Halion7 @GP / vs. midi mapping / anybody uses Halion 7 in GP?

Plugins
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Hello everybody,
i´m testing right now Halion 7.
Its absolutely fantastic, it sounds fantastic. The FM machine from the Yamaha Montage is marvelous. As a crossgrad its 249.-chf. Thats not little.

So, assoon i wanted to start mapping widgets to Halion7…the film was over.
Honeymoon canceled.

when i tryed to map midi CCs diretly to Halion7 i got also to nowhere.
Is anybody here actually using Halion7 within GP and can answer some questions vs. how midi mapping works vs. GP ?

At this point i´m not asking for instructions how to do. :wink:

  1. I´m asking: “what are you doing” ? how far are you taking the midi/widget mapping ?
  2. and: is it finally possible to map midi from the widgets freely to Halion7 ?
  3. or are there certain restrictions in place that will allways remain ( no workaround) ?

i would guess it is restricted, looking at the available midi destinations in the widget edit/mapping dialogue in GP.

  1. is it at least possible to map widgets to the macro controls within Halion7 => in a quick and direct way, or are there inbetween layers that have to be setup first within Halion ?

Most things i do in GP is totally based on doing quite extensive widget mappings,
inclouding creating morph controls ! (taking extensivly advantage of the “draw curvatures freely” within GP :wink: )

i really want to have Halion7…buuuut, that midi mapping thing…
Need to know more :wink:

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  1. Why did you get nowhere - it’s pretty easy to send MIDI directly to plugins but
  2. Why aren’t you using host automation instead of MIDI?

(NB I don’t know anything about Halion)

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…it sounds "awesome*, …you should have a look.
Then you´d see what i mean :wink:

( it incloudes now -new- the FM machine from the Yamaha Montage )

yes, thats where the problem lies.

Halion has under the hood its own Midi access “architecture”.
midi commands and host automations are NOT directly avaiable vs. the sound parameters.
there is one or even two layers inbetween.

This is the part “you” want to know:
Within Halion…you would deal with slots / these have to be assigned first /
what was shown in GPs widget edit mode, is just endless numbers of this and that.
probably several thousand parameter destinations.( a guess ! but it is many :wink: )
( 64 (sound?) slots, each with so and so many destinations ( i think 512), mostly with no name )

So, i understand now more, but am still totally confused.

i just had another go with Halion the last hour.
Now, i was at least able to map GP widgets to the 8 quick controls.
These are as such visible ( by name, per slot )
At last one take out of that “Halion vs. Cubase” related video i found so far.
But these quick controls are premaped within sound presets.
…its a first step forward, vs. getting midi access.

But i was not able to map a widget to the the controls called “macro”, within Halion.
still no clue what the “organisation sheme” is

problem is, if you want to map something to the “Filter cutoff”, you would only deal with quasi unrelated names in the GP widget edit. You also have no visual feedback if a mapping was working or not when you don´t know “to what” you have mapped your widget.
(edit: thus my attempt to direct map some midi / i do “such” ONLY as tests ! i never would setup my GP patches/Racks like this :wink: )

finally:
i would say, mapping widgets to Halion, or trying to do a “direct midi mapping” attempt,
is same complictated. (for me, in my position )
The video i found, looked like its different. But i was not aware that this was totally cubase related ( thus i deleted my post above)
(edit2: the workflow of Halion seems to be tailored towards working within cubase.)

5

That sounds exactly the same way as Kontakt works.

It wants 30Gb of content — yuk!

Works fine for me —

  1. Add a widget
  2. Associate with Halion
  3. Click “Learn parameter”
  4. Go to Halion
  5. Right click on knob you want to use and click Assign to new automation
  6. Move the knob

Done - widget is now tied to that knob

Now removing Halion 7!

