Time for the true. NI Kompakt against Steinberg Halion.

[MacTron]

NI Kompakt against Steinberg Halion:

Halion is a good and full sampler and Kompakt is way better as an advanced sample player, (letting the full sampler creation to his big broder Kontakt).

But, what of those are best in terms of CPU and RAM usage? ie number of instruments and polyphony?
I've run both samplers in Cubase in the same computer and with the same sampled instruments group.

The results in brief: Halion has double the power of Kompakt.

This are the data:

	Polyphony	Time to Load (Sec)	RAM (MB)
Kompakt DFD	38	19	350
Kompakt	51	46	750
Halion DFD	76	15	350

The polyphony is the maximum achievable with this full setup. DFD means the samples are loaded in to RAM, just in part, the remaining part is loaded Direct From Disk.
Halion is very efficient with this technique. I couldn't achieve any benefit disabling it.

This picture show us the Cubase RAM load with Halion (the short bar) and with Kompakt without DFD (the larger bar)

And below we have a Kompakt and Halion snapshot showing the same instruments. We have to open two instances of Kompakt to accommodate the 16 instruments. Those instruments were chosen randomly between the lowest RAM usage ones.

[supernova777]

double... is alot 

[MacTron]

post updated with extra info...

double... is alot 

Really.

[DieHard]

Ahhhh... I knew you would defect and come the HALion camp sooner or later...lol

[supernova777]

now im just waiting for u guys to switch to ableton live;) 

[Protools5LEGuy]

now im just waiting for u guys to switch to ableton live;) 

Chris, Can you take some SF2 soundfonts or AKAI and compare the sampler of ableton (I guess you use the REASON sampler rewired) with halion? Or Ableton has an Own sampler?

It seems that HALion is the Winner.     

To be fair we ALL should use the same MIDI file and test in different scenarios. To achieve that we need a test from SF2 or SampleCell or AKAI S1000/3000.

I believe in the Logic 6.x / EXS 24mk2 combo. In fact, was one of the latest combos Seq/Sampler.

I am not sure if MacTron is dealing with a Logic version > 4.x.

My test machine is not from M.A.R.L.    It will be a Dual Ghz (2Mg Cache/Proc) with 1 Gig Ram, a more common machine for a Studio. Offtopic: Do You really use MDD in Studios? How you avoid the wind-tunnel in your Mic 

It is know that DieHard and MacTron are very in Single Processors machines for OS9. Most Logic users have dual machines. (In fact a LOT of Logic owners moved to G5s)

[supernova777]

ableton 4 supports all vst plugins
u can just load halion or kontakt directly
no need for reason via rewire but that works too
and ive used nn-xt + nn19 alot more then i have used kontakt i will admit
but ableton live is like one big sampler itself thats why i love it;)

mactron didnt say anything about exs24 from what i can see
mactron doesnt like logic or live!! he is cubase totalitarian;)

[MacTron]

mactron didnt say anything about exs24 from what i can see
mactron doesnt like logic or live!! he is cubase totalitarian;)

I'd explained this several times:
I was a Emagic Logic version 3x user in the 68k era. I never liked the interface, but what was totally unacceptable to me was the dongle (real or virtual) on versions 4.x onwards. At the same time put my eyes in to Cubase 4.0 and his VST technology and Logic never more...

Further more, the very bad impressions I have about Logic and EXS memory management further keep me away from them. So, even I'll be interested in the results,  the Emagic/Apple Logic test should be done by Logic users, not me.

... And in brief about Ableton Live: it don't fit at all in my working flow.

[supernova777]

mactron... relax;) this was humour;) 
everyone is free to have their own opinion.
and everyone is more familiar with certain software then others..
we are human:)
(though some of us aspire to be super-human heheh)

[arjen_1]

Hmmm...that's interesting. I love the simplicity of Kompakt but double polyphony can't be ignored.
Are the stability issues with Halion and other VSTI's solved in v2? I've quit using Halion v1 because of the multiple crashes it was causing.

