Steinberg HALion Symphonic Orchestra Operation Manual

							ENGLISH
HALion Symphonic Orchestra
21
The Preferences dialog
When running HALion Symphonic Orchestra as a stand-alone appli-
cation, you will find a Preferences item in the File menu in the top left 
corner of the application window (Win) or in the HALion Symphonic 
Orchestra menu in the top left of the display (Mac). When selected, a 
dialog with a number of options opens. 
 This dialog is opened automatically when you launch HALion Sym-
phonic Orchestra as a stand-alone application for the first time.
 Select an audio card driver from the ASIO Device pop-up.
 In the table below the ASIO device pop-up, click one of the entries in 
the ASIO Output column to change the assignment of virtual outputs 
of your VST Instrument to the physical outputs on your audio hardware.
Click the ASIO Control Panel button to open a dialog with advanced settings for your 
ASIO device. 
						

							HALion Symphonic Orchestra
22
 When the “Enable Hybrid Rewire Mode (requires restart!)” option is 
activated (it is deactivated by default), you will directly access the sys-
tem MIDI ports while in ReWire slave mode. Incoming MIDI data from 
the selected system port will be merged with the MIDI input from the 
host sequencer received via ReWire. 
Note that when you change this setting you must restart HALion Symphonic Orchestra 
in stand-alone mode for the change to take effect.
 Use the MIDI Input pop-up to specify a MIDI input. Click the Reset 
MIDI button to reset all MIDI controllers (this has the same effect as 
when pressing the Panic button on a MIDI keyboard).
If “emulated” MIDI ports are listed on the MIDI Input pop-up, note that there is a simple 
way to force HALion Symphonic Orchestra to list Windows MIDI ports: Create a file 
called “ignoreportfilter” (e. g. via a simple text editor, without specifying any file exten-
sion) and place this file in the same folder as the application .dll file.
 The Tempo and Time Signature fields provide HALion Symphonic Or-
chestra with tempo and time signature information.
In stand-alone mode, such information is not available from a host application.
The other items on the File menu (Save/Load Bank and Save/Load 
Program) of the standalone version of HALion Symphonic Orchestra 
are the same as on the VSTi’s context menu. The “Save as Default 
Bank” option allows you to save the current bank as the bank to be 
loaded every time you open HALion Symphonic Orchestra. 
						

							ENGLISH
HALion Symphonic Orchestra
23
HALion Symphonic Orchestra details
About programs, banks and .hsb files
HALion Symphonic Orchestra plays back the samples of the content 
files supplied with your HALion Symphonic Orchestra DVDs. The 
content files are saved as HALion Sound Bank (.hsb) files. To play the 
content, HALion Symphonic Orchestra provides 16 so-called “pro-
gram slots” which are used to access “programs”. The idea behind 
programs is outlined below:
 A Program file (.fxp) can be loaded into one of the 16 program slots. A 
program can contain any number of samples and all associated para-
meter settings.
To load a .fxp file, use the Load Program option, either from the pop-up menu opened 
by clicking the down-arrow of the program slot, or from the global context menu. You 
can also save changes made to a loaded program by using the Save Program option in 
the global context menu.
 When selecting the Load Program option, the loaded program will 
replace any program previously loaded in the current program slot.
 A Program Bank is used to load/save a particular program configura-
tion.
If you want to save the current settings of HALion Symphonic Orchestra, including all 
programs and program settings currently loaded, select the Save Bank option from the 
global context menu.
 Program files and program bank files are lists of references to sample 
files, but do not contain these samples. The .hsb files, however, are 
“containers”, they contain both the programs and the samples refer-
enced by these programs.
A .hsb file can contain up to 128 program files, which in turn can reference any number 
or samples.
 You cannot load a .hsb file directly. HALion Symphonic Orchestra 
needs to know the location of the .hsb file on your hard disk and then 
displays the programs contained in a located .hsb file in the list of pro-
grams.
See page 30 for a description of the Locate Content function. By selecting a program 
from the list in the Load Program pop-up menu it is loaded into the current program slot. 
						

