New Software Review: HALion 6 by Steinberg

Whether you’re a producer, mixer, writer or performer, HALion 6 is worth a look.

HALion 6 from Steinberg is a sound creation toolkit that aims to fill a lot of needs.

It’s a vast and varied library of instruments, a sampler, a virtual instrument for live performance with robust MIDI mapping—even an in-the-box mixing platform for stereo and surround.

Let’s go a little deeper and see what HALion 6 is all about, and who it might be good for.

Features

HALion 6 comes with 3,400 instrument presets, giving it a library that’s useful to musicians, performers and composes across genres right out of the box. Each of these instruments also comes with its own Macro page, giving you control over shaping its sound for great flexibility and personalization.

New since HALion 3, Steinberg have added the” Program Tree” window, which allows you to see exactly what components make up a given sampled instrument. This added layer, which includes the ability to solo/mute at any point along the signal path, provides you with comprehensive control over every nuance and layer of sound.

HALion 6 also features the unique “Sonic Instrument Builder”, which allows you to create your own sampled instruments from scratch, which are MIDI mapped instantly for ease of use. The “Auto Threshold” feature allows you to record automatically as it maps, starting and stopping for each individual note of sampling, while also mapping to the keyboard controller. The Macro Page Designer then enables you to build and customize your own instruments, name your own parameters, customize the user GUI, and even share your patches with other users.

When it comes to mixing, HALion 6 offers 32 stereo outputs along with an additional output for surround. The ability to use it in a live setting takes user-sampled instruments to a whole new level, allowing for controller keyboard splits and multiple-controller usage through the Slot Rack interface. Additionally, HALion 6 integrates well with most current DAWs (you can find a list of compatible software in the user manual).

In Use

It didn’t take long to realize that HALion 6 is a very deep and complex piece of software. The library itself is truly massive, and most patches sounded pretty decent right off the bat. Most notably, I enjoyed a lot of the world music percussion sounds and ethnic drum kits.

I found the mapping to the controller keyboard to be especially intuitive, making HALion 6 a fantastic tool for writing sessions or live accompaniment. The experience felt much more like I was playing an actual instrument—rather than just triggering a sample.

Another standout instrument in the library is a stylized soft synth named “Anima”; it has very usable presets and, because of the level of customization available, would be a great starting point for those new to synthesis. I also found HALion 6’s “Combi” instruments to be lots of fun for writing, and can imagine they would be of great use in live situations.

The Media Bay, where all the sounds are kept, has a very robust search engine of its own. It enables you to filter queries by many parameters, ranging from “All,” which encompasses the entire library, all the way to a single parameter within a single instrument. This level of flexibility goes a long way when dealing with such a huge library.

With new features like the Program Tree and an updated Media Bay search engine, navigating HALion has never been easier.

For those who work with samples, HALion 6 is guaranteed to streamline your process.

For starters, the automatic MIDI mapping, which gives you the option to map chromatically or otherwise, is great.

The aforementioned Auto Threshold feature is sure to make note-by-note sampling a much faster process. There are many things that I have been meaning to sample for ages, and I look forward to doing so within HALion 6.

Along with the ability to loop while sampling, you can go one step further by navigating to the mix page and adding effects such as reverb or delay to your sampled instrument, making the possibilities truly endless. All samples are immediately shown in the Program Tree, but you can also check the mapping window (found under the Extra Windows pages, marked by a plus sign) where you can see how the samples break out to your controller.

Because HALion 6 does so many things, it could be a good investment for beginners as it can help them narrow down which areas of production they prefer to work in. With its vast library of instruments, performance applications, and the ability to sample and map easily—not to mention mixing within the software—HALion 6 is a great multipurpose tool. Admittedly, I’d never been keen on creating my own instruments, but HALion 6 makes it easy, and I’m now eyeing every instrument in my home studio to sample.

To Be Critical

HALion 6 is a fantastic piece of software… but it has a steep learning curve—especially if you are new to the Steinberg universe. I didn’t find the GUI to be particularly intuitive or interactive due to the drop-down list and menu-oriented layout of the Program Tree, which is where the majority of work is done.

While the huge library menu is easily searchable, it is still yet another list on the screen. Of course, you can navigate away from this while working in other pages, however ultimately I find the user experience to feel more like a file directory and less like a creative workspace. I’d really like to see their instrument sampler as a standalone plugin, or perhaps even available as a mobile application for those sampling on-the-go.

Some of the sounds, while flexible and fun to manipulate, do sound a bit dated already (most notably the strings). With so much to choose from out of the 3,400 presets, there is plenty of good material, but perhaps a smaller, more exclusively-curated library would be easier to manage and could sound a bit more unique.

Summing it Up

HALion 6 offers a great variety of uses and features at a price point of $249.00. Steinberg’s approach to sampling makes it a powerful tool for the studio, and with its layering and keyboard split options, a great tool for the stage as well. HALion 6’s massive library, powerful sampler, instantaneous MIDI mapping, mixing capabilities, and optimized performance layering are strong and attractive features for music makers of all types.

Though there is a learning curve, it’s no doubt that those who are willing to invest a bit of time with HALion 6 will see they have an extremely valuable multipurpose tool at their disposal.

Kallie Marie is a producer, composer and educator who lives in New York.

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