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Why is Halion 6 not beating Kontakt?

olmerk

Active Member
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!
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.

 
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:
1613940777531.png
* Steinberg is just not pushing it in the market, seems like they aren't even interested in competing directly with Kontakt
 
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:
1613940777531.png
* Steinberg is just not pushing it in the market, seems like they aren't even interested in competing directly with Kontakt
I would describe HALion as powerful, but not intuitive. There is a steep learning curve, particularly if you are used to Kontakt.
 
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
 
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!!!
 
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.....
 
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.
 
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:
1613940777531.png
* Steinberg is just not pushing it in the market, seems like they aren't even interested in competing directly with Kontakt
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.
 
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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