Have a nice day :slight_smile:

1 Like
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Wow - they don’t make it easy to delete this product — had to manually search for that 30Gb of files (sigh)

1 Like
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okeeey,…i see.
i´ve donne same !.. It was not working for me.
Ok, now to figure out what it was…

Much Thanks @dhj

hehe,

MUCH appreciated ! That gives me a perspective

big player,…who wonders ?
i guess i have to buy it anyway / …problem solved :rofl:

best EPs i stumbled across.
several sounds just blend perfectly well with Grand Piano from Pianoteq.
To nice sounds to pass on it ( @ crossgrade option )

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thanks for posting @pianopaul, but:
this is exactly the video i linked to in my second post :wink:
and deleted the post afterwards, after watching the video. (by reasons)

Several things he is doing is explizitly Cubase related
( i initially thought, it was within Halion)
And, many mouse-clicking steps he is doing, were so far for me not visible where exactly he is clicking. Respectivly have i stll not managed to follow him completly.
i watched that video in the meantime 2.5 times. Plus clicking again and again forth and back :wink:
Not shure if you watched it yourself ?
probably you thought its the solution, …a simple solution.
It was not for me.
Halion is extremly complex ! as a noob, its absolutely overwhmelming.
In another video was the speech that there are 117 or so editors available within Halion.
you can programm just about everything it seems.

it continues:

i had another go. and i was still not able to make this work !

which means: the sounds you had open might have showed you another page, than where i landed with the sounds i´m clicking.
I had three goes overall. In none of them was i able to map something directly to a widget.

its very interesting to see that you at least arrived. And it seems quite quickly.
While i do not.
So, its at least clear, things work. And “should” work easily.

i will investigate further !
i decided to buy Halion7,…i like the sounds very much. so i´ll see how it goes.

Thanks for trying to help ! much appreciated

10
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Well, you don’t say what happened. Were you able to get the popup menu and “Assign to new automation”?

It’s rather strange that the company that invented the VST and host automation makes it so difficult to use!

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i definitly was there (assign to new automation". And at other places.
I was not understanding what i was doing, since there are many ways to go.
And i would try this and that in quick sequenze.
first, it was kind of blindly running tests.
Then, after watching the above video, i had at least “some” idea.
But there are so many edit pages, and levels where you can assign something,
its hard to remember…

bought it in the meantime. i belive in this product beeing something top notch.
i will definitly give it its time. But slowly.

Fact is. the rackspaces i create in GP are on its own VERY workload intensiv.
But it allways feels at the same time like “music-making”, while diving into Rackspace-creation work. Thats what counts for me: i want to make music.

things like diving into totally overcomplicated programms, …i just need to have the right moment.
yet, i´m totally convinced that Halion as such is well thought out…well, it would be unfaire to tax it as something “overcomplicated”. Its just VERY feature loaded, and they built it pro-level, completly tailorable by the user. it must be extremly powerful.

Fun thing is, really, with GP, ALL was just very intuitiv to explore !
Once understood what the widget system is, and how it works.
…takes: to look that 3min video, donne.

13

yes, it is doable. there is no doubt.
but: it seems to work differently in cubase.
“they” refer to cubase ! ( which has its logic to it, finally)

have you watched the video ?
its cubase related.
Halion7 and cubase are communicating with each other, kind of.
In GP, you won´t see parameter names for most parameters, in the widget mapping edit dialog.

somewhere is a point i stumble upon.
“My problem” is to solve that.

i´ll see, i let you all know when i´m further…
thought, Halion7 must be a in use by many here …?

its really awesome in E-Pianos.
They just melt way better with Pianoteq GrandPiano than any other FM-based EPs i have. (Tip :wink: )

14

things begin to work with Halion.
still lotsa confusion.
But i can map in the meantime the “Quickcontrols” !
Thats All i wanted, → for the start.

things like “Volume” for the -Sound- slots are “directly” mappable.
other stuff totally not.
The mute buttons in the slots are also mappable.

so, its possible to create with Halion a multisetup,
but still be free to mute single sounds “within Halion”, for example coupled to a Widget-based crossfader setup.

from what i gathered are all mappings lost, when switching a sound.
on common Synths i can switch a preset, but the parameter mappings remain.
…but might have its sense, this way. ( its its quasi a open architecture kinda modular environment)

The soundengine sounds to my ears very good…

CPU usage looks ok, or even good.

i´m quite amazed what Halion7 delivers.