Steinberg Halion 3 Manual
Have a look at the manual Steinberg Halion 3 Manual online for free. It’s possible to download the document as PDF or print. UserManuals.tech offer 523 Steinberg manuals and user’s guides for free. Share the user manual or guide on Facebook, Twitter or Google+.
FlexPhraser Recording the MIDI Output of the FlexPhraser 81Octaves Extends the phrase playback to include higher or lower octaves. Positive settings extend the playback to higher and negative settings to lower octaves. For example, a value of +1 first plays the phrase in the octave range that you originally played. Then, it repeats the phrase one octave higher. Key Range The Low Key and High Key parameters determine the key range that is used to trigger phrase playback. Velocity Range The Low Vel and High Vel parameters determine the velocity range that is used to trigger phrase playback. Recording the MIDI Output of the FlexPhraser The phrases played by the FlexPhraser depend on the notes that are played and can therefore not be exported directly. However, it is possible to generate exportable phrases by recording the MIDI output of the FlexPhraser. PROCEDURE 1.Click Record FlexPhraser MIDI Output. The arrow in the Drag MIDI field starts blinking to indicate record mode. 2.Play some notes. 3.When you are done, click Record FlexPhraser MIDI Output again. Recording stops. In the Drag MIDI field, the arrow remains lit to indicate that a MIDI phrase can be exported. 4.Click the Drag MIDI field and drag the phrase on a MIDI track in your host sequencer application. Phrase Playback Types HALion Sonic features a huge amount of phrase types, organized in submenus and categorized according to functional descriptions or musical styles, such as Classic Arp, Synth Seq, Chord Seq, Bass, etc. The Construction Sets submenu contains phrases made for instrument layers. These phrases use key switches to switch between different playing styles, to increase the realism of your performance. The phrases that can be found in the various other categories use a number of different playback types to allow phrase-specific user interaction while playing. For example, with drum patterns, pressing any note triggers the same rhythm pattern. Other phrases are played back using only the played note and its octave notes. And if you play back a programmed sequence according to the played chord, the following applies: •If you press a single key, the phrase is played back using the programmed sequence, which means that notes other than the ones you play are triggered.
FlexPhraser Variations 82•If you are adding notes to those already held, the sequence changes accordingly, for example, the phrase plays back according to the chord you play. Variations For each FlexPhraser, you can set up 8 different variations of phrases. You can switch between them with the variation buttons at the top right. You can remote-control the variation buttons using the trigger pads, which gives you the possibility to switch between variations by playing the trigger keys that are assigned to the trigger pads. NOTE To avoid that the variation switches in the middle of a beat or measure, use the trigger modes Next Beat or Next Measure. Creating FlexPhraser Variations PROCEDURE 1.Click one of the variation buttons at the top right of the FlexPhraser. 2.You can either start from scratch or base the new variation on an existing variation. •To start from scratch, assign a phrase and edit the FlexPhraser settings. •To use an existing variation as base, use the context menu commands Copy FlexPhraser Variation and Paste FlexPhraser Variation. RESULT The variation can now be recalled by clicking the corresponding variation button. NOTE The parameters Loop, Sync, Hold, Trigger Mode, Restart Mode, Key Mode, Vel Mode, Low/ High Key, and Low/High Vel are not part of the variations. You set them up only once for each inserted FlexPhraser module. RELATED LINKS Switching between Variations on page 26 User Phrases The user pattern of the FlexPhraser has up to 32 steps. Each step has an adjustable velocity, gate length, and transpose value. By setting the steps, adjusting their length, or leaving pauses, you define the rhythm of the user pattern. Consecutive steps can be combined to create longer notes. By selecting a mode, you define how the notes play back. In addition, there are two MIDI control sequences, that is, each step can send two modulation signals.In addition, there are three MIDI control sequences, that is, each step can send three modulation signals. To create your own phrases, activate User and Show Editor Page.
FlexPhraser User Phrases 83For user phrases, the regular FlexPhraser parameters are available, except for the KSOff button. User Phrase Editor In the user phrase editor, you can set up your user phrases. To open the user phrase editor, click Show Editor Page . You can display the velocity curve or two MIDI controller sequences for the phrase. Phrase To load a phrase, select it from the Phrase pop-up menu. NOTE Saved phrases include the Mode, Key Replace, and Wrap parameters, as well as the steps with their Level, Length, and Legato settings. The selected MIDI controllers or any settings on the main FlexPhraser page are not saved. Mode Determines how the notes are played back. •If Step is selected, the last note that is received triggers a monophonic sequence. •If Chord is selected, the notes are triggered as chords. •If Up is selected, the notes are arpeggiated in ascending order. •If Down is selected, the notes are arpeggiated in descending order. •If Up/Down 1 is selected, the notes are arpeggiated first in ascending, then in descending order. •If Up/Down 2 is selected, the notes are arpeggiated first in ascending, then in descending order. This mode depends on the set Key Mode. If Key Mode is set to Sort, the highest and the lowest note are repeated. If Key Mode is set to As Played, the first and the last note are repeated. •If Down/Up 1 is selected, the notes are arpeggiated first in descending, then in ascending order. •If Down/Up 2 is selected, the notes are arpeggiated first in descending, then in ascending order. This mode depends on the set Key Mode. If Key Mode is set to Sort, the highest and the lowest note are repeated. If Key Mode is set to As Played, the first and the last note are repeated. •If Random is selected, the notes are arpeggiated in random order. Groove Q To adapt the timing of a phrase to an external MIDI file, you can drop this MIDI file on the Groove Quantize drop field. You can quantize the playback of the user phrase to the timing of a sliced loop by dragging its MIDI file from the MIDI export drag field to the Groove Quantize drop field. The Groove Quantize Depth parameter to the right of the drop field determines how accurately the phrase follows the timing of the MIDI file.
