1... and 2... and 3.
And then Steinberg decided to have a good laugh on their supporters... for years. Most users moved to Kontakt.
HALion ressurected since that time, but it's pretty much some kind of overcomplicated Frankenstein software that will please only the masochists.


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## scoplunk (Aug 8, 2022)

I've worked with Halion for so long, I know my way around it and am pretty comfortable. There are still plenty of corners that I haven't explored very deeply, but I don't have much trouble getting the results I want out of it. But, because I'm so used to it, I have no perspective on what it must be like for someone who is just learning it. What does everyone else find so confusing about it? The basic structure makes sense to me, but that may be familiarity at this point. Do you guys/girls find the entire experience confusing or are there specific areas that seem illogical? Is is very deep and a little sprawling. Maybe it's just too much coming at you at once? 

Anyway, these aren't meant to be big deal questions. I'm just curious.


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## olmerk (Aug 9, 2022)

scoplunk said:


> Do you guys/girls find the entire experience confusing or are there specific areas that seem illogical?


My initial question staring the topic was also about development of new instruments, not only from users perspective.


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## Alchemedia (Aug 9, 2022)

olmerk said:


> My initial question staring the topic was also about development of new instruments, not only from users perspective.


It's brilliant for instrument development, just don't expect to make a business out of it.


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## olmerk (Aug 9, 2022)

Alchemedia said:


> It's brilliant for instrument development, just don't expect to make a business out of it.


For smth simple - yes, it's good WYSIWYG type of tool. But I need it exactly for business, to develop complicated instruments with sophisticated algorithms (a lot of scripting_). _And here I found Halion very cumbersome.


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## scoplunk (Aug 9, 2022)

Alchemedia said:


> It's brilliant for instrument development, just don't expect to make a business out of it.


Yes, this is a big difference from what I'm doing. I'm not scripting or making big interfaces to sell. I work on large multisamples and make simple interfaces from the macro builder, but just for development. So, I'm completely ignorant about the scripting capabilities, particularly as they relate to scripting in other products. Plus, as has been mentioned before, Kontakt has such a big user base already, it's the obvious platform to target for maximum sales.



olmerk said:


> Why is Halion 6 not beating Kontakt? Maybe there are some serious limitations, which stop developers from shifting to Halion?





olmerk said:


> it's good WYSIWYG type of tool. But I need it exactly for business, to develop complicated instruments with sophisticated algorithms (a lot of scripting_). _And here I found Halion very cumbersome.


I'm pretty sure you just answered your original question.


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## Bee_Abney (Aug 9, 2022)

scoplunk said:


> Yes, this is a big difference from what I'm doing. I'm not scripting or making big interfaces to sell. I work on large multisamples and make simple interfaces from the macro builder, but just for development. So, I'm completely ignorant about the scripting capabilities, particularly as they relate to scripting in other products. Plus, as has been mentioned before, Kontakt has such a big user base already, it's the obvious platform to target for maximum sales.
> 
> 
> 
> I'm pretty sure you just answered your original question.


Yes, but the original question was posed in February of 21. @olmerk has had more than a year to investigate since then.


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## scoplunk (Aug 9, 2022)

olmerk said:


> My initial question staring the topic was also about development of new instruments, not only from users perspective.


I was actually referring to this post made today, but didn't do a good job of referencing it. I was basically joking, anyway. Sometimes, when I talk long enough about a question I have, I figure out that I already have an answer. I just didn't know it! His post about cumbersome scripting reminded me of that.


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## Bee_Abney (Aug 9, 2022)

scoplunk said:


> I was actually referring to this post made today, but didn't do a good job of referencing it. I was basically joking, anyway. Sometimes, when I talk long enough about a question I have, I figure out that I already have an answer. I just didn't know it! His post about cumbersome scripting reminded me of that.


Clearly I wasn't following closely enough!

I love the way Halion can sound, so it's a shame it's a bit of a non-starter for building sharable instruments. It's still a great tool.


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## sostenuto (Aug 9, 2022)

Bee_Abney said:


> Clearly I wasn't following closely enough!
> 
> I love the way Halion can sound, so it's a shame it's a bit of a non-starter for building sharable instruments. It's still a great tool.


After very recent /long HALion 8 Trial _ am impressed with capabilities, versatility. For those not coming from other top-tier softsynths, H8 offers notable attractions _ albeit with commensurate challenges to learn. 
In personal case, coming from long history with K6 / Omni, Spire _ then Pigments 3, Vital _ KH8 just seems to much time and effort for questionable gain. 
Falcon not tested thoroughly, yet remains in similar status, _for the moment_. 
Bottom line _ depends where potential user is coming from ......... ?