[supernova777]

arjen_1
the stability issues u speak of are definately related to the crack and those instabilities would obv not be present in a real copy of halion 1 or halion 2... so the problem/fault is on a bad crack.. not halion itself

[MacTron]

Hmmm...that's interesting. I love the simplicity of Kompakt but double polyphony can't be ignored.

I'm agree.

Are the stability issues with Halion and other VSTI's solved in v2? I've quit using Halion v1 because of the multiple crashes it was causing.

The first impressions aren't good in the stability category.
But I don't have a full verdict, until I have done a couple of songs with massively use of Halion 2, as I do with Kompakt.

[Jakl]

arjen_1
the stability issues u speak of are definately related to the crack and those instabilities would obv not be present in a real copy of halion 1 or halion 2... so the problem/fault is on a bad crack.. not halion itself

No there is no such thing - The Halion Disk will install correctly
as long you have installed Cubase VST32 first - there is no KRACK NEEDED!

Please get this clear - Once Cubase VST32 is installed
on your system any Proper Copy of the Halion 1 or 2 Disk should install
okay. This was always the case with my installs. Cubase VST32 was needed
to set up almost every Steinberg VST instrument even Mastering Edition Effects.
So Cubase VST32(Never tried the other versions, VST24, Score etc) once installed
will open up your computer to install all the other VST instruments and some effects
without having to enter any serial number whatsoever.

The only way I could see that this would not happen is if CubaseVST32 serial
number was a KRACK serial number. Even then I don't know.

Halion v1 is very buggy yes even after the updates - Halion 2 is much more stable.
Use Halion 2 would be my advice but use a fast G4 not a G3 for Halion 2.

Anyway my 2 cents.

[DieHard]

Let me first start by saying, back in the day, my company tested every sampler that worked on OS 9 and after deciding to standardize on Nuendo and Cubase for hosts, HALion was the clear sampler winner with both of those Hosts.

Halion 1 with updates (v1.13) is very stable and I have used it for many huge projects in the past, it does have some quirks / navigational bugs, but these do not crash the system; also finding samples is a real bitch since the program or Bank may have sample paths defined as relational directories to the parent folder OR as hard-coded paths; so there are a few tricks when it comes to finding all the correct samples.... also I strongly recommend always "Printing" a sampler track to audio once the track in finished as a standard practice with any sampler under OS 9, since it will help with project portability later and potential problems when mixing if resources are getting low due to many sampler instrument tracks.

Now as far as HALion 2 (Public Beta 2.0.2) ... a HUGE advantage is the "Global Sample Path"; this corrects finding lost samples in an instant and is very easy for newbies

[arjen_1]

Thanks for your comments. I didn't use any cracked software before.
I will give Halion 2 a try!

Greetz,
Arjen

[MacTron]

Oh my god...
what a big deception!
In the real test the results are the opposite! 

I've tested one of my songs with Orchestra and Choirs. And Halion can't go, even with choirs only!

After passing the last weeks in to finding and translating the best sample libraries to Halion ...

How  such a radically different results can be obtained? 

[MacTron]

I have done a second real life test that keeps Halion falling against Kompakt ...

I can accept that Halion don't have Round Robin, the keyswichs and other "conditionals" are a mesh and the group edit is near to nonexistent. But now I find that it's "double the power of Kompakt" that even myself have proclaimed, it's the opposite ...

I'll make a few real test more  , and I'll forget Halion once again, may be this time is forever.

[IIO]

can it be that you were using different buffer sizes for the host app? in the MacOS info picture you posted above you have two instances of cubase open. you were using 2 different drivers, right?

[MacTron]

can it be that you were using different buffer sizes for the host app?

No, the buffers size are the same.

in the MacOS info picture you posted above you have two instances of cubase open. you were using 2 different drivers, right?

This two Cubases are not running at the same time. The picture is just to easy compare both cases...

[VMS]

I have done a second real life test that keeps Halion falling against Kompakt ...

I can accept that Halion don't have Round Robin, the keyswichs and other "conditionals" are a mesh and the group edit is near to nonexistent. But now I find that it's "double the power of Kompakt" that even myself have proclaimed, it's the opposite ...

I'll make a few real test more  , and I'll forget Halion once again, may be this time is forever.

so, how's the final result
what are their true numbers of polypony?