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UA Luna

Most work, but I've found a few that are problematic. Ivory II crashes Luna immediately. Vienna Ensemble Pro 7, Synchron Player and Synchron Pianos don't work. Massive X has crashed Luna a few times.
 
It sounds very natural to me - a Steinberg model B has a lot less low end than a model D.

I would love to compare it to Ivory and the Vienna Synchron pianos but sadly none of them work in Luna (it crashes), and of course Ravel ONLY works with Luna. Meh. :thumbsdown:


It's velocity sensitive, so if you pedal gently it will be very quiet and if you slam it, you will hear the thump of the dampers. If you're not using a continuous controller, maybe it's always generating a CC64 value of 127 which would be WAY too much! Unfortunately UA haven't provided any controls to reign this in.

My parents have a Model B, and even thlugh it's 40 years old that thing doesn't not lack low end. To me, Ravel sounds so uncharacteristicly like a Steinway. Keyscape sounds more Steinway than Ravel does.

In regards to the pedal, I'll have to try it out on my digital piano, but I am able to get a varietyof pedal noises. Even the quietest is just not realistic, and yeah when you slam your foot it's out of hand. Piano makers strive to get the pedals to be silent, but then you get UA cranking up the gain on the pedal mic lol.

The real tell is if you play notes in the high register, there is no "thump". they've just high passed all of it. You then get a shrill bodyless sound.
 
I find it very odd that they didn't include any kind of calibration controls - no velocity curves, no damper level adjustment, key noise, soundboard, lid adjustment etc. $300 for a single piano is already at the upper end of the scale - and then there's the deal-breaking limitation (for me at least) of only working inside Luna. And Luna in turn only works on a Mac, with an Apollo, and you are required to run iLok. That's a pretty narrow market! Who would buy it?
 
I find it very odd that they didn't include any kind of calibration controls - no velocity curves, no damper level adjustment, key noise, soundboard, lid adjustment etc. $300 for a single piano is already at the upper end of the scale - and then there's the deal-breaking limitation (for me at least) of only working inside Luna. And Luna in turn only works on a Mac, with an Apollo, and you are required to run iLok. That's a pretty narrow market! Who would buy it?

Exactly. Even if it was the best piano on the market would any one want to buy because of the Luna limitation. The amount of controls bothers me too.

The other things that bugs me is the Moog. I just downloaded the Moog ipad app, which is free. It sounds insanely good. the UAD version looks suspiciaously like it with all the same functionality, and it was amde with Moog.

The pecimist in me wants to think that they just fiddled with it a bit and ported it to AU and then hiked the price.

And then with the spitfire stuff, I think it's not grea that they don't tell you what you get for you money. They don't say which artics etc at all.
 
Exactly. Even if it was the best piano on the market would any one want to buy because of the Luna limitation. The amount of controls bothers me too.

The other things that bugs me is the Moog. I just downloaded the Moog ipad app, which is free. It sounds insanely good. the UAD version looks suspiciaously like it with all the same functionality, and it was amde with Moog.

The pecimist in me wants to think that they just fiddled with it a bit and ported it to AU and then hiked the price.

And then with the spitfire stuff, I think it's not grea that they don't tell you what you get for you money. They don't say which artics etc at all.

They do tell you the articulations, but you need to go to the support section of the site rather than looking at the products.
https://help.uaudio.com/hc/en-us/articles/360041911651-Spitfire-Audio?

I agree about the Moog, although at least with this you have proper access to it within a DAW rather than fiddling about with an iPad and having to sync it up etc. I can’t understand why Moog don’t just release an AU/VST version of the Model D, despite the many great emulations an “official” one would sell bucketloads if priced sensibly. At present if you want a “real” Model D, as in made/authorised by Moog the options are:

The hardware version (>£3k)
The UAD Luna version (£229)
The iPad version (currently free!)
 
Some of the posts on here remind me of all the chortling that greeted the first version of Adobe InDesign. All the Xpress uers were laughing their tits off at the new upstart.

I'd wager most of those people are now using InDesign as their primary DTP Application.