							HALion Symphonic Orchestra
24
The 16 program slots
A program is loaded into one of the 16 program slots of HALion Sym-
phonic Orchestra.
The first program slot in HALion Symphonic Orchestra.
The 16 program slots in HALion Symphonic Orchestra provide a 
number of settings. 
Column Description
Ins. Click here to select the corresponding program slot.
Category The two category pop-ups are used as filter criteria when browsing for a 
particular program: when you want to load a new program into a pro-
gram slot, you can set the Category pop-ups to limit the number of pro-
grams displayed in the Load Program pop-up. Note that HSB files not 
containing programs matching the defined categories won’t be dis-
played. See page 29.
Program Click on the arrow to open the Load Program pop-up menu. In the pop-
up, select Load Program to load a new program and replace any cur-
rently loaded program. A file dialog is opened in which you can browse 
for .fxp files. You can also select a program to load from the list below 
the option. Note that the list is available only if you previously located a 
.hsb file for this slot, and that only .fxp files contained in the located .hsb 
file will be listed.
Ch This pop-up menu allows you to select a MIDI channel for each program 
slot. By default, the 16 slots are logically assigned to the MIDI channels 
1-16. 
Vol To change the volume setting for a program slot, right-click (Win)/[Ctrl]-
click (Mac) into the field and enter a new value. Note that this value af-
fects the program slot, not the program. 
Pan To change the panorama setting for a program slot, click in this field. A 
slider appears allowing you to change the pan value. Note that this value 
affects the program slot, not the program. 
						

							ENGLISH
HALion Symphonic Orchestra
25
Sound editing
HALion Symphonic Orchestra is not limited to playing back programs 
“as they are” – you can change some of the program parameters and 
thus change the sound. 
The Bypass button, the FX LED, the Q controls and the Options button.
Q controls
In the sound edit section below the program slots you find eight quick 
control knobs (or “Q controls”) allowing you to control up to eight pa-
rameters of the selected program. 
To change a parameter setting, simply turn a knob. The label above 
the knob displays the name of the controlled parameter, the label be-
low shows the current parameter value.
Which parameters are controlled by each Q control is defined in the 
.fxp file. So, when you load a different .fxp file, the parameter names 
displayed above the Q controls may change. 
Which parameters are assigned to the eight Q controls depends on the 
selected program, i. e. the assignment data is saved in each .fxp file. You 
cannot change the parameter assigned to a particular Q control.
The Bypass button and the FX LED
To the left of the Q controls you find a button and an LED referring to 
the use of HALion effects. The LED will light up whenever effects are 
used by the program. Use the Bypass button to bypass effects.
Out Clicking in the “Out” column for a channel slot opens the Output pop-
up menu. When set to Program, the output information saved in the 
loaded program will be used to determine the output. You can also se-
lect a specific output from the pop-up. Note that the outputs have been 
named to reflect the default output routing for each instrument group. Column Description 
						

							HALion Symphonic Orchestra
26
Player Options
The Player Options dialog opens when you click on the “ball” icon to 
the right of the Q controls. 
The Player Options dialog
The settings in the Player Options dialog affect the overall behavior of 
HALion Symphonic Orchestra. These are described below.
Disk Streaming – Memory
 The setting for Preload into RAM determines how many seconds of 
each sample are loaded into RAM.
It should be set depending on the number of samples that you intend to use, and the 
amount of RAM you want to dedicate to HALion Symphonic Orchestra. The less RAM 
you assign, the more often HALion Symphonic Orchestra has to access the disk. 
						

							ENGLISH
HALion Symphonic Orchestra
27
 The Cache Size value determines the total size of the cache, i. e. the 
amount of RAM available for disk streaming. 
The Disk LED in the bottom left corner of the HALion Symphonic Orchestra window will 
light up red when samples cannot be loaded from disk in time. In such a case you can 
increase the cache size and/or the preload time of the samples. The bigger the cache 
size, the less disk streaming is required, however, a large value may mean that you are 
waisting RAM. You may want to experiment with this setting to find the optimum value 
for your system.
 The cache is divided into “pages”. The “Cache Page Size” value de-
termines how big one of these pages is.
I. e. it sets the size of the audio data read during one disk streaming operation.
 “Memory max.” is the currrently set maximum amount of RAM available 
for HALion Symphonic Orchestra.
If you exceed this value, a warning message is displayed.
 If you change any of the disk streaming settings, click Apply to apply 
your changes, or Cancel to return to the previously set values.
Note that [Ctrl]/[Command]-clicking the Apply button will save the current setting for 
Preload into RAM as a global default.
See page 35 for more information on how to use these settings.
Editing
The Knob Modes determine the behavior of the HALion Symphonic 
Orchestra knobs:
Option Description
Circular To move a knob, you click on it and drag in a circular motion, much like 
turning a “real” knob. When you click anywhere along the knob’s edge, the 
setting is immediately changed.
Relative 
CircularWorks like the “Circular” option, but clicking does not automatically 
change the setting. This means you can make adjustments to the current 
setting by clicking anywhere on a knob and dragging, without having to 
click on the exact current position.
Linear To move a knob, you click on it and drag up or down (or left or right) with the 
mouse button pressed – as if the knob was a vertical (or horizontal) slider. 
						

