Halion

Musikmesse 2009: Steinberg announced version 3.5 of HALion, now featuring support for 64-bit editions of Windows Vista.

“Because it adds compatibility to 64-bit Vista, HALion 3.5 can address vast amounts of memory, allowing many more additional instruments to be loaded simultaneously,” comments Helge Vogt, Steinberg’s Product Marketing Manager for Cubase and HALion. “This frees up even more creative potential because it puts even more instruments and articulations at the artist’s fingertips.”

HALion version 3.5 will be available in Q2 2009 as a download for registered HALion 3 customers.

Key features at a glance

• Five top-flight piano models in one VST instrument
• Astoundingly authentic piano sound that comes courtesy of three of the world’s finest, most expensive concert grand pianos
• Full-length sustain samples, no loops, with every key sampled individually at varying velocities
• Unrivaled dynamic response
• Amazingly authentic sustain pedal resonance, damper and hammer emulations, velocity adapts individually to suit your touch, style of play and keyboard’s response
• Powerful options for tweaking tone and variable room simulations

If you’ve used Steinberg HALion v3.5, leave a comment with your thoughts!

Multisampling specialists Wavescape Studio have released the Nord Modular G2 VOL. 01- Club Life sample library, which features sounds for pop, dance, trance, electro, house, hip-hop. All sampler presets have extensive modulations settings in each format: move the modwheel and the library starts to “breathe”.

The library is available in three different formats:

• WAVESCAPE™ MULTIPAK (EXS/EXSP24, Reason NN-XT, Kontakt, Halion, RGC SFZ player, Akai Z4/8 hardware and WAV formats – ALL FORMATS IN ONE PACKAGE, 6×94=564 categorized sampler presets!) – 310MB
• EMU EMULATORX/X2 sample pack (94 presets) – 395 MB
• TASCAM™ GIGASTUDIO 3.0 sample pack (94 presets) – 230 MB

Each package available 24/7 via electronic delivery for 9.99 $ – digital items, “free shipping”.

Details and audio demonstration are available at the Wavescape Studio site.

Steinberg has announced that the update to HALion String Edition is now shipping worldwide. HALion String Edition 2 offers a 9GB library of solo and ensemble strings including violins, violas, cellos and double basses, accessible through a dedicated player VSTi that is based on its renowned HALion sampling technology.

“We’re certain that this product will set new standards for sonic excellence, expressiveness and playability in this price category,” says Steinberg’s Director of Product Management Claus Menke. “HALion String Edition 2 achieves this by combining audio content of outstanding fidelity with award-winning sampling technologies that allows that sheer quality to come into its own in a way previously not possible in an orchestral string product in this price range,” Menke continues.

Including upgraded versions of the entire content from its predecessor version, HALion String Edition 2 includes new solo strings for a total of over 9 GB of sounds. Performed by one of Europe’s leading orchestras, all instruments are provided in a large variety of articulations. HALion String Edition 2 also features RealAmbience, a new technique that offers a full, 3D concert hall sound with no artificial reverb. HSE 2 also incorporates features to increase efficiency in its use of the computer’s CPU and RAM resources, including its innovative RAMSave™ technology.

Price and Availability

HALion String Edition 2 is available now for $399; registered owners of HALion String Edition Vol. 1 can update for only $149.

Steinberg has announced the release of an update to the HALion 3 virtual sampler. HALion 3.1 features new capabilities as well as numerous enhancements, and is available now for all registered users via download at ftp.steinberg.net.

HALion 3.1 sees several new innovations introduced to the HALion platform. A new feature already seen in Steinberg’s HALion Player product is Q-Controls. These user-definable controls offer lightning fast access to up to eight parameters directly on the Macro-page or in an extra, floating window. Individually adaptable for each and every loaded program in HALion 3.1, Q-Controls also automatically switch to their assigned parameters when a new program is selected. Many new libraries by well-known content creators have been engineered to include predefined Q-Controls best suited to shaping each specific instrument. User-defined Q-Controls settings are saved with each HALion program or bank, and can also be recalled as a preset. Read more…

NAMM 2005: Steinberg has announced a new, playback-only version of its famed HALion virtual sampler. Tailored to newcomers to virtual sampling, HALion Player puts many of the next-generation technologies available on the HALion sampling platform behind a sleek, no-frills interface.

Capable of playing any HSB, FXP or FXB files created for HALion 3, HALion Player offers an affordable, high quality sample content playback module for VST, DXi and AU.

HALion Player provides a low-cost way of playing any of the hundreds of commercially available HALion libraries, including samples by some of the finest content creators in the industry, such as Scarbee, Garritan, Wizoo, the Vienna Symphonic Library and many more.

With an SRP of $89.99, HALion Player includes the full HALion 3 sound library, consisting of a broad selection of highest quality instrument and drum sounds, and utilizes the award-winning, surround-capable HALion 3 playback engine. HALion Player also offers the outstanding Waldorf filters and disk-streaming power that have helped establish HALion 3 as one of the top virtual samplers available today in terms of both sound quality and performance.

While HALion Player can’t create new programs from scratch, the unique Q-Control concept introduced in the new HALion 3.1 version provides HALion Player with an adaptable set of sound-shaping controls. All HALion libraries include predefined Q-Controls which have been assigned to a certain set of parameters by the content creator and are chosen to ideally suit shaping and forming sound for that program. This allows a high degree of flexibility in altering and shaping sounds with HALion Player, while keeping functional clutter to a minimum.

The advanced HALion Player program loading facilities unify finding, selecting and loading a sound for quick, no-hassle access to even the largest HALion sample libraries. HALion Player also offers 256-voice polyphony delivering pristine 32- bit audio to 256 possible audio outputs into the mixer of the host application.

Price and availability

HALion Player will be available through authorized Steinberg dealers for $89.99 SRP in February 2005. HALion Player customers will be able to upgrade to HALion 3.1 for only $299.99.

More information is available at the Steinberg site.