FlexPhraser User Phrases 84Key Select The FlexPhraser scans the keyboard and writes the keys that are pressed into a note buffer. Depending on the selected Key Mode, this note buffer is sorted either by pitch or in the order in which you play the keys. Key Select allows you to play back a defined key from the note buffer. You can set up Key Select for each step separately, which allows you to create very elaborate phrases. NOTE Key Select cannot be used in Step or Chord mode. •To access the Key Select values of the steps, click Show Key Values to the left of the editor. •To switch between the available Key Select values for a step, click the value and drag up/down or use the scroll wheel. The following options are available: •P (Phrase) plays the note of the user phrase, according to the selected mode, for example, Up, Down, Up/Down 1, etc. •The settings 1 - 8 play the corresponding keys from the note list. Which key is played depends on the Key Mode setting. For example, if Key Mode is set to Sort, the setting 1 plays the lowest key. •L (Last) always plays the last key from the note buffer. Depending on the Key Mode, this is the highest note or the last note in the note buffer. •A (All) plays all keys from the note buffer as a chord. Velocity Curve •To display the velocity curve, activate the Vel button on the left. Key Replace With this parameter, you can deactivate the Key Select function or specify how missing keys are replaced. For example, if Key Select is set to 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 and you play a chord with 3 notes, key 4 is considered missing. •Off deactivates Key Replace and Key Select. The selected arpeggio plays back normally. •Arp replaces the missing keys with the note that the arpeggio would normally play. •Rest does not replace any missing keys. The arpeggio plays a rest instead.
FlexPhraser User Phrases 85•1st replaces the missing keys by the first note in the note buffer. •Last replaces the missing keys with the last note in the note buffer. •All replaces the missing keys with all notes in the note buffer. The notes are played as a chord. NOTE Key Replace can be set separately for each variation. Wrap For all modes except Step and Chord, you can use this parameter to restart the arpeggio after a specified number of steps. NOTE Deactivated steps are taken into account. In Step and Chord mode, this parameter only affects the Octaves setting. If the Octaves parameter is active, the arpeggio traverses the octaves and restarts from the original octave after the specified number of steps. Controller Curve To show a controller curve, click one of the controller buttons on the left. MIDI Controller Allows you to select the MIDI controller that you want to use. Editing User Phrases You can make detailed settings for the user phrase in the editor for the user phrases. To set up the phrase, activate the Vel button to the left of the step display. To set up a controller curve for the phrase, activate one of the controller buttons to the left of the step display.
FlexPhraser User Phrases 86•To specify the number of steps for the pattern, drag the pattern length handle to the right or left. Activating Steps A phrase can contain up to 32 steps. Only the steps that are activated are played. •To activate a step, click its On/Off button below the display. This can be necessary if you change the gate length of one step so that it overlaps the following step, thereby deactivating it. NOTE If you activate a step that was inactive because of an overlapping previous step, the previous step is shortened. •To activate all steps, right-click in the step display and select Enable All Steps from the context menu. Editing Steps The height of a step represents its value. You can edit the steps in the following way: •To activate all steps, select Enable All Steps from the context menu. •To adjust a value, click a step and drag up or down. •To adjust multiple steps, click and draw a curve. •To adjust the velocity of all steps relatively, Shift-click and drag. •To draw a ramp with steps, hold down Alt and draw a line. •To draw symmetric ramps at the beginning and the end of the sequence, hold down Shift-Alt and draw a line. •To transpose a step, click in the field below it and enter the number of semitones for the transposition. NOTE You can only transpose steps if Show Transpose Values is activated. •To reset the velocity of a step to 127, Ctrl/Cmd-click the step. •To reset the velocity of all steps to 127, hold Shift-Ctrl/Cmd and click a step. •To introduce a legato between 2 steps, click the number below the first of these steps, so that a small arrow is shown. If Legato is activated, the Gate Scale parameter is not taken into account. For velocity steps, the width of a step represents its gate length. •To adjust the gate length of a step, drag its right border. •To adjust the gate length of all steps, hold down Shift and drag the right border of a step.
