LUNA is now free for all Mac users

[jonljacobi]

Let's all pretend for a second that we don't have our own DAWs that we've been using forever, and are just starting out. For a freebie, Luna is pretty amazing.

[Uncle E]

It’s amazing for anyone who’s mainly recording or mixing audio. MIDI is its achilles heel.

[jonljacobi]

Depends on your MIDI needs I suppose, I found everything I need for recording, small edits, and entering/drawing.

Not everything I'm used to of course, or a lot of bells and whistles, and no MIDI 2.0 or polyphonic aftertouch support that I'm aware of. If you need or want all the FL type stuff, I guess you might consider it severely lacking.

I'd say it's fine if you record your MIDI, but weak if you want to compose inside the DAW.

[vertibration]

Luna isn't really good for beginners either. Live lite, or FL is better to be honest. Midi is everything for a beginner because DUH???? They are beginners they aren't out there buying expensive stuff like external compressors, or analog synths. Just a couple soft synths to start right? So composing midi in Luna is a huge PITA. If I was a beginner, I would have more fun with Live lite, Bitwig essentials or FL Studio tbh. Luna is for those mixing engineers that are moving away from pro tools, and they dont care that Luna is missing important production/composition tools. Literally, Luna users, and the users on the UAD forum either understand that Luna needs functional updates like midi/piano roll, bounce in place, multi outs, a file browser, and other fairly simple things that every DAW has, or they swear that Luna is the gospel. Im sure the devs are working on more updates, but I feel like they also meant Luna to not be a DAW, but a recording tool. Its very hard to convince an entire team to listen to users if they are convinced that a product should stay a certain way. FL Studio users are blessed to be honest, because their Devs are super active and listen to users.

[elxsound]

Luna isn't really good for beginners either. Live lite, or FL is better to be honest. Midi is everything for a beginner because DUH???? They are beginners they aren't out there buying expensive stuff like external compressors, or analog synths. Just a couple soft synths to start right? So composing midi in Luna is a huge PITA. If I was a beginner, I would have more fun with Live lite, Bitwig essentials or FL Studio tbh. Luna is for those mixing engineers that are moving away from pro tools, and they dont care that Luna is missing important production/composition tools. Literally, Luna users, and the users on the UAD forum either understand that Luna needs functional updates like midi/piano roll, bounce in place, multi outs, a file browser, and other fairly simple things that every DAW has, or they swear that Luna is the gospel. Im sure the devs are working on more updates, but I feel like they also meant Luna to not be a DAW, but a recording tool. Its very hard to convince an entire team to listen to users if they are convinced that a product should stay a certain way. FL Studio users are blessed to be honest, because their Devs are super active and listen to users.

The UA reps have hinted that more is to come that would round out the MIDI features.

But if you’re asking about the UA users to scream about missing MIDI in LUNA, the reason isn’t because it’s the gospel, but many of their users earn their by mixing.

Right now the ones that like LUNA the most, like it for its simplicity/recording friendly setup, minimal features and dedicated workflow for mixing.

It’s an interesting host and I wish it wouldn’t compete with other hosts and just focus on those basics for recording and mixing things down. I don’t think it’s perfect. I hate how using their system to add bus tracks requires using the inline master tape atr 102 extension, or else you have to use an insert which takes away the benefits of their current layout.

Same goes for the summing extensions and the API console tools. Those are the only things that make LUNA unique, but LUNA without those extensions is really any other DAW but without many features people are used to.

As for beginners… that just depends what they want. If you record audio primarily, I think you’ll like work with less distractions.

[Uncle E]

AFAIR, it’s been years since Luna was updated in any significant way. I guess they would say that opening it up to all Mac users was a significant update but there was no major change for Apollo users.

[jamcat]

It's really disappointing that LUNA supports AU only, no VST3.
So that doesn't bode well for a Windows port any time soon, either.

