How to use Halion in Cakewalk

[Xel Ohh]

New Tutorial Drill Beat with Free Halion Sonic SE in this video I show how I use it come check it out link below... Dont forget to Subscribe, like and hit that bell notification

 

[John Vere]

Thanks for the heads up on the Free version of Halion VST3. I have Cubase 7 Elements and it came with a Older SE version,  this one might be an update so I thought I'd follow through. I also thought this might be a good replacement for TTS-1 because it too is a GM player. 

OK- you gotta register, no big deal this is expected from some freebies. I'm already registered but Steinberg didn't like my password so had to go through all that BS which seems like every time I log in to my account.   

It took a long time to download due to large library. ( which doesn't seems to exist?) 

WARNING- On install it has the list of items to be installed and one of them is that pesky Steinberg Generic ASIO driver.  Knowing this is a real nasty takeover of my ASIO system for Cakewalk I did the smart thing and unchecked this. Otherwise it becomes your Timing master in Sync and Caching, not a good thing. 

If you only have on board audio then you will have to install this as there will be no other choices. It won't work in stand alone with on board sound cards without that stupid driver.  

Now first thing you have to do is activate it. This is were Steinberg sort of sucks big time. Years ago I got so fed up with the software licenser I had to fork over $35 for a USB dongle. The good thing is it sort of work 99% of the time and I can move between computers easily. Ya, 99% of the time, today was that 1% day. Took 15 minutes to get that working and I managed to add the license to the manager. 

I opened the stand alone version and this is were I found out I couldn't use it with on board audio. I don't use an ASIO interface on this computer right now because I don't record,  just edit and TRY NEW VST's. 

I then open Cakewalk and had to add the  Halion sub folder to the scan path to get it scanned. The scan took about 3 minutes. But there it was, So I opened a GM midi file to test and inserted it and deleted TTS_1. 

This seemed to work except the Halion had no sounds loaded. Digging around it seems there's nothing? All the menus are empty. I used the default pathways ( there was no choices)  There's a Library Manager I opened and it said there are no licensed Libraries found?  I looked in all likely locations and found no libraries. And it is odd that it doesn't warn you or something when it loads? 

OK that's my 2 hours wasted on a VST. This is basically one of those pointless exercises in frustration EVERY step of the way. So Welcome to Steinberg folks- enjoy the ride.  I got off at the last stop. 

Oh, this is #1 reason I never switched over to Cubase when Cakewalk died. I do use Wave Lab a Lot but I am slowly finding other ways to do those tasks- for free- and more intuitive software that doesn't drive you nuts. 

 

[JoeGBradford]

I'm sort of relieved you couldn't find any sounds either, John! I have the free Halion Glockenspiel and a Baltic soundset I bought recently and that is all I could find. I did update Halion SE3 to the latest version as mine was a few releases behind but didn't get any additional sounds then either. I'm glad I unticked the Generic ASIO driver  I use ASIO4All (I know, I know ? but it works for me most of the time!) with my onboard sound and didn't want that messed up

So still not sure where / how Xel Ohh got his sounds from.

Agree with the Steinberg licensing comment too - what a pain - I added the free Guitar Harmonics and it didn't see it at first until I undertook the maintenance procedure again

[John Vere]

This gets even weirder. . I tried Google but all returns are for Mac users. According to the manual the library should be installed along side the VST in the Steinberg VST folder. Nope. I was thinking maybe if I open Halion on my main DAW which has Cubase installed I could figure out were the heck the sound library is. I opened Cubase for the first time in probably 3 years. Man, there's  all this On line crud and all sorts of junk to wade through just to load a basic template which includes the Halion and a piano. No sound, No piano file found? So even Cubase can't sort out how to use it even though I had used it a long time ago and it seemed to have a lot of sounds. 

@JoeGBradford

Nothing really wrong with Asio4all if that's what working for your on board. My 3 computers were a no go when I tried to use it. My old Sony Laptop ran fine with asio4all and W7. I used Home Studio on that one just to mess around. I also would hook my interface up and I never had the conflict some people reported. People should try WASAPI Shared before they try Asio4all as this is much more simple to use. 

[Xel Ohh]

Sorry guys are having so many issue with this.. It was a headache trying to load all the stuff I had to use the licence that it comes with was a pain.. And it said it was out of date and I just downloaded it again finally got it installed it came with all the sounds not sure why you didnt get them @JoeGBradford the only additional ones I got was the guitars and the glockenspiel if you didnt get all the sounds I would suggest to redownload it.. I know its a pain but you might have to do it..?

[Glyn Davies]

Cubase is a hidous setup! I do not have time to wrestle with the over secure and "Take Over" of my PC  for Steinberg. Though I used their old Pro 16 sequencer on my Commodore 64 back in1984!

I recently bought the most excellent Tascam Series 208i interface. Cubase was (again) a free app with the unit (also Izotope and Amplitude). I currently use the free Cakewalk DAW - it seems good for my stuff. May revert to Digital Performer soon. . . 

Best of luck with this dog.

Edited May 7, 2021 by Glyn Davies

[John Vere]

I think that's how I got started with Cubase via my Tascam interface came with a disk with Cubase LE on it. Only thing I do like about it is you can open any audio file in the wave editor which works just like Wave Lab. Otherwise it's just another DAW. 

And if you want to wait for a week for an answer to a question give the forum a try. And you can't even post on most of the sub forums unless you own the product. So no way to ask about how stuff works if you were interested in that product. 

VST's that say they are free and make you jump through a few to many hoops to get there, just ain't worth it. And the stupid e licenser software will drive you nuts.