This could be very good for Pro Tools as it might refocus minds at AVID, but I suspect not.

Corporate arrogance is not a good look.
Hilarious. I haven’t heard anyone say DTP in 20 years.

I used to teach Quark. Loved it. InDesign sux. It’s waaaay too complicated, and since they update it every 5 minutes it’s a pain in the a$$ to used because it’s always changing.

change is good, bit not too fast.

now I teach InDesign by the way.
 
Hilarious. I haven’t heard anyone say DTP in 20 years.

I'm in the graphics arts industry, but at the hardware end. I supply large and grand format digital print systems - normally from 750mm to 5m size range, and I've been doing this a long time. So my first thought on your post was - cheeky bastard, he makes me sound like a dinosaur.

Then I thought - actually, perhaps I am.

I dislike Adobe intensely - from the predatory international pricing practices to their outright dishonesty over the introduction of Creative Cloud.

I know it's early days, but I also have hopes for the new Affinity range - Designer, Photo & Publusher. They're insane value for money, and the iPad apps are fantastic.

As for Adobe, every time there's an update it breaks (often needlessly) some of the hardware specific plug-ins this hardware relies on. They've got you on the upgrade treadmill with that suite.....

now I teach InDesign by the way.
 
Interestingly, there's nary a mention of Luna on Spitfire's website, even though they seem to be the first/only third-party sample provider so far.

No. Orange Tree is in there, as is Loops de la Creme (Julien Tauban). Probably others as well.

I am intrigued with LUNA. I'm not so interested in the instruments (except maybe the Moog!) but it looks like it could be a killer DAW once it ramps up. And other than the instruments, you aren't stuck - you can import/export MIDI in and out. I don't even have UA hardware at this point, but am looking to replace my Antelope Audio interface one of these years anyway...
 
I’m long overdue for a new interface and am definitely eyeing UAD more closely now.

Yes, Luna is missing essential capabilities, but the architecture and design philosophy appears to be very strong. This is what I pay attention to with new products. One of the lead designers was at Avid for 10 years. After exploring some more in depth videos and documentation, it’s clear to me to that they’re being thorough...even if that means it will require several iterations to mature.

Yes, this is also undeniably a vehicle for selling their hardware and plugins, and I do have some mixed feelings about it. That said, for creatives, having an environment with stronger integration between DAW, hardware, and plugins could eliminate a lot of reliability and performance issues down the road. It seems like this kind of system might also help tackle the real-time performance limitations that have plagued music production work for years.

Give it some time, but I think Luna combined with Dorico and Video Slave would be a killer setup for the modern age!
 
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I'm giving up on Luna for the time being. I can't record audio at all in spite of doing everything per the documentation, there are inconsistencies with how ARM works on both instrument & audio tracks, no multi-timbral instruments, none of the VSL stuff works, etc.

While billed as simple and intuitive, many things seem overly complicated due to being a slave to the tape machine paradigm. There are tons of people having problems or questions over on the UAD forum, but no one from UA are responding except to marketing threads. I have reported several bugs to UA via feedback.
 
So just a personal account here, but after trying Luna, it’s really nice and could someday be a consideration for recording and mixing, but as it is I don’t record enough music live for the no-latency to be a thing for me.

As it stands, Luna made me realize how much I enjoy Harrison mixbus instead. Though it can crash sometimes, it’s options are much better and it also adds a lot of warmth and an analog feel to mixes.

Am I missing something? Is there something in Luna that I should be appreciating that I’m not?
 
So I solved my issues with recording audio and an update from UA fixed a couple other things. While it is still unusable for what many of us do here due to no multi-timbral support yet, issues with VSL stuff (VEP) and basic MIDI editing, it is an interesting system. I think the primary near term use is a Pro Tools substitute for mixing/mastering audio stems.

Of course the Neve Summing plugin is really interesting, although I'll wait for some sort of sale/promotion before spring for that. I also like some of the workflow/UI design although it is quite different from Logic in many ways.

It is interesting that UA has apparently been working on this for several years - it is well thought out and pretty solid given the limited feature set in 1.0.
 
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