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## olmerk (Aug 9, 2022)

Bee_Abney said:


> Yes, but the original question was posed in February of 21. @olmerk has had more than a year to investigate since then.


Yep, I've plunged in the Halion development and scripting for more than a year ago. Tried to recreat a sophistiacted instrument I've built previsouly for Kontakt.

I found Halion being a versatile tool, but not really convenient and straightforward. It lacks some good features Kontakt has (development-wise), work-arounds needed. Documentation is a bit poor. The learning curve is steep. I had a chance to consult with two Halion gurus. Otherwise I would stuck)


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## Alchemedia (Aug 9, 2022)

olmerk said:


> Yep, I've plunged in the Halion development and scripting for more than a year ago. Tried to recreat a sophistiacted instrument I've built previsouly for Kontakt.
> 
> I found Halion being a versatile tool, but not really convenient and straightforward. It lacks some good features Kontakt has (development-wise), work-arounds needed. Documentation is a bit poor. The learning curve is steep. I had a chance to consult with two Halion gurus. Otherwise I would stuck)



HiSE is the answer.


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## olmerk (Aug 9, 2022)

Alchemedia said:


> HiSE is the answer.


Has it got time-stretching feature?


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## d.healey (Aug 9, 2022)

olmerk said:


> Has it got time-stretching feature?


Not yet, it's on the list


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## olmerk (Aug 9, 2022)

d.healey said:


> Not yet, it's on the list


That was the reason I put it aside couple years ago. David, could you tell as a Hise expert, what other crucial features it still lacks? Comparing to Kontakt. Thanks!


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## d.healey (Aug 9, 2022)

olmerk said:


> That was the reason I put it aside couple years ago. David, could you tell as a Hise expert, what other crucial features it still lacks? Comparing to Kontakt. Thanks!


For me, time stretching is not a critical feature. I think everyone's needs are different depending on the type of instruments you make. Tell me what you consider critical and I'll tell you if I think HISE can do it.

There is actually a way to do time stretching through scriptnode. I don't think it's of a high enough quality to use in a real project - I've never used it though so don't really know. Here is the link to the tutorial project - https://github.com/christophhart/hise_tutorial/tree/master/PitchShifting


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## olmerk (Aug 9, 2022)

d.healey said:


> For me, time stretching is not a critical feature. I think everyone's needs are different depending on the type of instruments you make. Tell me what you consider critical and I'll tell you if I think HISE can do it.
> 
> There is actually a way to do time stretching through scriptnode. I don't think it's of a high enough quality to use in a real project - I've never used it though so don't really know. Here is the link to the tutorial project - https://github.com/christophhart/hise_tutorial/tree/master/PitchShifting


Thanks! I'll check it out. So I think I would definitely need to mark events: in two ways, like MARKS and EVENT_PAR_0-3 in Kontakt. Also ability to playback midi or at least to build a midiplayer. Plus any analog of pulsing callback like on_listener.


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## d.healey (Aug 9, 2022)

olmerk said:


> Thanks! I'll check it out. So I think I would definitely need to mark events: in two ways, like MARKS and EVENT_PAR_0-3 in Kontakt. Also ability to playback midi or at least to build a midiplayer. Plus any analog of pulsing callback like on_listener.


There's no event marking in HISE as such, it's not needed because of the way the HISE event system is structured. You could roll your own event marking system very easily if you really need it but it's probably easier to just organize event IDs into variables or arrays as needed.

If you're coming from Kontakt to HISE I recommend that you avoid trying to force the Kontakt paradigm onto HISE and work with HISE's own paradigm. There is some similarity between the two but fundamentally they are quite different.

HISE has a built in MIDI player that can load MIDI files, handle multiple tracks, etc. I haven't used it properly but I've played around with it and it seems pretty good. Here's some documentation about the MIDI player module.

I can't remember what on listener does, is that the one that triggers at specific intervals? HISE has a timer callback and you can create multiple timer objects each with their own callback running at different rates. I have a video on my YouTube channel that covers the basic callbacks and it should make total sense if you're familiar with KSP. I also have several videos about timers.


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## olmerk (Aug 10, 2022)

d.healey said:


> There's no event marking in HISE as such, it's not needed because of the way the HISE event system is structured. You could roll your own event marking system very easily if you really need it but it's probably easier to just organize event IDs into variables or arrays as needed.
> 
> If you're coming from Kontakt to HISE I recommend that you avoid trying to force the Kontakt paradigm onto HISE and work with HISE's own paradigm. There is some similarity between the two but fundamentally they are quite different.
> 
> ...


Thanks, David, for the thorough answer and tutorials. Seems it's time for me to check out Hise once again.


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