A complete symphonic orchestra with authentic strings, brass, woodwind, and percussion.

The educational edition of Steinberg HALion Symphony Orchestra offers you the regular version of HALion Symphony Orchestra at a special price for educators and students. Only those customers who provide proof of educational status, at the time of sale, qualify for this Education Edition's special price. Qualifying customers include: Teachers (School ID required), Students (School ID required), and School/Institutional Sales (School/Institutional issued purchase order required).

HALion Symphonic Orchestra puts the awesome emotive power and sheer sonic majesty of a full virtual symphonic orchestra under your total control. Evocative scores, exquisite arrangements, emotive accompaniments: HSO is the ideal, cost-effective digital symphonic instrument for composition, production, and preproduction in music, TV, and film scoring and game sound.

The luxuriously extensive content provided on the HALion software's 3 double-layer DVDs spans over 1200 instruments recorded in the very highest fidelity using top-of-the-range audio equipment. Capturing every nuance and detail of a full palette and dynamic range of strings, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments, the massive 27GB library includes an almost inexhaustible range of articulations and expressive playing techniques. The vast HSO library is so versatile that the HALion Symphonic Orchestra sounds just as great in an R&B production as it is in a baroque chamber piece.

Exceptional Quantity
HSO offers over 15000 samples, each in both 16-bit and 24-bit versions (27GB total), and organized in more than 45 groups and 1250 programs of solo, tutti, and ensemble instrument sounds in various playing styles and articulations. The wide selection of playing techniques allows full control over a range of articulations including crescendo, decrescendo, accents, half- and whole-tone trills, bowing, portamento, pizzicato, and expressivo by using innovatively programmed facilities like key-switches, crossfades among others.

Exceptional Quality
The content for HALion Symphonic Orchestra was painstakingly recorded in 24-bit using top-grade equipment to ensure the highest sonic fidelity, and was performed by one of Europe's leading orchestras under the direction of Claudius Brüse. HALion Symphonic Orchestra provides a full, richly detailed orchestra with its full range of vibrant, evocative sounds, instruments, and textures. The wealth of recording expertise of Claudius' team is reflected in the accuracy of the reproduction of these exquisite instruments with a breathtaking transparency — right down to the finest detail. Thanks to its outstanding sound quality, realism, and expressiveness, HALion Symphonic Orchestra is the virtual instrument of choice if you want maximum orchestral output with a single computer system. Maximum Usability
Keeping the instrument easy to use was a top priority throughout the HALion Symphonic Orchestra development process. It puts all the important playing techniques and articulations at the your disposal without overwhelming with too many parameters and options. All of the 1250 programs are clearly organized in detailed categories and make finding the right sound as easy as possible thanks to the well-thought-out library structure and the ability to access any sound within a maximum of 2 mouse clicks.

Flexible control
The single-window interface lets you tweak their sounds quickly and intuitively. Each program features 8 predefined Sound Edit knobs which offer control over the most important sound-shaping parameters like the Body & Air controls to easily add warmth, presence, and richness. Key-switching allows for quick and easy changing of articulations in real time by using specially assigned keys below the usual playing range. The unique Crescendo Controller feature allows users to seamlessly blend samples of a note that is already playing between different dynamic characteristics in real time with a configurable controller. This avoids cumbersome operations required in other orchestral libraries such as having to load different articulation programs across several MIDI channels and setting up complicated keyboard splits for being able to trigger them. A range of flexible tools such as the definable crescendo Controller, the key-switches, crossfades, and cross-switches make this instrument as expressive as it is joyful to use.

Low resource use
The advanced disk-streaming mode and efficient CPU performance both help the composer to effectively focus on composing rather than technology. Under the hood, HALion Symphonic Orchestra is highly optimized for exceedingly efficient computer resource use. The included special economy versions of many programs can further reduce demands on the computer's resources, freeing up power for other processing tasks. In addition to the immaculate 24-bit sound set, every single sample and program is included as 16-bit variant for ultimate user flexibility and choice between computer performance and highest audio fidelity.

RAMSave support
HALion Symphonic Orchestra includes Steinberg's RAMSave technology, first seen in Steinberg's HALion 3 virtual sampler. It allows for highly efficient use of the host computer's RAM. RAMSave allows the freezing of the instrument and automatic unloading of unneeded samples from memory, resulting in low RAM usage and faster project load and save times.

RealAmbience
The RealAmbience feature offers true recorded ambience that can be perfectly blended into any mix or production. Using no artificial reverb, RealAmbience builds extraordinarily convincing environments such as from concert halls to smaller, more intimate sound stages &mdash: with fully adjustable ambience time and wet/dry balance. HSO connects to everything
HALion Symphonic Orchestra supports all major plug-in formats such as VST, DXi, and AU. ReWire support offers easy integration into Pro Tools. Also included is a multi-out capable standalone version for using HSO without a host application.

Versatility
HALion Symphonic Orchestra suits almost any musical style — from classical to contemporary — and captures the full emotive power of an entire orchestra, making it a fascinatingly rich and versatile orchestral library that sounds just as powerful and emotive in the context of a movie as in a dance music production. While the huge HSO library has been painstakingly constructed to form a uniquely playable virtual orchestra, the individual sounds can also be quickly adjusted to let them sit even better in a mix. Individual sections blend perfectly to create that silky, crystal clear, and detailed sound that only a top orchestra can produce.

Steinberg HALion Symphony Orchestra Educational Edition Features:

• Complete symphonic orchestra with breathtakingly authentic strings, brass, woodwind, and percussion
• 1250 instrument patches and combis in 27GB of samples
• Extraordinarily expressive with full dynamic range covering all common articulations of each instrument
• Unique Crescendo Controller feature allows seamlessly realtime blending between samples with different dynamic characteristics
• Articulation key-switch instruments for creative, intuitive and dynamic playing
• Richly detailed and perfectly balanced sound with adjustable real recorded ambience
• Extremely versatile for all styles from baroque to R&B and everything in between
• Outstanding playability and instant access to all the most important parameters
• Efficient use of system resources with state of the art HALion sampling technology
• Cross platform (Mac/PC)
• Supports VST, AU, DXi, ReWire as well as stand alone mode

The wonderful world of symphony at your fingertips is a phone call away. Order today!

Steinberg HALion Symphony Orchestra Educational Edition Specifications:

• System Requirements
• Mac OS X version 10.4
• Power Mac G5 2GHz minimum / Intel core Solo 1.5 GHz
• 1GB RAM (2GB recommended)
• 17GB free HD space for installation
• DVD drive required for installation
• CoreAudio compatible audio hardware
• USB-eLicenser/Steinberg Key and USB port required
• Internet connection required for license activation
• For using as plug-in or Rewire slave device, a VST2, AU (tested in Logic 7.2 and Digital Performer 4.6 only) or Rewire compatible host is required
• Windows XP Home or XP Professional
• Intel/AMD processor 1.6 GHz minimum
• 1GB RAM (2 GB recommended)
• 17GB free HD space for installation
• DVD drive required for installation
• Windows MME compatible audio hardware (ASIO compatible audio hardware required for low-latency operation.)
• USB-eLicenser/Steinberg Key and USB port required
• Internet connection required for license activation
• For using as plug-in or Rewire slave device, a VST2, DXi2 or Rewire compatible host is required