New DAW from UAD : Luna

[Reno.thestraws]

https://musictechtips.com/2020/01/16...nces-daw-luna/

[serr]

What year is it again?! Apparently 2004 is just around the corner!

Still can't argue with the sound of some of UA's aging plugins but the hardware pci card host required for their stuff... As though it's still 20th century and native computer processing will always be impossibly out of reach.

I've been threatening to finally get rid of the old UA pci card in my Mac Pro. I've left it because... why throw something away that still works, right? These guys desperately need to catch up to the 21st century though.

A pci card hardware host running DAW in 2020?! Someone has had their head stuck in Protools this whole time and hasn't looked up once since 1998.

[PointReyes]

Originally Posted by serr

What year is it again?! Apparently 2004 is just around the corner!

Still can't argue with the sound of some of UA's aging plugins but the hardware pci card host required for their stuff... As though it's still 20th century and native computer processing will always be impossibly out of reach.

I've been threatening to finally get rid of the old UA pci card in my Mac Pro. I've left it because... why throw something away that still works, right? These guys desperately need to catch up to the 21st century though.

A pci card hardware host running DAW in 2020?! Someone has had their head stuck in Protools this whole time and hasn't looked up once since 1998.

Agreed! I stopped using UAD a few years ago because of their refusal to enter the 21st century with their GUIs/features and the almost comical antiquity of their processors. They sound good but that's not an issue anymore with so many great plugin makers out there doing as good or in plenty of cases better a job IMO.

I do love my Apollo, though -- that was a forward-thinking design for sure.

[drichard]

I agree. I understand the motivation, but I think it's misguided. They want to compete with Pro Tools w/HDX. Using PT/HDX a studio can set up real time FX and monitoring with near zero latency for recording bands, etc. One of the criticisms of using PT with UAD was that while you could do real time FX it was a headache to set up monitor mixes, etc. So my guess is that they are attempting to solve that problem by creating their own DAW. I don't expect it to be very successful.

Also, I agree with you that the more fundamental problem is that they have an aging DSP system that is hopelessly under powered compared to native systems. It costs a fortune to have enough DSP to run, for example, a console emulation plugin on every one of a large number of channels.

Like you, I have an old UAD Solo 2 card in my PC. It gets very little use. I have native alternatives for nearly every plugin I own, and I don't have to worry about running out of DSP, or the extra latency that the PCIe cards impose.

Kind of a weird decision. When they were hyping Luna I expected a whole new DSP platform, one that was powerful enough to exceed, or at least add to, a high powered PC system.

Originally Posted by serr

What year is it again?! Apparently 2004 is just around the corner!

Still can't argue with the sound of some of UA's aging plugins but the hardware pci card host required for their stuff... As though it's still 20th century and native computer processing will always be impossibly out of reach.

I've been threatening to finally get rid of the old UA pci card in my Mac Pro. I've left it because... why throw something away that still works, right? These guys desperately need to catch up to the 21st century though.

A pci card hardware host running DAW in 2020?! Someone has had their head stuck in Protools this whole time and hasn't looked up once since 1998.

[plush2]

From the linked article

As Luna is tightly integrated with Apollo and Arrow interfaces, audio routing is extremely easy.

Having used the Apollo interface and experiencing what I can only assume is their idea of extremely easy audio routing I shudder a bit contemplating what that means. I suppose it could mean that it's extremely easy compared to routing the Apollo to any other DAW?

[mschnell]

Would they not better and easier OEM'ed Reaper

-Michael

[jinotsuh]

Originally Posted by PointReyes

Agreed! I stopped using UAD a few years ago because of their refusal to enter the 21st century with their GUIs/features and the almost comical antiquity of their processors. They sound good but that's not an issue anymore with so many great plugin makers out there doing as good or in plenty of cases better a job IMO.

You do realize, if one was to be honest with ones self, that you could substitute REAPER for UAD in that statement and still be correct?

But oh no, we couldn't have that could we . . . We'll have one rule for REAPER and another for everything else lol

Just for clarity, I aint no UAD user or fan, just an honest onlooker with no horse in this race, just enjoying the irony

[jinotsuh]

Originally Posted by mschnell

Would they not better and easier OEM'ed Reaper

-Michael

Don't think so, I don't know how it is in your world, but out here in the real world most people don't like REAPER for reasons that will never be fixed because it is not inline with the goals of the DEV team, and that's fine, it's their product, they can do what they want, but it just means that the majority of people will continue to avoid REAPER like the plague or Linux (same thing really)

[Reno.thestraws]

You do realize, if one was to be honest with ones self, that you could substitute REAPER for UAD in that statement and still be correct?

