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I'm a recent user on samples and virtual studio technology in general, so the first doubt that I face is to choose amongst the samplers above so my propose is to talk about potentiallity and advantages using each other. I've been working (not too much and with a SBLive) with Halion for 2 years ago (just with ready made programs). Last December I got a Pulsar so I get now a pack of tools (unthinkable few years ago) including STS3000. So, time to time, I've been trying to get best with STS but it seems far more difficult to work with, than with Hal.
I'm not suggesting to rank which is the best one but how can they well complement both.
If anyone on same boat would you please tell your experience?
thanks to all

I totally agree...Halion seems far more instantaneous to use, and the Creamware samplers don't have any crossfade looping which is a major drawback.
I tend to use the STS3000 purely for playing back presets, and turn to Halion as soon as I want to get creative with samples.
On the other hand, the STS5000 has the realtime timestetching etc which puts it in a different league, but it's just as fiddly to use

My only experiences with samplers I got with a TurtleBeach Tropez+ with giant 12 MB RAM. As I turned to Pulsar, I bought immediately the STS 4000 when it was new. So the STS is the one and only sampler for me, and that's why I didn't buy the Halion; I took my little money for other things.. Maybe it is better than STS in some points (crossloops ...), but if you read the manual seriously and practice a while, you should solve all problems. I like working with it.
Good luck, Thomas

Thomas,

I used to use a Tropez (with it's 12MB of the old SIMMS) too! I also went straight to a Pulsar, and got the STS4000 when it first came out. Now I have a STS5000, but I don't make full use of it.

I agree that the STS is a bit fiddly, but it does do almost everything you want it to.

rgds,
John Braner

if you make alot of your own samples, it really doesn't matter whether it's halion or sts. Halion's main advantage is the amount of ready made libraries it has, and the quality. Akai libraries fall short in quality quite obviously. But again, if you run your own samples, it really doesn't matter.

I thank your answers and I would like to explain myself better.
I'm not usually making my samples (yet) so my kind of working has been to use more than one of each STS and Halion with ready made programs which the major part are acoustic instruments samples. (Drums, guitar,piano,...)
One cause for this is that I'm trying to mix tracks directly from the samplers instead of record them to audio tracks before.
First problem is to get individual outs for each kind of sound. In STS by default all instruments sound on L+R out, though with a bit work it's passible to play with 2 or 3 mono outs and 2 or 3 more stereo and I like several STS Akai and soundfonts programs and I'd better filters and envelopes in STS rather than Halion.
The counterpart is that Halion is faster to work with, it accepts 24 bit samples, it has 4 stereo and 4 mono main outs each instance and I've got really good ready to load programs (wizoo,i.e.) which I can't load to STS.
So, please help me with some good tips that I may be missing, OK?

cheers

I can't really anwser your question, sorry. It was just to clarify one point, STS samplers do load 16bits, 24bits AND 32bits wav...

thank you Marcus, you're right about bit definitions. Once more, my fault on many of the features around...

cheers!