							HALion Symphonic Orchestra
28
Crescendo Control
This controller is exclusive to Xfade and Xswitch programs.
In the Crescendo Control menu, you can select either of the four fol-
lowing controllers to control the crescendo function described later:
 Modulation wheel (CC 1)
 Breath Controller (CC 2)
 Foot Controller (CC 4)

 To hear the Xfade programs, you have to move the set controller up af-
ter loading the program. This is because the controller’s initial value is 0.
This setting is global for all program slots in HALion Symphonic Orches-
tra. It is saved and loaded with your current project (when using HALion 
Symphonic Orchestra as a plug-in) or with bank files.
Quality
The Quality setting provides a way of balancing audio quality vs. con-
servation of computer power. The lower the Quality setting, the more 
voices are available. As a trade-off, sound quality is reduced.
The Resampling Quality pop-up provides three options: Fast, Good, 
and Best. Resampling removes anti-aliasing artifacts, which can be 
especially noticeable in high frequency areas. The higher the setting, 
the better these artifacts will be suppressed. The trade-off with higher 
settings is heavier CPU load. For samples with little high frequency 
content, you can safely use the “Fast” option. For programs that use 
different samples for every key (so that there is no resampling) you 
should always use the “Fast” option to conserve computing power.
This section also contains the Use Export Mode option. Some host 
applications do not provide loaded plug-ins with information about 
whether an audio mixdown (also called “bounce” or “freeze”) is made 
in realtime or in offline mode, which may result in incomplete exports. 
In such a case, activate the “Use export mode” option to allow for a 
complete export. Don’t forget to deselect this option again after the 
export is completed. 
						

							ENGLISH
HALion Symphonic Orchestra
29
The MIDI controller list
The MIDI controller list is a two-column table. The column on the left 
shows entries for the eight Q control knobs, while the column on the 
right lists MIDI controllers assigned to each of the Q controls. Clicking 
in the MIDI controller column for a Q control entry opens a pop-up 
menu where you can pick one of the 128 MIDI controllers. There is 
also a “Not assigned” entry.
To assign a MIDI controller to a Q control so that you can remote con-
trol HALion Symphonic Orchestra using a connected MIDI device, 
proceed as follows:
1. Click in the MIDI controller column for the corresponding Q control 
and pick the desired MIDI controller.
For example, to remote control the first Q control knob using the modulation wheel on 
your MIDI keyboard, select “1. Modulation” from the pop-up menu.
2. Switch on the Learn button and move the control of your MIDI device.
In our example, you should now move the modulation wheel.
3. Switch off the Learn button.
Now the parameter assigned to the Quick Control is controlled by the selected slider 
or knob on the remote device! 
Show Content by Category
When you activate this option, all installed and located .hsb content 
will be shown in the Load Program pop-up menu, sorted by categories. 
When you deactivate this option, the Load Program pop-up shows the 
located .hsb files as collapsed folders, and you can browse the com-
plete content of each .hsb file by opening the corresponding folder.
If you don’t want to see all programs contained in a .hsb file, you can 
still use the Category pop-ups in the program slot (see page 24).
About Content
This opens a window displaying information about the located content 
(.hsb) files of HALion Symphonic Orchestra. Use the pop-up menu at 
the top to select a .hsb file (you may also click one of the tabs at the 
bottom of the window to display the information for the corresponding 
.hsb). The window displays the name, short name, manufacturer, manu-
facturer web site, and the path of the selected file. 
						

							HALion Symphonic Orchestra
30
Locate Content
The Locate Content function is used to “show” HALion Symphonic 
Orchestra where the .hsb files are stored. Once the content has been 
located, it is displayed as a list in the Load Program pop-up menu.
To use the Locate Content feature, proceed as follows:
1. In the Player Options dialog, select “Locate content…”.
A file dialog appears. By default, the function looks for .hsb files.
2. Locate and select the desired file(s) and click “Open”.
When you now open the Load Program pop-up menu, the programs contained in the 
located .hsb files are displayed in the list and can be used in HALion Symphonic Or-
chestra.
Note that when you install new content files (.hsb) on your hard disk, or 
when you move installed content, or when you chose not to install the 
content during installation of the program software, but copied it from 
the DVDs at a later point in time, you MUST use Locate Content to make 
this moved/new content available in HALion Symphonic Orchestra.
 When your content is located on an external hard drive, you may find 
that switching off this external device will cause HALion Symphonic 
Orchestra to loose all location information referring to this device.
Therefore, always make sure that an external drive with located content on it is up and 
running before you launch HALion Symphonic Orchestra. Otherwise, you will have to 
use Locate Content again.
Global controls
Master Tune/Volume settings/Voice number indicator