REAPER not in the 21st century?

Lol. I think it's the only DAW who really entered it.

[Dr. Who]

Originally Posted by jinotsuh

Don't think so, I don't know how it is in your world, but out here in the real world most people don't like REAPER for reasons that will never be fixed because it is not inline with the goals of the DEV team, and that's fine, it's their product, they can do what they want, but it just means that the majority of people will continue to avoid REAPER like the plague or Linux (same thing really)

Evidence please? Interesting that on other posts you have stated that you haven't used reaper for several years, but still see fit fit to comment on its perceive shortcomings...

[przemak]

Yeah, what we really need is another DAW

[mschnell]

Do you really think they crafted a new one ? This would be a maintenance disaster. I would assume it's XYZ in disguise.

-Michael

[cassembler]

May be for some folks - it's free for current UAD users - but I'll just say it's not my cup of tea.

Key "features":

- available only for MacOS.
- works only with Apollo (any thunderbolt version) or Arrow. LUNA will not open sessions without an Apollo/Arrow connected
- requires iLok (in case the Apollo wasn't enough)

:|

[Regisfofo]

Originally Posted by mschnell

Do you really think they crafted a new one ? This would be a maintenance disaster. I would assume it's XYZ in disguise.

-Michael

Some says it seems to come from Ardour...

[plush2]

Originally Posted by Regisfofo

Some says it seems to come from Ardour...

That would be very interesting.

Due to philosophical and licensing discrepancies I would imagine mixing ilok and ardour code would cause the apocalypse. /s

Not to mention that ardour came into being as an alternative to another well known DAW that was tied to hardware and ilok protection.

[Xenakios]

Originally Posted by plush2

Due to philosophical and licensing discrepancies I would imagine mixing ilok and ardour code would cause the apocalypse.

The developer of Ardour is of course free to relicense or repurpose his own code as he wishes. He already did that with Harrison which produced the MixBus DAW.

[Doc Brown]

I think the name is a semordnilap.

[Quasar]

Originally Posted by cassembler

May be for some folks - it's free for current UAD users - but I'll just say it's not my cup of tea.

Key "features":

- available only for MacOS.
- works only with Apollo (any thunderbolt version) or Arrow. LUNA will not open sessions without an Apollo/Arrow connected
- requires iLok (in case the Apollo wasn't enough)

:|

Other than the fact that I am happy with Reaper, run Windows, do not have an Apollo interface, have never used a UAD product and will never, ever submit to a PACE/iLok account, Luna looks very exciting and I look forward to using it!

[bachstudies]

Originally Posted by Xenakios

The developer of Ardour is of course free to relicense or repurpose his own code as he wishes. He already did that with Harrison which produced the MixBus DAW.

I've posted on the Ardour forum to ask about this. I sure hope Luna is totally unrelated to Ardour as it would completely fly in the face of what Ardour stands for. Mixbus is essentially just the analog console mixer on top of the Ardour base so not quite the same thing. Also, any Mixbus features not related to the analog console stuff finds its way into the regular Ardour codebase.

As to the justification of Waves Tracks Live, that's another question given the project is dead at this point and AFAIK none of the GUI or workflow "improvements" made their way back to Ardour for whatever reason.

EDIT: I should also add that because Ardour is GPL-licensed, it would make it difficult or impossible for UAD to just take the code and turn it into a closed-source application. As I say, I think it is the only reason Mixbus can do what it does because it is a proprietary add-on that doesn't mess with underlying Ardour code. Waves Tracks Live provides the source code on their site so, I assume, maintains the required GPL licensing...

[Mercado_Negro]

As a UAD user I like what they did and I'm looking forward to working with it for tracking if it has the correct tools.

[serr]

Originally Posted by Quasar

Other than the fact that I am happy with Reaper, run Windows, do not have an Apollo interface, have never used a UAD product and will never, ever submit to a PACE/iLok account, Luna looks very exciting and I look forward to using it!

