Sampling with Halion 4

Hi,
is it finally possible to actually SAMPLE (recording audio from any channel of the host DAW) with Halion ?
Last time it wasn,t possible

How about drag and drop from studio one to halion ?

Is the GUI now faster on Win7 ? Last time i trialed it, it was quite slow compared on OSX(SL)

You cannot sample directly into Halion 4, however, you can drag and drop project within a project (Cubase anyways) as well as from Windows Explorer, Mediabay etc.

The GUI is decently fast, it gets slow if you have lots of automation going or have the mapping options enabled during playback.

Assuming you have Cubase, take a look at the ClubCubase channel and check out the video tutorial on “Making Samples in HALion 4”.

Hi,
I am using StudioOne and have already trialed Halion4 and enjoyed it.
Except the slower GUI on Windows compared to OSX.
Unfortulately I cant remember if Drag and Drop from StudioOne to Halion4 worked.
Anyone ?

Unfortunately no, it doesn’t.

This is unacceptable. Many of us have been advising Steinberg for years, in no uncertain terms, that Halion 4 needed to sample.

Since it can’t and Steinberg has ignored the fervent pleas of their own customers, my dollars are going elsewhere. I’m done with this piece of software.

I dont get it either. Devine Machine OSR2 is even discontinued. :confused:

Any Other Software company is reading this ?
I offer you free concepts to create the peferct creative sampler, based on decades experience in creating wonderful music… just catch me at : daslicht{at}ansolas{dot}de

Heads up everyone: the solution we are looking for DOES exist now.

It’s called “Geist” by FXPansion and it is truly the software SAMPLER we’ve been waiting for. It’s disguised as a software groove box, but I evaluated the demo this afternoon and it samples, with basic destructive sample editing. It’s brilliant: the workflow is simple and JUST what you’d want.

Think “modern day Fairlight”. This thing actually gets pretty close. Chromatic sample mapping is absent, but pad-orientation works pretty well for a lot of what I need to do anyway. My plan is to use Geist for most sampling, and have IL DirectWave fill in the gaps for programs that need chromatic (keyzone) sample mapping.

Bye-bye Halion - FINALLY.

It’s incredibly great - I made a killer micro track with this thing (Geist) in no time flat this afternoon. Now I’m off to buy it…

First up, definitions: software samplers (HALion, Kontakt) usually are just sample playback applications, whereas the “old school” hardware samplers acquired (i.e. recorded) audio for subsequent playback, usually with manipulation of some sort.

I have to say, I don’t understand why people need a software “sampler” to actually be able to “sample” (as strange as that sounds). The only software “sampler” I’ve used that could do that was E-MU’s Emulator X, and to be honest, I only ever used it once to test that it actually worked … I never used it subsequently for anything creative. Why? Because all my “sample” material is either recorded (by me) using far better DAW-type equipment and/or software, or comes from a commercial library, which generally isn’t in the format I want anyway; so most of the work is in making usable patches (presets) for whatever software “sampler” I’m wearing today. What I like HALion for, is the way I can pull from Cubase into a patch, as best illustrated by the afore-mentioned video “Making Samples in HALion 4” at Club Cubase.

I can imagine in the world of realtime collaboration there would be a requirement to be able to capture and play back anything that was produced, in order to re-introduce it into the mix, but can’t that already be achieved via the DAW?

I’m clearly missing something. Educate me. :neutral_face:

I already bought it but it is useless to create Multisample Instruments or try to play Chords :slight_smile:

Best solution at the moment (my opinion) is to use Devine-Machine OSR2 in conjunction with a Halion or Kontakt

You have apparently never worked with a MPC or MV8000.

Creative (Re)-Sampling is when you sample sounds on the fly.
Imagine you play a synth(eg real analog without automation…) (or some other real instrument) live with effects on it, and you want to capture “that magic moment”.
That is creative sampling. Its not for anyone tho.

With a MV8000 this kind of sampling is just one press of a button away
and after sampling you can immediately play that sound.
Geist is quite good at this but its tiny GUI and the pull-down menu in the sample section
is anything else than a nice fluid workflow. (shoutcuts might help)
But it can be solved more user friendly and fluid as the MV demonstrates.

Can you drag and drop audio from Studio One to Halion as well ?

Man… Get a Cubase License and forget about Studio One.

Edit: Why do you expect it to be a Halion problem?
Could be a problem of Studio One as well?

I’ve sold my Cubase License after trying S1 and I havent mentioned a “problem”
It was just a question if it is working :stuck_out_tongue:

Ah ok. Then sorry for my reaction.
Well, I guess it’s not working. But I don’t use S1.
So I cannot tell. So what made you move to s1?
Cubase is a great daw in my opinion. What does s1
offer you that Cubase does not?

This is true …

I do quite often sample sounds created with combinations of soft- and hardware (and acoustics) so I understand what you mean, however I don’t do it in realtime … thinking about this, if I wanted to do this, I probably would look for an old Akai, definitely hardware though, rather than software.

Thanks for the insight! :slight_smile:

Calling Halion a ‘sampler’ is a misnomer - it is purely a sample player.

An Akai S6000 is a sampler because it can actually record (sample) audio, whereas Halion can only play back (but also manipulate) audio recorded by something else.

While I do understand some people could need a recording feature to use it creatively, I still think it would turn the whole program into a truly heavy and complicated plugin.

I sometimes do create custom patches myself with my own recorded samples and honestly I feel better and more flexible to record, edit, and manage samples in a dedicated environment (ie. audio editor) rather than doing that in an hosted plug-in.

I just consider the software sampler as a piece of software allowing me to manage and edit raw samples, sampling CDs, sample libraries, etc. other than play them back.

If you need recording on the fly, you can always record whatever you want into a track of your sequencer and then export/import that into the sampler. That’s faster than you think while you have your sequencer and Halion already opened.

Just an opinion :slight_smile:

Agree!