Steinberg VST Sampler HALion 3 Operation Manual

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❐The key to which a key switch is assigned (in this example the C 1 key) 
should not have a sample mapped to it! If your sample folder has sam-
ples mapped to this key, select another key which is currently not as-
signed a key zone. Which key you select is entirely up to you as long as 
you can play it from your MIDI keyboard and it doesn’t contain a sample.
7.The “Play If” conditions section to the right should be set to “Note On” 
in the first pop-up, and in the second pop-up select “Condition 1”. 
Furthermore, the top operator pop-up to the far right should be set to 
“AND”.
The text field at the bottom of the “Play If” section should now read “Note On” AND 
“Condition 1”. 
8.Repeat the above, but this time select the plucked violins sub-folder 
and set both the Min and Max Range sliders to “D 1”. Set the same 
“Play If” conditions as in step 7.
Thus, if you now press C 1 on your keyboard, the samples in the first 
folder will sound, and if you press D 1, the samples in the second 
folder will sound instead. 
• You can also use the Alternate function to automatically switch between 
sample folders so that each time you play a note a slightly different sam-
ple is played. How to use Alternate is described on page 139. 
						

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Example 2: Note On / Note Off
In this example, well use an extremely useful function. More and more 
libraries include “note off” samples to simulate the release or reverb 
“tail” of an instrument e.g. a grand piano.
1.Load two sub-folders into an empty Program using the methods de-
scribed in earlier examples. 
One folder will contain the “main” samples, the other the “note off” samples. 
2.As always, ensure that Select edit mode is activated. 
3.Select your “note off” folder and open the “MegaTrig” sub-page.
4.Change the first “Play if” condition from “Note On” to “Note Off”.
Now each time you release the keys you will trigger the release sam-
ples. You may have to play a little bit with the release tail and levels of 
the “main” and “release” samples to get them to match. 
In the DCA section of the Sound page there is a “Rel. Env.” section 
containing a “Mode” pop-up with various Release options. This can 
be used to obtain a more realistic release when triggering your re-
lease samples – see page 111 for more information.  
						

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Tutorial 3: Using crossfades and curves 
In the following examples well cover a number of different crossfades. 
This tutorial assumes that you are familiar with concepts such as fold-
ers, how to load multiple folders into a program, how to bring up con-
text menus and the difference between “All” and “Select” edit modes 
in HALion. 
Example 1: A simple one way fade
Fading in an additional sound using the modulation wheel is a very 
useful feature. In this example we describe how to set up a fade be-
tween a piano and a string pad so that you can play the piano program 
and fade in the string pad using the modulation wheel. Obviously, this 
applies to any two sounds:
1.Use the “Load Folder(s)” context menu item to load the piano and 
string pad Programs into an empty Program. 
They will appear as sub-folders in the Program folder.
2.Activate Select edit mode.
3.Select the string pad sub-folder. 
4.Open the Modulation sub-page on the Sound page view. 
5.In the Source column select “Mod Wheel(1)”.
6.Click on the Edit (E) button to the left of the Source pop-up. Set Off-
set to -100, and Range to 100.
7.In the Amount pop-up select “Amount 1” (or any other “Amount xx” en-
try) and use the slider to set the Amount value to 100.
8.Click on the Edit (E) button to the left of the Amount pop-up. Set Off-
set to 0, and Range to 100.
9.In the Destination column select “Volume”.
You should now hear the piano sound if you play. By moving the mod-
ulation wheel forward you should now be able to fade the string pad in 
and out.  
						

