Replacing Halion Sonic 3 when upgrading to Halion 6

Apologies if this has been asked before, I did search the forum and read Steinberg’s FAQ.

I just upgraded from Halion Sonic 3 (not SE) to Halion 6. To my understanding, S3 is contained in H6. So can I remove the sample repository of S3 (some 30 GB)? Do I just remove it with the “Add or remove Programs” function in Windows?

Thanks for helping!

Hmm, the installer apparently did not propose to install the downloaded library anew, so it seems H6 works fine using the S3 library? Is that how it works?

no you should install the halion 6 content if you want all the presets im not sure exactly how many you would be missing if you didn’t but it is at least 200

Aha, thanks! Then I’ll remove the S3 instruments, otherwise it’s 2x 30 GB…

Thanks - I have the same question as I too have Sonic 3 already installed and don’t want to duplicate the sample library/presets on my HDD. However, by removing Sonic 3, I’m assuming that projects referencing any of those presets would need to be re-assigned to Halion 6 presets - assuming they are available and not customized/tweaked in Sonic 3 to begin with. Maybe that’s an understood risk but something to point out prior to removing the program and content.

when you install halion 6 it also will install halion sonic 3 so you will be able to load those projects

Interesting, I didn’t know that. Why would it install both versions when Halion 6 already contains all lower version content?

Thanks for the info!

Content is only installed once and is shared between all Steinberg plugins that can use it. If, for example, you install an add-on that can be used in HALion Sonic SE, such as Olympus Choir Micro (chargeable) or Alto Glockenspiel (free - you just have to request a licence code), you install the content once and it appears in HALion, HALion Sonic and HALion Sonic SE if you have all three installed. Similarly, Groove Agent add-ons appear in both Groove Agent and Groove Agent SE if you have both installed.

You can use Steinberg Library Manager to manage this shared content. Steinberg have finally upgraded the latest versions of all their plugins to use this system - Padshop 2 and the latest builds of The Grand 3 and Retrologue 2 add Library Manager support.


HALion Sonic is installed alongside HALion to allow HALion users to open projects that use HALion Sonic. Sometimes the simpler HALion Sonic interface is all that is needed (e.g. live performance scenarios).

Thanks David - I got it now. No need to worry about duplicate content and wasted HDD space then.

That’s it. Install HALion 6 and the HALion 6 content (so that you have all the presets in HALion 6) - you will finish up with usable installations of HALion Sonic 3 and HALion 6 with all the content and no wasted disc space because there is no duplicate installed content. As HALion Sonic 3 remains installed, your existing projects using HALion Sonic 3 will continue to work.

You should always install the full installers including any content packs for any Steinberg software newly installed on a system. Steinberg Library Manager is intelligent enough not to reinstall the same version of the same content, so you will likely find the content install for HALion 6 is very quick because you already have HALion Sonic 3 installed.