UAD Luna solely for mixing & mastering?

[_leras]

is the summing any good

Code: Select all

0 + 0 = 0
0 + 1 = 1
1 + 0 = 1
1 + 1 = 10

Yeah that looks good to me. What more could you possibly want

5x better eh?

[elxsound]

It’s basically cheap Pro Tools. So if you want Pro Tools but not happy with their pricing etc, this is the closest alternative. Same key commands, same aesthetics etc. Sound / summing is a bonus. I like


 

Nah, not in the slightest - key-commands are usually user-definable, so that's basically irrelevant... both GUIs are widely different and functionality/feature-wise they are worlds apart.


 

What I am saying is you probably still need your Ableton or Fl studio or whatever solution if you are sequencing ITB, but it’s the same with PT.


 

You probably don't need Ableton or Fl. It's a strange world when you probably need those to sequence. Many artists use PT to sequence, produce, sound design...


 

Wut? Many artists who love pain.....


 

I think I love this thread.

[_leras]

Sure, if you are mixing single tracks and putting together electronic music singles personally; but if you are mixing huge albums for artists, bands, clients then you would have to be a "masochist" to mix in Bitwig- in that case you would obvioulsy use PT, Reaper, Luna or what have you...

Luna is more than just another pro tools, it is a whole environment with additions happening, the creators themselves are passionate, and the analog feel is unique to it...

Yeah, I'm not sure I agree completely here. I have all the UAD stuff, but haven't felt the need to try Luna yet, though may give it a whirl to check out the summing. I'm just not sure it'd make a huge difference on top of everything else.

I'd say you're totally wrong about mixing in Bitwig though. The grouping and routing are second to none. Channel and group templates are replaced with great FX chains preseting ability.

Some things are not present, such as mulit channel editing, but not all other DAWs do this well, and it wouldn't necessarily be a deal breaker, or could be split out to Cubase for editing and moved back.

Feel free to share what the 'huge albums' are that you are mixing and why your opinion must be correct.

fwiw, the last thing I mixed for someone else, I just took their Ableton project and mixed from there. What a pita that was compared to Bitwig.

[twal]

Sure, if you are mixing single tracks and putting together electronic music singles personally; but if you are mixing huge albums for artists, bands, clients then you would have to be a "masochist" to mix in Bitwig- in that case you would obvioulsy use PT, Reaper, Luna or what have you...

Luna is more than just another pro tools, it is a whole environment with additions happening, the creators themselves are passionate, and the analog feel is unique to it...

Yeah, I'm not sure I agree completely here. I have all the UAD stuff, but haven't felt the need to try Luna yet, though may give it a whirl to check out the summing. I'm just not sure it'd make a huge difference on top of everything else.

I'd say you're totally wrong about mixing in Bitwig though. The grouping and routing are second to none. Channel and group templates are replaced with great FX chains preseting ability.

Some things are not present, such as mulit channel editing, but not all other DAWs do this well, and it wouldn't necessarily be a deal breaker, or could be split out to Cubase for editing and moved back.

Feel free to share what the 'huge albums' are that you are mixing and why your opinion must be correct.

fwiw, the last thing I mixed for someone else, I just took their Ableton project and mixed from there. What a pita that was compared to Bitwig.

With Luna, perhaps it's not going to make a "huge difference", for most but it may if you follow through with its design and its future design. Just my opinion but it may work fantastic for certain people, and be a game changer.

For Bitwig, it depends on the project, but to my knowledge if you're an engineer there are better tools for the job as yourself saying that Cubase may be part of that fix. Not badmouthing Bitwig at all, and I quite like it, but missing some things for large jobs. Not a problem, I don't think it was designed for that. It looks like it's heading in the direction as an all-in-one daw. Not my opinion, if you have a lot of clients and have to have a very fast and efficient workflow for many clients with specific needs it has not been the choice for many an engineer, purposefully.

[_leras]

Sorry, I was meaning more specifically, is the summing any good.

Yes, the summing is good. When everything is used together, I'd say there's a 20% improvement to the sound. It isn't subtle.

Thanks for replying. I have all the channel and tape plug ins incl API summing. I guess I'll have to just bounce some tracks and stems and give it a whirl and hear for myself how much just the summing adds.

My 'rough master mix buss' chain gives a pretty big jump when added, so I can somewhat picture the step up might be like - but that's channel strips and tape as well as the summing.

I just think I'd lose so much flexibility with LUNA straight out of the gate. With Bitwig I can almost instantly add parallel channels to anything, or add a mix control to a plug in that doesn't have one (cough UAD). It'll be interesting to see how flexible the routing etc is in LUNA as well as how good the summing.

