Cornucopia for HALion 6 released - video experiments inside

Two fresh patches in one slightly dramatic demo, both patches layer samples of a huge gong (ø 130 cm) located in the garden of my mother’s house (where I grew up), during a visit over the weekend I made some field recordings there. In both patches there is also a wavetable synth using a WT derived from the gong samples, custom interfaces let you control lots of parameters, I’ll make a video once I have completed more patches with those field recordings, also some very large some beautiful wind chimes were captured, birds, and more…

Two instances of HALion 6 using 2 presets (Garden Chimes Split + Alto Sax Swell Pad) from Cornucopia, some Macro and modulation wheel action in both instances.

Patch descriptions:

Garden Chimes Split
Two long tubular chime samples split across the keyboard, split point: C3 - recorded in a garden (of my mum’s house where I grew up in), each sample is layered with an effected version where the pitches of the chimes are tuned to a dorian scale, the FX versions play in granular mode. Plenty of QCs and Macros are installed, amongst other things you can control/modulate sample start/grain position/grain speed, hybrid filter modulation and phaser FX for for the granular layer, chorus/ring modulation for the sampling layer, master delay/reverb FX and more. MW adds complex pitch modulation, AT adds vibrato when the respective QC has dialed in.

Alto Sax Swell Pad
Two re-synthesized/wave-tabled alto sax swells in OSC1/2 of the WT synth. MW adds tempo-synced formant modulation (via filter envelope), QC4 adds a tempo-synced filter envelope (user envelope). Each OSC has dedicated controls for WT speed, formant shift, amount of unison voices, unison detune and pan position. A band reject filter on program level can be dialed in with the center Macro. More controls are available for chorus/delay/reverb FX, QC3 controls amount of vibrato (pitch/amplitude) via AT, the Glide-switch enables tempo-synced glide (1/16).

Have a nice sonic flight…

Improvising live on video with the HALion 6-patch “Odd Even Mill” from Cornucopia.

Description:

Dual WT Synth using an odd and an even tempo-synced WT (odd/even partials), MW adds vibrato, each oscillator has Macro controls for volume, octave and detune, more Macros control delay/ensemble/reverb FX. QC3 adds distortion, QC4 introduces a tempo-synced pitch stepper – +/- 1 octave with the control fully engaged.

And another one:

Improvising with a vocal re-synthesis patch from Cornucopia, Macro and modulation wheel action was recorded in several passes after improvising the music - 100% HALion 6.

Description:

Re-synthesized/wave-tabled female speech loop, MW adds a tempo-synced pitch sequence, plenty of wavetable controls are installed for modulating WT-speed, formant shift (also via LFO), unison detune, LP cutoff and more. More Macros are available for controlling delay/chorus/reverb FX.

Two instances of HALion 6 using two presets from Cornucopia - both are wavetable patches with re-synthesized sounds - Double Duduk and Spectral Psaltery - some Macro and modulation wheel action, 100 % Halion 6. Quite amazing how well some sounds translate to wavetables in the re-synthesis process.

Improvising live on video with the HALion 6 patch Diamander from Cornucopia.

Patch description:
Multi-sampled synth bells with FX tails, 5 pitches were sampled between C1 – C5, samples are crossfade-looped. In a second layer there is a WT synth using a WT extracted from one of the samples (C4). MW adds square-shaped pitch modulation, modulation speed is modulated via VEL and S&H, +/- 7 Semitones with the wheel fully engaged. Plenty of Macros are installed for controlling the WT synth timbre, adding RM FX to the synth bells and master delay/reverb FX. QC3 introduces velocity sensitive LP filtering.

Ambient demo featuring a single patch from Cornucopia, plenty of Macro automation going on.

Patch description:
Field recorded stone-water-splash layered with effected version (sampling and granular C-2 – C3) and processed water bells (C3 – C7), overlapping split point: C3. Each layer has a volume control - natural stone in L1, split sampling in L2 - split granular in L3, control sample start of L2 with QC1, control grain speed/position in L3 with QC3, add filter modulation to L2/3 with QC6, control modulation speed with QC7. MW adds tempo-synced tremolo FX, each layer has Macro controls for volume, the stone-splash in L1 has controls for pitch key follow range and coarse tuning and a dedicated convolution reverb which can also be reversed with a switch. The granular layer has 2 Macros for pitch randomization (one for each split sound). More Macros for phaser/delay/reverb FX are available.

Improvising live on video with the dark ambient/drone patch “Metusalix Split” from Cornucopia - this patch combines granular synthesis with a synth and a sampling module.

Description:
Two split layers combining granular synthesis drones with a synth drone in the lower register and a noise-scape in the upper, split point: C3
Each component has a dedicated volume control installed, FX controls for ring modulation/delay/reverb are installed. MW decreases LP cutoff and adds distortion, QC1 controls grain speed in the granular zones, QC2 engages grain position modulation/sample start modulation via VEL, QC3 shortens the grains and adds weird modulation to the sampling/synth zones, QC4 controls the amount of grain position randomization via AT.

Improvising live on video with the patch Holy Poly from Cornucopia.

