Steinberg Halion 5

I have been using Steinberg products for a long time. Halion 5 has tremendous capabilities. I am sure that it can do everything I could dream of if I can figure out how to tweak it correctly. The documentation is hard to wade through. I found a two-hour video done by Steinberg on You-tube that helped me more than anything else.

The improvements over Halion 4 are significant. Here are my issues. The granular synth still does not hold up to PadShop Pro. The B3 does not sound good enough for an experienced hammond player. VB3 remains the best, software wise. Was hoping their Hammond macro would have done the trick, but no go. I still use VB3 live. If you are not much of an organ player, you may be okay with the B3 sounds. However, they sound just like my Yamaha Motif XF(which are close, but not good enough).That said. The interface is way better than Halion 4. B Box and the other included modules are fantastic! Sample slice options are easy to understand, as usual, with more editing tools. The destructive editing remains the disappointment for this feature, though. The new effects didn't really wow me, but I use Waves plugins.The organization of the differing synth modules, and the new synth modules made it all worth it for me.Good bye retrologue (never really liked it), mystic, and the others. Halion 5 commands most of my projects at home, and I am getting ready to use it on stage using Cantabile.

There's probably nothing I can't do with H5 and HS2 as a composer/instrumentalist. As far as programming new synth sounds, I'll leave that to all the techie synth sound programmers. There's more than enough OTB and preset synth sounds for me to choose from to last until H8.75 comes out. Whenever that is. Taking the time to look into the edit parameters to create new, original sounds is a little counter productive for me. However, knowing that I can mold, modify, shape and tweak any sounds Halion Sonic 2 has is like icing on the cake. All of the library samples articulated can be further enhanced and tweaked to produce the greater authenticity of acoustic instruments. Of course, authenticity in a vsts sampled sound rests squarely upon the composer and his ability to write and perform the sample in a "realistic" manor. If you're looking for realism in sampling technology, HS is neck and neck with NI Kontakt IMO and maybe even a step ahead.