I'm a Mac user, would never consider Windows, still use a couple UA plugins (with their pci quad card), yet here we are in agreement. That's quite the accomplishment eh?

Yeah, iLok?! Again with the "What year is it again?" comment.
Release a DAW in 2020 that's hardware accelerator dependent...


This is probably a digression...
What the hell is up with all this grifter crap going on in force nowadays? There's a simultaneous bit of weirdness with computers where they get you thinking your 8 core i7 3.something GHz machine with a M.2 SSD is just so old and slow that you really need to upgrade if you want to mix more than 15 tracks. I see posts like this all the time. Sure comical operator error and all... Seems like that is being helped or something though. What the hell is up with new versions of Windows that it comes out of the box that broken? If that's not it... hardware issues? Everyone is getting bunk hardware every third machine? I see comments from Mac users though too that are just as out in left field. Now THAT hardware IS suspect IMO (post Jobs Apple that is). Still... I've been using 10.13 enough and I've shotgunned 10.14 and 10.15 and I'm not seeing anything going on to throw people. Is it the budget USB interfaces out there now? (Not calling USB 'budget'. Calling budget USB 'budget'.) Could be. And now we have these guys making a hardware accelerated DAW like the old Protools for everyone now seemingly crippled with their slow slow i7 dinosaurs... WTFH is wrong with everyone and how the hell are people falling for the computer gaslighting?

[plush2]

Originally Posted by Xenakios

The developer of Ardour is of course free to relicense or repurpose his own code as he wishes. He already did that with Harrison which produced the MixBus DAW.

I guess that's the danger with sarcasm. I was intending to be funny. I was not intending to suggest that the Ardour devs could not do whatever they like with the software (within the license parameters of course.)

[bachstudies]

At the same time, I think we can safely assume Ardour has nothing whatsoever to do with Luna.

I'm also share serr's sentiments about the computer "gaslighting". I nearly built a new machine a couple of weeks ago based on impressions around the net that my FX-6300 build was no longer fit for modern DAW usage. It turned out that a couple of SSD upgrades (one necessary to replace a failing 7200rpm drive) convinced me that I can get another 2-3 years out of it (at least). It runs Win10 plus Reaper,Pyramix and an iD44 really well and my Linux partition is the quickest of all with Ardour and Mixbus running at super-low latencies on old M-Audio 192 and Behringer 204HD devices. There's no waiting/lag etc. It feels as zippy as my 2019 Lenovo laptop running an 8th gen i5.

[bachstudies]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3OzXELO6qw

EDIT: From the live comments based on a question I asked: "Universal Audio​LUNA is 100% UA coded from the ground up!"

[hopi]

wow... mac only ....how kewl is that?

[bachstudies]

It certainly does't put the "universal" in Universal Audio...

Frankly, the livestream was enough to put me off even though I don't even own a Mac. There was nothing in there that can't be done in Reaper or any other DAW along with third-party plugins. Mac-only, Apollo/Arrow-only, iLok-only is absolutely crazy. One might say the idea is lunacy.

[Quasar]

Originally Posted by serr

I'm a Mac user, would never consider Windows, still use a couple UA plugins (with their pci quad card), yet here we are in agreement. That's quite the accomplishment eh?

Yeah, iLok?! Again with the "What year is it again?" comment.
Release a DAW in 2020 that's hardware accelerator dependent...


This is probably a digression...
What the hell is up with all this grifter crap going on in force nowadays? There's a simultaneous bit of weirdness with computers where they get you thinking your 8 core i7 3.something GHz machine with a M.2 SSD is just so old and slow that you really need to upgrade if you want to mix more than 15 tracks. I see posts like this all the time. Sure comical operator error and all... Seems like that is being helped or something though. What the hell is up with new versions of Windows that it comes out of the box that broken? If that's not it... hardware issues? Everyone is getting bunk hardware every third machine? I see comments from Mac users though too that are just as out in left field. Now THAT hardware IS suspect IMO (post Jobs Apple that is). Still... I've been using 10.13 enough and I've shotgunned 10.14 and 10.15 and I'm not seeing anything going on to throw people. Is it the budget USB interfaces out there now? (Not calling USB 'budget'. Calling budget USB 'budget'.) Could be. And now we have these guys making a hardware accelerated DAW like the old Protools for everyone now seemingly crippled with their slow slow i7 dinosaurs... WTFH is wrong with everyone and how the hell are people falling for the computer gaslighting?

