Sonic SE instances are not going to be replaced with H6 or Sonic 3 instances; however, True Sonic and HALion instances should, as the plugin ids are identical. In short, things should be a seamless transition. If you have projects that are trying to use Sonic SE, you’ll want to update that as well with the free SE player.
Things to check:
- Make sure your dongles are plugged in, go ahead and reinstall your eLisencer software to the latest version and reboot. Even if you already have the ‘latest’…Just do it again. For me this resolves issues more often than not.
https://www.steinberg.net/en/company/technologies/elicenser.html
If that didn’t fix your issues…open that elisencer app, and make sure you have the proper keys for Sonic and HALion on your dongle or soft elisencer. Be careful if you want to keep things on the software elisencer, as once you put it on a usb dongle, it can never go back to a software elisencer. You can move it from dongle to dongle, but never back to software eLisencer. So, be careful to put the key where you want it! If you did ever put it on a usb dongle, then that MUST be plugged in for anything to work properly.
Note…older HALion stuff will not work from a software eLisencer at all. Those MUST be run from your usb dongle. So…if you have upgraded to HALion 6, Sonic 3, and have a need to run HALion 5, Sonic 2 plugins, or older…you should contact support for a special ‘add-on’ key that works with those old plugins. I believe the special roll-back add-on key has to be on a dongle, and you’ll also need the H6/Sonic 3 keys properly set up somewhere on the system. Also note, that you should not really need to do this unless you’re trying to run some old 32bit host(s). Personally, I bridge instead of trying to roll things back in the rare case I need to run HALion in some ancient 32bit host. Options for bridging 64bit plugins to old 32bit hosts include jBridge, or running a 32bit instance of Bidule hooked up over ReWire.
- If you still have plugins for older versions of HALion on the system, it’s probably best to uninstall them (or move the dll and/or VST3 wrappers to a VST directory that your DAW is not scanning for plugins). Keep all the content, but get rid of the apps and plugin wrappers.
I.E. I’ve got legacy HALion content going back to version 1. I’ve also got stuff I imported from AKAI and Roland Sampler disks. I’ve got HSO, and other things as well. I did not touch any of that ‘content’. I just uninstalled HALion 5, Sonic 2, while leaving all the content alone and then installed H6 and Sonic 3, which added new content, registered the old, and keeps plugging right along with my older projects.
Exceptions being really old projects that still try to call up HALion ONE. In those cases, I need to redirect the track(s) to H6 or Sonic 3 and manually set it up to use the old sounds.
- Double check your plugin directory for your DAW. Make sure it is finding your H6/Sonic 3 plugins. Make sure it is NOT finding older versions of HALion and/or Sonic.
By Default, I believe the newer retail HALion and Sonic releases like to place their plugins in one or more of the following locations:
“%SYSTEMDRIVE%\Program Files\Common Files\VST3” (VST3 variants)
“%SYSTEMDRIVE%\Program Files\Steinberg\VSTPlugins” (VST2.x variants)
“%SYSTEMDRIVE%\Program Files\VSTPlugins” (VST2.x variants)
So…make sure your DAW is finding the plugins.