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10.Save this modulation set-up as a preset, so you can later apply this 
modulation to any layered Program simply by selecting one of the sub-
folders and choosing this preset.
Type in a descriptive name in the box, something like “MW off to full” and click on the 
“+” to store the Preset.
Now lets create a two-way fade. Keep the current setup exactly as it 
is. What we are going to do is to add a third Program that fades out as 
the strings fade in.
Since weve kept the settings, all we have to do is to import a third 
sub-folder. Once you have loaded it, select the new sub-folder and 
make the following settings on the Modulation page: 
11.In the Source column select “Mod Wheel(1)”.
12.Click on the Edit (E) button to the left of the Source pop-up menu. Set 
Offset to 0, and Range to 100.
13.In the Amount pop-up select “Amount 1” (or any other “Amount xx” en-
try) and use the slider to set the Amount value to -100.
14.Click on the Edit (E) button to the left of the Amount pop-up menu. 
Set Offset to 0, and Range to 100.
Now when you play, you have a piano layered with two different 
sounds that can be faded in or out, respectively, by moving the modu-
lation wheel forward. 
						

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Example 2: Multiple crossfades using curves
Up until now we have used a fairly simple technique to fade one sound 
out and fade another in. In this example we will create a three-way 
crossfade, with more control over the fades. To achieve this well need 
to use “curves”. 
This time well be loading three sub-folders containing “Flute pp”, “Flute 
mf” and “Flute ff” samples (again, this applies to any multiple dynamics 
Program). What we want to achieve is precise control of the dynamics 
of our instrument via the modulation wheel. 
By now we assume you are familiar with the basic procedures, so we 
will not describe each task in detail.
1.Select an empty Program slot. 
2.Load your three Programs into the Program slot.
3.Select all three sub-folders and make the following adjustments on 
the Modulation page: 
• Source: Mod Wheel(1) 
• Offset: 0 
• Range: 100 
• Amount: Amount 1 
• Amount value: -100 
• Offset: 0 
• Range: 100 
• Destination: Volume  
						

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We are now going to define the fade points for each of our three lay-
ers in turn. 
4.Select the first sub-folder (Flute pp) and click on the “Edit” button in 
the “Source” column.
Make sure Select edit mode is active.
5.Select “User defined” from the Function pop-up menu.
A miniature diagram with a diagonal line appears to the right.
6.Click the Edit button beside the diagram.
The Crossfade dialog appears. The dialog allows you to set up a curve to control ex-
actly the shape of the fade. You can set up to four points to specify the curve.  
						

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7.Click on the curve point in the bottom left corner and drag it upwards 
along the diagonal line so that all four points are visible. Move the 
points around so that you end-up with the following settings (a pair of 
numbers shows you the current value of each point in real time as you 
move them): 
The first number of the pair of numbers shown for each point determines how much we 
attenuate the signal, and the second number shows at which modulation wheel posi-
tion the attenuation is applied. 
• Point 1: 0 – 0 
• Point 2: 127 – 64 
• Point 3: 127 – 127
8.Click OK to close the dialog and apply the curve.
9.Select the second (Flute mf) sub-folder and click the Edit button again 
to open the Crossfade dialog.
10.Move the points to the following positions:
• Point 1: 127 – 0 
• Point 2: 0 – 64 
• Point 3: 127 – 127   
						

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•The sound is totally faded out at modulation wheel position 0, full level 
at position 64 and again totally faded out at position 127. 
11.Click OK to close the dialog and apply the curve.
12.Select the third (Flute ff) sub-folder and click the Edit button again to 
open the Crossfade dialog.
13.Move the points to the following positions:
• Point 1: 127 – 0 
• Point 2: 127 – 64 
• Point 3: 0 – 127   
						

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•The sound is totally faded out between modulation wheel positions 0 
to 64 and faded in fully by the time we reach position 127. 
•Sometimes you may want to adjust the volume of a layer independently 
from the modulation wheel position. 
Use the “Range” parameter to restrict how loud the layer can become (you can hear 
the effect in real time). 
After testing that the three-way fade works fine, you might want to 
save these three presets and work out even bigger crossfades! 
Note also that there are logical presets for crossfades over several lay-
ers at the bottom of the Crossfade dialog. These specify the number of 
layers and the order in which they should be applied, e.g. “XFade 3 
Layers (1)” and “XFade 3 Layers (2)” etc.   
						

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