Toolbar

The toolbar contains tools for editing sample markers, loop markers, and slices, for example.

Depending on the tab that is selected, the toolbar contains different tools.

Main Tab

Play Sample: Plays back the raw sample.
Play Selection Looped: Activate this button to play back the selection in a loop.
Auto-Scroll: If this button is activated, the waveform display is scrolled during playback, keeping the playback cursor visible.
Follow Sample Playback: Activate this button to see a playback cursor when triggering a sample via MIDI.
Range Selection Tool: Click and drag with this tool to create a selection.
Zoom Tool: If this tool is selected, you can click in the waveform to zoom in on the position where you click.
Play Tool: If this tool is selected, you can click in the waveform to start playback. The sample is played back from this position until you release the mouse button.
Scrub Tool: If this tool is selected, you can click in the waveform and drag sideways to play back the audio. The playback direction and speed depend on how fast and how far you move the mouse to the left or to the right from the position where you clicked.
Snap: If this button is activated, the selection start and end points and the markers snap to other markers.
Snap to Zero Crossing: If this button is activated, markers and selection start and end points are only placed at zero crossings, that is, at positions in the audio where the amplitude is zero. This helps you to avoid pops and clicks that are caused by sudden amplitude changes.
Trim Sample: Trims the sample, either to the selection or to the range that is set with the sample start/end markers.
Revert to Full Sample: Undoes the trimming, so that the entire sample is restored.

Note
After undoing the trimming, make sure to set the start/end markers to their original positions. Otherwise, these parts are not played back.
Normalize Sample: Normalizes the sample by detecting the highest peak level in the sample and adjusting the gain to reach a predefined level.
Normalize Level: Sets the level for the Normalize Sample function.
Show Pitch Detection Curve: Shows/Hides the pitch detection curve.
Detected Pitch: Shows the average pitch of the whole sample. If a range is selected, the average pitch of the selection is shown.
Transfer Pitch to Root Key: Sets the analyzed pitch value as the root key for the sample.
Edit in External Editor: Allows you to open the sample in an external editor.

Note
This function is only available if an external editor is specified in the Edit section of the Options Editor.

Loop Tab

With the Loop tab selected, the following additional tools are available on the toolbar:

Sustain/Release Loop

Switches between the display of the sustain loop and the release loop in the waveform display.

Edit Loop

If this button is activated, the editor shows the looped region as an overlay, with the original sample in the background. This provides a better overview over the transition between loop end and loop start and allows you to set the loop markers to the best positions.

Note

If Loop Mode is deactivated when you activate Edit Loop, it is automatically set to Continuous and the loop markers are placed at the start and end of the sample.

Show Resulting Loop Crossfade

Activate this button to see the effect of your crossfade settings in the waveform display. If this button is activated, the resulting waveform is displayed in red.

Note

This button only has an effect if Edit Loop is activated.

Find Previous Loop Start/Find Next Loop Start

Automatically detects a suitable loop start, either before (previous) or after (next) the current loop start.

Find Previous Loop End/Find Next Loop End

Automatically detects a suitable loop end, either before (previous) or after (next) the current loop end.

Loop Transition

Activate this button by setting it to t (transition) to search for short loops. Deactivate it by setting it to T (timbre) to search for longer loops.

It can be useful to search for longer loops if the sample contains longer sound progressions or beats that need to be included. This way you can prevent the resulting loop from becoming static.

If this button is deactivated, HALion also suggests loop marker positions that might not be optimal regarding the local transition, but best reflect the tonal progression of the sound. In this case, you can use the Crossfade function to smooth out the loop.

Threshold

HALion detects a large number of possible loop marker positions for the loop. These positions are evaluated internally and attributed a score, according to quality. The Threshold parameter allows you to specify the score value that a marker must have before it can be used. With the highest setting, only a few suitable positions are suggested.

Loop Score

Each detected loop marker is evaluated and attributed a score that provides additional information about how well loop start and end match.

Note

This value is only updated when you search for loop positions using the Find Previous/Next Loop Start/End buttons.

Slice Tab

If the Slice tab is selected, the following additional tools are available on the toolbar:

Play Slice Tool: If this tool is selected, you can play slices by clicking on them.
Lock Slices: Activate this button to prevent slice markers from being accidentally moved. Locked slices are shown with red markers.
Auto Zoom Slices: If this button is activated and you step through slice zones in the Program Tree, the slices are zoomed automatically so that they are centered in the waveform display.
Zoom to Previous Slice/Zoom to Next Slice: Click these buttons to zoom in on the previous/next slice.

Decompose Tab

Play Sample: Plays back the raw sample.
Play Selection Looped: Activate this button to play back the selection in a loop.
Auto-Scroll: If this button is activated, the waveform display is scrolled during playback, keeping the playback cursor visible.
Follow Sample Playback: Activate this button to see a playback cursor when triggering a sample via MIDI.
Range Selection Tool: Click and drag with this tool to create a selection.
Zoom Tool: If this tool is selected, you can click in the waveform to zoom in on the position where you click.
Play Tool: If this tool is selected, you can click in the waveform to start playback. The sample is played back from this position until you release the mouse button.
Scrub Tool: If this tool is selected, you can click in the waveform and drag sideways to play back the audio. The playback direction and speed depend on how fast and how far you move the mouse to the left or to the right from the position where you clicked.
Snap: If this button is activated, the selection start and end points and the markers snap to other markers.
Snap to Zero Crossing: If this button is activated, markers and selection start and end points are only placed at zero crossings, that is, at positions in the audio where the amplitude is zero. This helps you to avoid pops and clicks that are caused by sudden amplitude changes.
Trim Sample: Trims the sample, either to the selection or to the range that is set with the sample start/end markers.
Revert to Full Sample: Undoes the trimming, so that the entire sample is restored.

Note
After undoing the trimming, make sure to set the start/end markers to their original positions. Otherwise, these parts are not played back.
Normalize Sample: Normalizes the sample by detecting the highest peak level in the sample and adjusting the gain to reach a predefined level.
Normalize Level: Sets the level for the Normalize Sample function.
Show Pitch Detection Curve: Shows/Hides the pitch detection curve.
Detected Pitch: Shows the average pitch of the whole sample. If a range is selected, the average pitch of the selection is shown.
Transfer Pitch to Root Key: Sets the analyzed pitch value as the root key for the sample.
Edit in External Editor: Allows you to open the sample in an external editor.

Note
This function is only available if an external editor is specified in the Edit section of the Options Editor.