We absolutely agree on your "digression" comments. Well-said LOL.

[Reno.thestraws]

2010:

REAPER user : in Reaper, you don't have to solo safe anything to solo a bus or an aux. REAPER just know the signal path you're soloing

PT User : mmmmeh, this is for noob, real pros and THE industry don't do this way

2020:
Fab Dupont : In luna, you can solo a group and the tracks that Feed this group are still heard. Isn't Niiiiiiiiice?

PT : OH MY GOD, fuck me UAD this is genius


2010:
Reaper User : in reaper, you can turn any track into a folder and make it a summing buss for any audio or midi signal coming from the children

PT USER : mmmmeh, this is for noob, real pros and THE industry don't do this way

2020:
AVID : folder tracks will be available in PT...

PT USER :OH MY GOD, Thanks AVId
This is genius

[PitchSlap]

Originally Posted by cassembler

- requires iLok (in case the Apollo wasn't enough)

:|

Their dongle requires a dongle?
Sounds like UAD wants to be Apple.

[ivansc]

I still have my 2 UAD1-pci-e boards in place & along with my N.I. B4-II are the only 32bit plugs I have left. because they work & in teh case of the UAD1 cards, nobody would buy them if I put them up for sale!

[Ideosound]

Seems their selling point is that (other than UA plugs and zero latency across everything) the software is designed to have analogue summing everywhere or something to that effect. Rather than using separate analogue style summing plugins per channel, it's all built-in with some Neve (extra payment) type effects. That is pretty cool but depends how good the editing features are. I don't track anyway nor have or want a UA interface so wouldn't jump ship. Good that another DAW is giving Avid a hard time....

[drichard]

While there were some PT users who didn't complain about Solo behavior and not having folders, enough did that Avid finally added them. Finally. They are several years behind catching up with many features.

I was a PT user for several years, up until about five years ago, and I hated the Solo behavior. Detested it. But I didn't know how much I needed folders until I had them in Reaper.

Originally Posted by Reno.thestraws

2010:

REAPER user : in Reaper, you don't have to solo safe anything to solo a bus or an aux. REAPER just know the signal path you're soloing

PT User : mmmmeh, this is for noob, real pros and THE industry don't do this way

2020:
Fab Dupont : In luna, you can solo a group and the tracks that Feed this group are still heard. Isn't Niiiiiiiiice?

PT : OH MY GOD, fuck me UAD this is genius


2010:
Reaper User : in reaper, you can turn any track into a folder and make it a summing buss for any audio or midi signal coming from the children

PT USER : mmmmeh, this is for noob, real pros and THE industry don't do this way

2020:
AVID : folder tracks will be available in PT...

PT USER :OH MY GOD, Thanks AVId
This is genius

[grinder]

I also have and use UAD that said I can no longer afford the newer ones and so
I will carry on. I have also found what I believe is true and what I thought many years ago was that hardware is the real thing!
I have one exception and that is with eq however I do miss "the body and warmth" of these in a plugin compared with hardware.

Grinder

[Lawrence]

Originally Posted by Mercado_Negro

As a UAD user I like what they did and I'm looking forward to working with it for tracking if it has the correct tools.

I hear you. After watching some of videos and live streams, despite the obvious single platform issue and the obvious "UAD Dongle" thing, I have to say that it seems to me to be one of the better version 1 DAW's I've ever personally seen. No audio workstation is ever "feature complete" at v1 and anyone feeling differently is truly delusional, but that's a really good looking v1 product for the intended audience.

Despite the general negativity surrounding it from some, it appears to have some really useful features, and at least one feature I've personally never seen, no saving (?), that it just always automatically saves all of your work and you can go back to any point at any time.

If I had a UAD thunderbolt device n macOS I'd be all over it when it releases, especially since it's free.

The Internet will do what the Internet will do but they obviously put a lot of thought into that software. The contextual browser is genius.

[drichard]

The question is who is the intended audience? PT users are the ones who need the real time FX and monitoring, and most need to use PT for compatibility with other studios. They might attract a few new users but at that price point it will not be beginners.