Patch description:
Three layered sequencer WT synths with different time signatures, MW adds tempo-synced random filter modulation. Each oscillator has Macros installed for volume, octave, detune, formant shift and pan position, the filter envelope in each zone creates the main rhythm and also modulates WT index position and formant shift. The 4/4-sequence in WT synth 3 also has a volume control for the sub-oscillator. Bypass switches let you switch of the individual pitch sequences. FX Macros and switches for delay/convolution reverb/Maximizer are installed, QC1 adds pan-modulation per note with different panning speeds per sequence.

More Drama → five instances of HALion 6 using presets from Cornucopia - some Macro/modwheel and volume automation in a few of the patches - 100% Halion 6.

Two instances of HALion 6 using presets from Cornucopia (Ambient SineQuencer → two layered analog synth sequences/Eso Sizzle Pad → multi-sampled processed bowed psaltery in granular mode), - some Macro and modulation wheel action.

Here comes audio demo no. 22 for this sound library:
Six instances of HALion 6 using presets from Cornucopia - some Macro and modulation wheel action in a few of the instruments. After some serious health problems including a surreal vacation in hospital I’m now sort of back on track, all patches are ready, I’m just finishing the tagging and completing the patchlist/PDF, then I’ll have to wait until Steinberg releases the Halion 6 update and then Cornucopia will be released as well. Can’t be long now…

Two HALion 6 patches from Cornucopia in ambient action, some Macro, modulation wheel and aftertouch automation going on.

Building the library/vstsoundcountainer today went all smooth, installing it with the new Library Manager which was released with HALion 6 on two different computers was so easy, just double click on the vstsoundcontainer with the Library Manager open to register the library → done. Steinberg certainly improved the entire procedure of installing 3rd party libraries by 1000 milestones. So all I can do now is to wait for Steinberg to release the HALion 6 update 6.0.1

So I changed my plans and just released this library, as the release of the maintenance update of HALion 6 still needs some more time and I want to get this out of the door, please read the specifications-section below.


Cornucopia for HALion 6 provides a wealth of predominantly wavetable-based patches, all wavetables were be produced exclusively for this sound library by re-synthesizing dozens of samples from various acoustic instruments (string instruments, woodwinds, brass), vocals, percussion and electronic textures.
The sounds focus on warm and moving pads, dark and epic drones, digital hybrids, animated sequences, profound bass and pluck sounds, cinematic textures and soundscapes, crispy mallets and obscure sound effects. Some patches also layer the wavetable synth with Halion’s granular and/or sampling engine, some patches also make use of Halion’s analog synth, a few patches only use the granular and/or sampling oscillators. All presets have a designed Macro interface with a background image, more complex modulation routings are sometimes also assigned to the eight Quick Controls at the bottom of the main interface and the modulation wheel, quite a few presets also make use of aftertouch.

The wav-samples in Cornucopia are a mixture of field recordings, soprano sax tones and phrases, a huge gong recorded open air in a garden, tubular chimes (also recorded in that garden), electronic soundscapes, multi-sampled synth sounds and experimental electronic textures. All wavetables are embedded in the preset files, yet an additional folder with all wavetables used in Cornucopia (plus some extra ones) is included in the download folder, so that the user can easily create new patches using these tables.

You can view/download the PDF for this soundlibrary including the license agreement, more relevant info and a detalled patchlist here.

Specifications:

  • *103 tagged presets
    *155 wavetables (153.1 MB, also available in a separate folder for easy access).
    *769.9 MB of original samples (67 wavs / 48 Khz / 24 Bit / stereo)
    *Library size in total (with all assets): 1.03 GB
    *Delivery: download (compressed RAR-archive, download size: 768.5 MB).
    *Price: € 42 EUR.
    *The full version of HALion 6 is required to play the patches from this library.
    *Please note: With the current release version of HALion 6, all tempo-synced envelopes programmed for this library play out of sync with the DAW and other HALion modulators (step modulator/LFOs). This is a known issue and will be fixed with the first maintenance update of HALion (version 6.0.1), to be released very soon.

Product page.

All demos were produced entirely with HALion 6 using only patches from Cornucopia, no post-processing was applied apart from a limiter on the outputs and some volume automation, if several instances of HALion were used in a track.

Here is a Youtube playlist with video demos for this library and other wavetable experiments which led to the creation of this sound libray. There is also a tutorial for the wavetable synth towards the bottom of the list.

Thanks for reading.
Simon Stockhausen

Live on video: Stepping through/improvising with three patches from Cornucopia, tweaking the available controls on the fly.

Now that the HALion 6 update 6.0.1 has been released, all tempo-synced modulations in Cornucopia finally play in sync with the DAW and internally. Also the Library Manager was updated, double clicking on the vstsoundcontainer will now automatically open the manager (also on Windows).

Cornucopia is discounted at the moment in the patchpool summer sale, the more people vote for it, the higher the discount will be. Check it out here: https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=487214

Cornucopia for HALion 6 and my other two libraries Aureus Ventus for HALion 5/6 and Sonic Cinema for HALion 5/6 are discounted by 30% during the patchpool Black Friday sale. The HALion Bundle (at the bottom of the page - containing all three patchpool libraries for HALion) is discounted by 20%.

Easter discounts on patchpool.net:

Cornucopia for HALion 6 - 25% discount
Aureus Ventus for HALion 5/6 - 30%% discount
Sonic Cinema for HALion 5/6 - 30%% discount
HALion Bundle (at the bottom of the page - containing all three patchpool libraries for HALion) - 20% discount

HappyEaster!

Simon