[vertibration]

Luna isn't really good for beginners either. Live lite, or FL is better to be honest. Midi is everything for a beginner because DUH???? They are beginners they aren't out there buying expensive stuff like external compressors, or analog synths. Just a couple soft synths to start right? So composing midi in Luna is a huge PITA. If I was a beginner, I would have more fun with Live lite, Bitwig essentials or FL Studio tbh. Luna is for those mixing engineers that are moving away from pro tools, and they dont care that Luna is missing important production/composition tools. Literally, Luna users, and the users on the UAD forum either understand that Luna needs functional updates like midi/piano roll, bounce in place, multi outs, a file browser, and other fairly simple things that every DAW has, or they swear that Luna is the gospel. Im sure the devs are working on more updates, but I feel like they also meant Luna to not be a DAW, but a recording tool. Its very hard to convince an entire team to listen to users if they are convinced that a product should stay a certain way. FL Studio users are blessed to be honest, because their Devs are super active and listen to users.

The UA reps have hinted that more is to come that would round out the MIDI features.

But if you’re asking about the UA users to scream about missing MIDI in LUNA, the reason isn’t because it’s the gospel, but many of their users earn their by mixing.

Right now the ones that like LUNA the most, like it for its simplicity/recording friendly setup, minimal features and dedicated workflow for mixing.

It’s an interesting host and I wish it wouldn’t compete with other hosts and just focus on those basics for recording and mixing things down. I don’t think it’s perfect. I hate how using their system to add bus tracks requires using the inline master tape atr 102 extension, or else you have to use an insert which takes away the benefits of their current layout.

Same goes for the summing extensions and the API console tools. Those are the only things that make LUNA unique, but LUNA without those extensions is really any other DAW but without many features people are used to.

As for beginners… that just depends what they want. If you record audio primarily, I think you’ll like work with less distractions.

I remember back in 2010 when I first started writing electronic music (loved the prodigy at the time), I used Ableton and never looked back for years. I know that if I was introduced to Luna at that time, I would have been ultra pissed that my soft synths at the time would have been a PITA to make midi notes and compose.

[jonljacobi]

There seems to be a distinct slant here towards people who use the DAW to write. There are a lot of musicians who write, then simply play into the DAW. For them it's more than adequate. If you're dependent upon the DAW for everything, then you might find it inadequate. But pissed at something free?? Give me a break.

[vertibration]

There seems to be a distinct slant here towards people who use the DAW to write. There are a lot of musicians who write, then simply play into the DAW. For them it's more than adequate. If you're dependent upon the DAW for everything, then you might find it inadequate. But pissed at something free?? Give me a break.

Hey now, I say "pissed" imagining a momentary feeling of frustration I would feel as a person just starting out, also naive to anything developer related. I should have been more elaborate. Of coarse I agree no one should ever be pissed at a free product.

[Uncle E]

Pissed as in Lager Lager Lager a proper Saturday night innit

[cdbaksu]

It’s amazing for anyone who’s mainly recording or mixing audio. MIDI is its achilles heel.

What sort of MIDI features is it lacking?

[Uncle E]

What sort of MIDI features is it lacking?

Step and pattern sequencer, but the main issue is there's no edit window so you're constantly having to increase and decrease the track heights to make edits.

[cdbaksu]

What sort of MIDI features is it lacking?

Step and pattern sequencer, but the main issue is there's no edit window so you're constantly having to increase and decrease the track heights to make edits.

Right. I never consider those sequencers since I play everything on my keyboard, and have never needed them.

What about if you lasso select something from a clip and use the E keyboard shortcut to expand/shrink the editing, does that help at all?

[apoclypse]

There seems to be a distinct slant here towards people who use the DAW to write. There are a lot of musicians who write, then simply play into the DAW. For them it's more than adequate. If you're dependent upon the DAW for everything, then you might find it inadequate. But pissed at something free?? Give me a break.

To be fair there are lot of choices out there when it comes to free DAWs for musicians who record. Luna imo is not adding anything special other than the UA plugins built right in.