Originally Posted by Lawrence

I hear you. After watching some of videos and live streams, despite the obvious single platform issue and the obvious "UAD Dongle" thing, I have to say that it seems to me to be one of the better version 1 DAW's I've ever personally seen. No audio workstation is ever "feature complete" at v1 and anyone feeling differently is truly delusional, but that's a really good looking v1 product for the intended audience.

Despite the general negativity surrounding it from some, it appears to have some really useful features, and at least one feature I've personally never seen, no saving (?), that it just always automatically saves all of your work and you can go back to any point at any time.

If I had a UAD thunderbolt device n macOS I'd be all over it when it releases, especially since it's free.

The Internet will do what the Internet will do but they obviously put a lot of thought into that software. The contextual browser is genius.

[Lawrence]

Originally Posted by drichard

The question is who is the intended audience? PT users are the ones who need the real time FX and monitoring, and most need to

Kinda doesn't matter does it? Those who use it will and everyone else will keep doing what they're doing.

But the logical answer to your question would seem to be ... "... any UAD Thunderbolt user on macOS?"... since that's the only condition where it will actually work and it's free. The more relevant question is... "Why would a UAD Thunderbolt audio device owner on macOS (of which I assume there are many) not try it?"

[Mercado_Negro]

Originally Posted by Lawrence

I hear you. After watching some of videos and live streams, despite the obvious single platform issue and the obvious "UAD Dongle" thing, I have to say that it seems to me to be one of the better version 1 DAW's I've ever personally seen. No audio workstation is ever "feature complete" at v1 and anyone feeling differently is truly delusional, but that's a really good looking v1 product for the intended audience.

Despite the general negativity surrounding it from some, it appears to have some really useful features, and at least one feature I've personally never seen, no saving (?), that it just always automatically saves all of your work and you can go back to any point at any time.

If I had a UAD thunderbolt device n macOS I'd be all over it when it releases, especially since it's free.

The Internet will do what the Internet will do but they obviously put a lot of thought into that software. The contextual browser is genius.

Indeed. It looks pretty good for a v1 and I'm pretty sure it will be improved real quick over time.

I switched to Nuendo for mixing about a year and a half ago but I still use REAPER for recording and editing because I'm real quick with it. I won't stop using REAPER for editing (with all the customizations, macros and key commands it's really hard for me to edit faster in a different host) but LUNA looks really good for tracking so if it has the right tools for that I will be using it for recording, no doubt.

[PitchSlap]

No interest in Luna personally, but wondering if it has any features that would be good for Reaper?

Many seem be be excited about mixing sample rates in a project which sounds like Reaper over a decade ago, but people are mentioning recording at a different sample rate than the rest of the project and I'm wondering if there's a way to do that with Reaper?

Why would someone want to do this? Mainly for lower recording latency.

As a rough example 256 samples would be 5.8ms latency at 44.1kHz, but only 1.33ms at 196kHz.

I wouldn't actually want to keep 196 audio, but if it could be downsampled without artifacts to 44.1 after recording it sounds like this could be a useful hack for drastically reducing latency.

I'm also open to hearing why this is a bad idea that wouldn't work.

[bachstudies]

On the things LUNA does that Reaper does not (thank goodness!): automatic saving. This would be a nightmare in my workflow! I like to hit "save as" when I know I'm making a big change (EQ, Reverb, faders, VSTi patch etc). I'm sure it is something lots of us do but I will use an appropriate suffix so it is clear to me what changes I made and when. With LUNA, would you just be dealing with a long, generic undo timeline if there's no option to manually save snapshots? That said, I'm all for options in Reaper if people think this is good for them.

I would argue that any DAW being released at this point does need to have a key feature or features that separate it from the saturated field. However, I'm not seeing enough to say that I couldn't easily achieve the same on a combination of Reaper + 3rd-party analogue-modelled plugins or all in the box via Harrison Console's Mixbus. I do see it as needlessly re-inventing the wheel but you can't argue with free for existing hardware users, I suppose. A better marketing strategy might have been to release a free fully-functioning DAW for MacOS, Windows and Linux (for use with any audio interface) and then have paid plugin additions like the Neve analogue stuff. But, like I suggested, there's already an abundance of stable bit-buckets and mixing/mastering options and when you release for MacOS and Apollo-only, it's hardly a recipe for making a big splash.

[grinder]

Excuse me if I am wrong but I believe Reaper has the ability to automatic save if you need too?

Grinder