Any HALion 4 users?

[144dB]

Hey all,

 

I'm getting ready to buy an all new DAW, and I'm curious if anyone is using Steinberg's HALion 4. I know there are a lot of Kontakt users (and Kontakt has a huge support base in terms of purchased sounds), and I also know that MOTU has an impressive product with Mach Five 3. So instead of comparing one product to another, I figured I would focus this thread on HALion's strengths. None of the major music mags have reviewed HALion 4 yet (to my knowledge), so I'm still relying primarily on user reviews, demo videos, and the PDF manual which Steinberg makes available.

 

I've used HALion since 1.0, and being a Cubase/PC user, it has always integrated well with my setup. With Steinberg now being a part of Yamaha, my understanding is that much of the bundled library comes from the Motif developers (and I believe it's pretty much common with HALion Sonic). I also like the GUI and the tear-off windows, and the drag and drop functionality with Cubase 6.5 will work well for me.

 

The availability of additional libraries doesn't mean much to me, since so many of them now come with a bundled, custom player (e.g. Kontakt Player, etc.). To me it's all about workflow and speed. I like to sample from movies, television, and even random sounds around the house, and most of my editing is pretty basic.

 

Anyways, if you have experience with the product, feel free to post. Thanks in advance.

 

Todd

[samplerbanker]

It is deep yet awesome. Go for it. This is the first very high quality Steinberg instrument.

[Anderton]

I was way into HALion when it first came out, it was much more flexible than similar soft samplers at the time. Then I got into Kontakt, and never really looked back as I had several Kontakt Player libraries, and I could open them in Kontakt. I also liked it when they introduced scripting. I should check out HALion again, but just ran MachFive 3 through its paces and I'll be spending some quality time with it...it's pretty cool.

 

I really liked E-Mu's X2, but it seems to be a fading product.

 

So I guess this didn't really answer your question but I'm very impressed with Padshop, so if HALion 4 has been revamped with a similar attitude, it should be cool.

[144dB]

I'm not sure if Steinberg has distributed evaluation copies to magazines, but there really haven't been any significant reviews to my knowledge (e.g. Sound on Sound, EM, Keyboard, etc.). I'm assuming software providers give the software to reviewers (I can't imagine they would be forced to buy it). But that's one possible explanation why it hasn't been reviewed. I'm hoping for a cover story with SoS, but it hasn't happened yet.

 

Todd