FlexPhraser User Phrases 87You can only adjust the length this way until a step reaches the next step. If you increase the gate length of a step so that it overlaps the following step, this following step is deactivated. •To reset the length of a step to 1, Ctrl/Cmd-click its highlighted right border. •To reset the length of all steps, hold down Shift-Ctrl/Cmd and click on a highlighted right border. •To fill the gaps between consecutive steps, select Fill Gap or Fill All Gaps from the context menu. Each MIDI controller lane can send a MIDI controller. By selecting the same MIDI controller as source in the Modulation Matrix, you can modulate any of the destinations with the MIDI controller sequence. •To assign a controller, open the MIDI Controller pop-up menu and select the controller or use the corresponding control on your hardware. Adjusting the Phrase •To shift the rhythm of the phrase, click Shift Phrase Right or Shift Phrase Left . If you shift the rhythm of the phrase to the left, the first step is moved to the end. If you shift the phrase to the right, the last step is moved to the beginning. •To reverse the phrase, click Reverse Phrase . •To duplicate short phrases, click Duplicate Phrase . NOTE The maximum number of steps is 32. Therefore, phrases that contain more than 16 steps cannot be duplicated entirely.
Managing Your Sounds 88 About Programs, Layers, Multis, Macro Pages, and Presets Programs A program is a complex instrument or sound that can consist of up to 4 layers. Often, a program contains a single layer that comes with all necessary components, such as the synthesis part or insert effects. Programs add the possibility of combining different layers to build up more complex sounds or to create combinations of sounds that you want to load as a unit. A typical example is a bass/piano split sound or a piano/string layer sound. Because of the various layer types that come with HALion Sonic, these combinations can do a lot more. For example, think of combining a pulsating synthesizer sequence with a sliced loop completed by a bass on the lower keys, and so on. Finally, add some effects to individual layers or to the whole program and you get a unique sound experience. Layers Programs are combinations of up to 4 layers. HALion Sonic offers 5 different layer types. You can choose between synth, sample, instrument, drum, and sliced loop layers. Each layer type is based on an individual sound architecture and has a dedicated editor. Synth and Sample Layers For synth and sample layers, you get access to a synthesizer editor with components such as a highly flexible filter section, powerful multi-stage envelopes, LFOs, a step modulator, and a modulation matrix. These layer types differ in their basic sound source. While a synth layer provides an oscillator section with three main oscillators, a sub oscillator, a noise generator, and a ring modulation stage, the sample layer loads a specific multi-sample instead. Drum Layers The drum layers load a multi-sampled drum set, for which you can individually adjust the most important parameters of each drum instrument. Each drum instrument can be set to a specific pan position or an individual output, or it can be filtered, reversed, and so on. Loop Layers Loop layers load a sliced loop, that is, a combination of a loop-specific MIDI phrase and the individual slices mapped across the keyboard. You can either play the original loop or a transposed version of it, or trigger single slices manually. Each slice can be modified with the same parameters as the drum instruments.
Managing Your Sounds Loading Programs 89Instrument Layers Instrument layers contain several multi-samples of an instrument that can be parts of single sounds or different articulations. These sublayers are called expressions. You can modify expression parameters. By switching off an expression, you can shorten the load time of a sound. Multis HALion Sonic is a multitimbral plug-in that can load up to 16 sounds (or programs) and combine them. This combination is called a multi-program, or multi for short. You can use multis to layer several programs or to create split sounds by setting several programs to the same MIDI input channel, for example. However, the most common usage is to create sound sets with different instruments set to individual MIDI channels. VST Sound Instrument Sets and Macro Pages VST Sound Instrument Sets from Steinberg provide additional content for VST instruments based on the HALion technology. They come with their own edit pages, called macro pages, that feature a customized look and a collection of controls that match the functions of the VST Sound Instrument Set. When you edit a program or layer of a certain VST Sound Instrument Set, the accompanying macro page opens. For details on the functions and controls of a particular macro page, refer to the documentation that comes with the corresponding VST Sound Instrument Set. Presets You can save and load all types of sounds as presets, that is, you can create presets for single programs, for layers, and for multis. Content Files and Folder Structure HALion Sonic comes with a large amount of ready-to-use sound content, made up of hundreds of multis, programs, and layers. This content is write-protected. You can edit files while they are loaded, but you cannot overwrite the factory content files. To save edits to the factory content, save the files under a new name. These files get the file name extension .vstpreset and are referred to as user content. They can be searched and categorized in the same way as factory content. User content is saved in a predefined folder structure on your hard disk. You can create subfolders within this structure to facilitate moving or exchanging content. Loading Programs There are several ways to load programs: •Via drag and drop from the File Explorer/Mac OS Finder •Via the slot context menu •By clicking the Load Program button at the right of the slot NOTE Programs containing lots of sample data may take some time to load.
Managing Your Sounds Load Dialog 90RELATED LINKS Slot Context Menu on page 91 Load Dialog The Load dialog contains many of the MediaBay functions, allowing for very sophisticated search criteria. RELATED LINKS Applying Filters on page 93 Managing Files via the MediaBay on page 93 Results List on page 94 Slot Rack The Slot Rack has 16 slots. Each slot can hold a program, that is, you can work with 16 programs at the same time. Once a program is loaded in the Slot Rack, it can be played and edited.