[_leras]

With Luna, perhaps it's not going to make a "huge difference", for most but it may if you follow through with its design and its future design. Just my opinion but it may work fantastic for certain people, and be a game changer.

For Bitwig, it depends on the project, but to my knowledge if you're an engineer there are better tools for the job as yourself saying that Cubase may be part of that fix.

Not my opinion, if you have a lot of clients and have to have a very fast and efficient workflow for many clients with specific needs it has not been the choice for many an engineer, purposefully.

I'd agree the primary aim of Bitwig is to be a creative production DAW. But if you are wanting to use approaches such as parallel busses, ducking, have flexible grouping strategies then Bitwig is insanely quick.

No doubt it depends to an extent what you're mixing, and what format you're getting things in.

Anyhow I will give Luna a try as I got a great deal recently that included the summing. I shouldn't knock it until I've tried it.

[twal]

With Luna, perhaps it's not going to make a "huge difference", for most but it may if you follow through with its design and its future design. Just my opinion but it may work fantastic for certain people, and be a game changer.

For Bitwig, it depends on the project, but to my knowledge if you're an engineer there are better tools for the job as yourself saying that Cubase may be part of that fix.

Not my opinion, if you have a lot of clients and have to have a very fast and efficient workflow for many clients with specific needs it has not been the choice for many an engineer, purposefully.

I'd agree the primary aim of Bitwig is to be a creative production DAW. But if you are wanting to use approaches such as parallel busses, ducking, have flexible grouping strategies then Bitwig is insanely quick.

No doubt it depends to an extent what you're mixing, and what format you're getting things in.

Anyhow I will give Luna a try as I got a great deal recently that included the summing. I shouldn't knock it until I've tried it.

Yeah Bitwig is excellent and I am happy to see so many passionate people in its community. I was going to pick it up, but then it wasn't running on my computer very well. So I tried out Luna right after and it couldn't run either (I very much like both of them)- only REAPER so far can on this low-powered cpu..

I think I missed what you were saying, you were saying that you had to be a masochist to render down then import into Luna, I see. I mistakenly thought you were stating you would have to be a masochist to use Luna, I must've confused your post with someone who was saying one would have to be a masochist to use luna for midi.

Anyways, I'm thinking of picking up Bitwig, it is really good. Cheers

[Uncle E]

I just think I'd lose so much flexibility with LUNA straight out of the gate.

You're right about that. It can do all the standard sends and busses but not the degree of flexibility you're used to.

[_leras]

I think I missed what you were saying, you were saying that you had to be a masochist to render down then import into Luna, I see. I mistakenly thought you were stating you would have to be a masochist to use Luna, I must've confused your post with someone who was saying one would have to be a masochist to use luna for midi.

Anyways, I'm thinking of picking up Bitwig, it is really good. Cheers

He he, well maybe it's all three.

I'm a huge fan of UAD stuff, but do wonder if they made a mistake trying to write a DAW. It's a huge undertaking and there's already a lot of competition.

I would recommend anyone to try Bitwig. Then specifically:
Grouping channels,
adding local sends inside a group,
Adding a few FX to an FX chain, and using ctrl + g to group one or more (which also adds a mix control)
Browsing for samples, once a folder is added this is very easy
Using the Tool utility plug in, this is so simple yet so very useful, can +/- gain, or volume, great for gains staging, but also on the end of an FX chain for automating volume, so the channel volume will keep all automation relative
Using the modulators to change some FX or synth control.
All super fun and slick workflows. Just scratching the surface, but quite a good introduction, but ofc missing tons.

[poonna]

I would add another one I use often on Bitwig: FX Selector. It's great for A/Bing different effects in order to choose one that works best.

[audiouser720]

I think I missed what you were saying, you were saying that you had to be a masochist to render down then import into Luna, I see. I mistakenly thought you were stating you would have to be a masochist to use Luna, I must've confused your post with someone who was saying one would have to be a masochist to use luna for midi.

Anyways, I'm thinking of picking up Bitwig, it is really good. Cheers

He he, well maybe it's all three.

I'm a huge fan of UAD stuff, but do wonder if they made a mistake trying to write a DAW. It's a huge undertaking and there's already a lot of competition.

