User Manual

Managing Your Sounds
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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, 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 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.