I have Halion Symphonic Orchestra (HSO) as it is currently sold on its own as a sound library. It comes with a small VST2 interface in one of the Extras folders that is VST2 compatible with Sibelius. The included VSTi is a single instrument/patch per instance UI. HSO does not require a Steinberg USB dongle, but it can be moved to one permenantly if you so choose. As far as I know, you can only use HSO on one computer at a time (either in soft-eLicenser or on a dongle). If you do not use the dongle option, it can be a bit fussy to move around from machine to machine (requires interaction with your MySteinberg account).
Click for image of the included HSO VST2 UI.
HSO also works as a content library in Halion 4/5/etc. (H5) or Halion Sonic. In these players, HSO gets a special macro screen that looks very similar to the screen shot offered above, but you can load up several of them at once in the same instance if you like. At this time Sonic and H5 both require a Steinberg USB dongle. These can also be used with Sibelius. Sonic and Halion 5 come with stand alone, VST2 and VST3 plugin options. The stand alone version can handle up to 64 channels (over 4 input ports). Both of these require a Steinberg USB dongle.
With Sonic you can get up to 16 instruments loaded into the same VSTi instance, and you get an added ability of creating layers that will trigger over the same channel.
In the H5 VST2 plugin, you can load 16 instruments per instance on independent MIDI channels, but you can load far more and have them set to the same channel for 'layered' effects, and you can directly edit the HSO content (all the synth paramters, unlimited layering, fx, and to some extent even the samples themselves).
In both Sonic or H5, you can load as many instances as you need in Sibelius.
The included HSO UI is quite flexible. You can set it up to use velocity or cc messages for dynamics. You can choose articulations from momentary or held style key switches, program changes, CC messages, or separate each articulation out over its own channel by using multiple instances and disabling all but the articulation meant for that channel.
With that in mind, you can start using HSO right away in Sibelius without needing to make special soundworld xml maps to go with it. For this scenario, you'd just load an instance per instrument/articulation in the Sibelius playback manager, disable any unused articulations for that instance (to save memory), set it to use velocity mode, and give it the relevant soundworld id in Sibelius. Sibelius would then be able to automatically choose instruments and articulations that you have loaded according to your Sibelius Dictionary settings. You can also create your own custom commands in the Sibelius Dictionary that bypass the Sibelius-soundworld system of instrument control, or even drop actual MIDI commands in the score by preceding text with a tilde ( ~ ) character.
Sibelius will allow you to save your favorite ensemble setups, so you don't have to keep rebuilding them over and over again. This includes all your VSTi and VSTe plugins along with their settings.
Alternatively, you can build little sosundworld maps for each family of instruments (or ask someone to share theirs with you). These xml maps would allow Sibelius to automatically take advantage of things like key-switches and expression controllers in a single HSO instance. I personally have gone this route because I think really dynamic passages translate better with a combination of volume (CC7), velocity, and expression controls (CC1); as compared to the default volume and key velocity alone.
In either scenario, you'll want to tweak the included HSO patches a bit and save your modified version for easy use in Sibelius, so expect a bit of a learning curve in getting HSO working to maximum potential with Sibelius.
I don't have any clue how Dorico will come bundled. It might come with something like the Halion Sonic SE that currently comes with Cubase. This would make sense due to the fact that most people are going to want in the least a full GM sound library (not just a base symphonic orchestra). Any included players and sound libraries might be limited to use in Dorico. I.E. Cubase currently comes with the Sonic-SE version that only works inside Cubase. To use my Halion libraries outside of Cubase I must use their included UI (if they come with one...HSO as it is currently sold does), or a full version of Sonic or H4/5. |
VST Question - Hans Nel, 18 Jul 12:03PM