I would recommend anyone to try Bitwig. Then specifically:
Grouping channels,
adding local sends inside a group,
Adding a few FX to an FX chain, and using ctrl + g to group one or more (which also adds a mix control)
Browsing for samples, once a folder is added this is very easy
Using the Tool utility plug in, this is so simple yet so very useful, can +/- gain, or volume, great for gains staging, but also on the end of an FX chain for automating volume, so the channel volume will keep all automation relative
Using the modulators to change some FX or synth control.
All super fun and slick workflows. Just scratching the surface, but quite a good introduction, but ofc missing tons.

Most of these, if not all, can also be done in Ableton. Not challenging, just thinking out loud

[vertibration]

UAD didn't make a mistake making a DAW. They made a mistake making a DAW like Pro Tools. That was their biggest mistake. Literally the one thing people hate about Pro Tools is the workflow, so having a similar workflow is the first mistake.

I would have made the workflow like Ableton, or Bitwig......I mean, people aren't going to cry about speed and ease of use. They sure are crying about Luna's workflow now right? Well......don't be like Pro Tools. Take the good things about Pro Tools, leave the bad.

[elxsound]

UAD didn't make a mistake making a DAW. They made a mistake making a DAW like Pro Tools. That was their biggest mistake. Literally the one thing people hate about Pro Tools is the workflow, so having a similar workflow is the first mistake.

I would have made the workflow like Ableton, or Bitwig......I mean, people aren't going to cry about speed and ease of use. They sure are crying about Luna's workflow now right? Well......don't be like Pro Tools. Take the good things about Pro Tools, leave the bad.

Honestly, I just accepted it's not here to replace Ableton or Bitwig. Bitwig (former Ableton employees) decided they could do it better and fast forward all these years later and you will still find features missing from one or the other depending on who needs what.

I'm also guessing UA had a target base in mind when making Luna. It's likely the PT crowd is it. You can't make everyone happy, so why try?

Luna is also not like PT even if it uses many similar things. Luna has its own workflow and its centered completely on using UA tools.

Considering how much Luna is discussed alongside UA plugins I don't think they made any mistakes. Seems like a very smart business decision.

[vertibration]

UAD didn't make a mistake making a DAW. They made a mistake making a DAW like Pro Tools. That was their biggest mistake. Literally the one thing people hate about Pro Tools is the workflow, so having a similar workflow is the first mistake.

I would have made the workflow like Ableton, or Bitwig......I mean, people aren't going to cry about speed and ease of use. They sure are crying about Luna's workflow now right? Well......don't be like Pro Tools. Take the good things about Pro Tools, leave the bad.

Honestly, I just accepted it's not here to replace Ableton or Bitwig. Bitwig (former Ableton employees) decided they could do it better and fast forward all these years later and you will still find features missing from one or the other depending on who needs what.

I'm also guessing UA had a target base in mind when making Luna. It's likely the PT crowd is it. You can't make everyone happy, so why try?

Luna is also not like PT even if it uses many similar things. Luna has its own workflow and its centered completely on using UA tools.

Considering how much Luna is discussed alongside UA plugins I don't think they made any mistakes. Seems like a very smart business decision.

Not a mistake per say, more so a direction choice that may have positioned themselves in an uncomfortable development situation. I say this because if they want to lets say, implement a piano roll, it could be time consuming if their code is set up a certain way. A code rewrite can be troublesome, and its not like they have a huge team doing Luna.

[elxsound]

UAD didn't make a mistake making a DAW. They made a mistake making a DAW like Pro Tools. That was their biggest mistake. Literally the one thing people hate about Pro Tools is the workflow, so having a similar workflow is the first mistake.

I would have made the workflow like Ableton, or Bitwig......I mean, people aren't going to cry about speed and ease of use. They sure are crying about Luna's workflow now right? Well......don't be like Pro Tools. Take the good things about Pro Tools, leave the bad.

Honestly, I just accepted it's not here to replace Ableton or Bitwig. Bitwig (former Ableton employees) decided they could do it better and fast forward all these years later and you will still find features missing from one or the other depending on who needs what.

I'm also guessing UA had a target base in mind when making Luna. It's likely the PT crowd is it. You can't make everyone happy, so why try?

Luna is also not like PT even if it uses many similar things. Luna has its own workflow and its centered completely on using UA tools.

Considering how much Luna is discussed alongside UA plugins I don't think they made any mistakes. Seems like a very smart business decision.

Not a mistake per say, more so a direction choice that may have positioned themselves in an uncomfortable development situation. I say this because if they want to lets say, implement a piano roll, it could be time consuming if their code is set up a certain way. A code rewrite can be troublesome, and its not like they have a huge team doing Luna.

My impression from the beginning is that they positioned Luna, for adding things on. Not likely requiring rewrites.

I think they stated pretty much from the beginning things like a piano roll would come.