Steinberg VST Workstation Halion Sonic Operation Manual

81
HALion Sonic
Mix
This controls the mix between the dry and the wet signal. 
The control range is from 0% to 100%. At 100% you hear 
the wet signal only.
Tremolo
This effect produces amplitude modulation, i.e. cyclic 
modulation of the level of the sound.
Rate
Use this to specify the frequency of the amplitude modula-
tion in Hertz (Hz). The control range is from 0.01 Hz to 
10.0 Hz.
Sync
Sync is short for synchronization. Activate this to set the 
Rate in fractions of beats with the following values:...

82
HALion Sonic
Balance
Here you adjust the balance between the horn and drum 
microphones. The control range is from 0% to 100%. At a 
setting of 0% you hear only the drum. At a setting of 
100% you hear only the horn. The unity setting is at 50%.
Slow Speed
This adjusts the slow speed of the horn and drum to-
gether. The control range is from -100% to +100%. At a 
setting of -100% the speed is two times slower than at 
0%. At a setting of +100% the speed is two times faster 
than at 0%.
Fast Speed
This...

83
HALion Sonic
Depth
This sets the intensity of the pitch modulation. The control 
range is from 0% to 100%.
Vibr/Chor
This controls the mix between the vibrato and the chorus 
signal. The control range is from 0% to 100%. At 100% 
you hear the chorus effect only.
Compressor
Compressors reduce the dynamic range of a sound. This 
way, the sound gains headroom. You can use this extra 
headroom to make the overall sound louder again. The 
graphical control to the left indicates the compression 
curve. You...

84
HALion Sonic
Release
This determines how fast the Compressor reacts to 
sounds that fall below the set Threshold. The control 
range is from 10 ms to 1000 ms. The longer the time, the 
longer the period will be for returning back to the original 
level.
Auto Release
Activate this to set the Release time automatically. The 
Compressor analyzes the input sound continuously to find 
the optimal Release time for you. The Release potentiom
-
eter becomes dark while Auto Release is active.
Peak – RMS
Here...

85
HALion Sonic
Threshold
Use this to set the Threshold in dB. The control range is 
from -60.0 dB to 0.0 dB. Sounds that are softer than the 
Threshold will be reduced in gain. Sounds above the 
Threshold stay untreated.
Ratio
This adjusts the amount of gain reduction for sounds that 
are softer than the Threshold. The control range is from 
1.0 to 8.0. The higher the ratio the more the output will be 
lowered. For example, if the ratio is set to 2:1 and the am
-
plitude of the sound is 4 dB below the...

86
HALion Sonic
Monitor
Activate this to listen to the sound of the side chain filter. 
The Gate will be inactive while the Monitor is activated.
Frequency (LP, BP, HP)
Here you can activate one of three cutoff frequencies of 
the side chain filter.
Q-Factor
Activate this to adjust the bandwidth of the band-pass fil-
ter from wide to narrow. The control range is from 0.001 
to 10.0.
Attack
This determines how fast the Gate opens when the sound 
exceeded the set Threshold. The control range is from 0.1...

87
HALion Sonic
MediaBay
Load page – MediaBay
The integrated MediaBay browser view gives you a quick 
and comfortable access to all HALion Sonic presets such 
as multis, program and the various layer presets. It is di
-
vided into two sections. In the upper section you can de-
fine which kind of sounds you want to look for. The lower 
section presents the corresponding result list. You can 
drag the upper limit of the result list to adjust the size rela
-
tion between the two sections.
Loading programs...

88
HALion Sonic
Category search
You can comfortably search for presets that match up to 
four search criteria by using the configurable search col -
umns.
The easiest way is to begin by using the standard columns 
Category, Sub Cat
 egory, Style and Character. By clicking 
on specific tag values in the tag columns, you define the 
search filter. Only the files that match the selected tag val -
ues will be displayed in the result list. Select more tag val -
ues from other columns to further refine your...

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HALion Sonic
Reset the search filter
If you want to remove the text from the search field simply 
click the Reset button on the left side of the text field.
Factory / User filter
These two filter buttons allow you to define whether you 
want to see all presets, only the Factory, or only your user 
presets.
The result counter
The number of presets that  matches the specified search 
criteria is displayed in the text field in the right corner of 
the result list toolbar.
Tagging presets
Each preset can...

90
HALion Sonic
Options page
The settings on the Options page
Disk Streaming
Some of the programs come with up to 1 GB of samples, 
such as the acoustic piano. That is a large amount of data 
and your computer cannot load all samples completely 
into the RAM, especially if you are using all of the 16 slots. 
Instead, HALion Sonic loads only the first milliseconds of 
each sample into the RAM and constantly loads more 
manageable portions from hard disk while you play. Be
-
cause the hard disk has to work...