Universal Audio LUNA: Free to all Mac users

[robussc]

An official response from UA:

Hello, thanks for contacting Universal Audio support.

We are aware of the issue relating to the inability to link an iLok ID without getting the error "Cookies Disabled"
This seems to be a Pace (iLok) issue and our engineering team is working them on a resolve. We appreciate your patience while this issue is being investigated by ours and Pace’s engineering team.

Hopefully some progress will be made soon.

[robussc]

Cookies bug is now fixed.

[robussc]

Bah and after all that I should have checked the OS specs. It won't run on my old 27" iMac, it requires 10.15 and the max the iMac can take is 10.13. Boo - I really liked the look of it for a simple studio session recording system.

[QVprod]

I’m simply talking about the business move. But as with any subscription, if you’re someone who wants all of the UAD plugins (it’ll all be included at some point) then it’s a good deal.

Yeah; I too am talking about the business move.

Of course, it costs no small amount of money to develop a DAW.

And it seems to me that before LUNA the people in the market for UAD plug-ins already had a DAW.

And on top of that there is no shortage of DAWs already in the market, several with a great deal of momentum.

So it's not immediately obvious to me how they expect this to pay off for them.

Like I said, I can wave my hands in the general direction of the existence of the DAW somehow leading to plug-in sales.

But, for me, "somehow" doesn't connect enough dots.

I'm not saying this is a bad idea on their part. I'm just curious about the nuts and bolts of how they determined it would be a good idea.

I don't expect anybody here is an insider, and if there were someone I'd never expect them to tip their hand.

But maybe I'm missing something that's obvious to everybody else.

The selling point originally was the integration with the Apollo hardware and some of their plugins (the extensions). Not having to adjust buffer sizes ever so it’s a seamless process from start to finish. More akin to a hardware workflow in that vein.

[selig]

Yeah; I too am talking about the business move.

Of course, it costs no small amount of money to develop a DAW.

And it seems to me that before LUNA the people in the market for UAD plug-ins already had a DAW.

And on top of that there is no shortage of DAWs already in the market, several with a great deal of momentum.

So it's not immediately obvious to me how they expect this to pay off for them.

Like I said, I can wave my hands in the general direction of the existence of the DAW somehow leading to plug-in sales.

But, for me, "somehow" doesn't connect enough dots.

I'm not saying this is a bad idea on their part. I'm just curious about the nuts and bolts of how they determined it would be a good idea.

I don't expect anybody here is an insider, and if there were someone I'd never expect them to tip their hand.

But maybe I'm missing something that's obvious to everybody else.

The selling point originally was the integration with the Apollo hardware and some of their plugins (the extensions). Not having to adjust buffer sizes ever so it’s a seamless process from start to finish. More akin to a hardware workflow in that vein.

For me, as someone who gets frustrated with every decades old platform not being able to do simple things due to decisions made years ago by techs who have long left the company, I was drawn to the idea of a new DAW from scratch. Hardware integration is important to me, and the stupid simple way to get super low (<3ms) latency when recoding works like magic! There are some similarities to Pro Tools on basic levels, which is also helpful since I've been on the PT train since literally version 1.0.

Even though LUNA is still on version 1.0, it already has enough features to keep me happy, many things I've been begging RS to add for years now such as auto punch w/pre and post roll, markers, show/hide tracks, hardware labels for I/O, basic "proper" mixer automation modes, solo isolate, edit groups, track groups (user defined, and selection based group which affect ALL parameters in linked channels), etc.

And just like I felt Reason was made "for me" (with all the instruments I knew, connected the way I knew how to connect them, and even with an SSL right there front and center), LUNA is having the same effect. I'm not sure what market research they did, but I feel like I'm the PERFECT target audience for LUNA as I felt like the perfect target audience for Reason. It's just like magic!

[integerpoet]

I'm not saying this is a bad idea on their part. I'm just curious about the nuts and bolts of how they determined it would be a good idea.

The rest of my earlier message sucked less, but what I should have written here is more like:

I'm not saying this is a bad idea on their part. I'm just curious about the nuts and bolts of how they determined it would be a profitable idea.

Because the DAW itself sounds great, especially for a 1.0. If the Reason DAW were chafing me, I'd take a look.

I'm merely curious about the financial dots UAD connected which led them to make a non-crippled industrial-strength DAW free to all.

Being great isn't the same thing as being profitable.

[StephenHutchinson]

Not particularly promising when you can't even get the UA Connect app to talk to iLok. Giving up on that until I get a response from support.

Agreed... after trying for an extensive period of time, I gave up and uninstalled everything having to do with LUNA synth off my Mac. Total PITA.

[selig]

Not particularly promising when you can't even get the UA Connect app to talk to iLok. Giving up on that until I get a response from support.

Agreed... after trying for an extensive period of time, I gave up and uninstalled everything having to do with LUNA synth off my Mac. Total PITA.

Oddly I've had more issues with Reason lately than I ever had with LUNA, sorry to hear so many are struggling with the install. Don't know what to think, as I've not heard of this issue on any of the LUNA forums, for whatever the hell that means.

And it's not the end all DAW software, to be sure. But IMO it IS the best analog style workflow DAW out there for anyone wanting to work that way.

[robussc]

The install bug has been fixed. It was an issue with the iLok system apparently.

[QVprod]

I’m simply talking about the business move. But as with any subscription, if you’re someone who wants all of the UAD plugins (it’ll all be included at some point) then it’s a good deal.

And it seems to me that before LUNA the people in the market for UAD plug-ins already had a DAW.

And on top of that there is no shortage of DAWs already in the market, several with a great deal of momentum.

So it's not immediately obvious to me how they expect this to pay off for them.

Like I said, I can wave my hands in the general direction of the existence of the DAW somehow leading to plug-in sales.

But, for me, "somehow" doesn't connect enough dots.

I'm not saying this is a bad idea on their part. I'm just curious about the nuts and bolts of how they determined it would be a good idea.

I don't expect anybody here is an insider, and if there were someone I'd never expect them to tip their hand.

But maybe I'm missing something that's obvious to everybody else.

Just like there’s a small amount of people here consistently complaining about Reason for one reason or another, the same thing happens with literally every other DAW. LUNA presents a different workflow. And again it’s the ecosystem integration with their other products, hardware and plugins. It could lead to sales of those other products being the free entry point.

[QVprod]

The selling point originally was the integration with the Apollo hardware and some of their plugins (the extensions). Not having to adjust buffer sizes ever so it’s a seamless process from start to finish. More akin to a hardware workflow in that vein.

For me, as someone who gets frustrated with every decades old platform not being able to do simple things due to decisions made years ago by techs who have long left the company, I was drawn to the idea of a new DAW from scratch. Hardware integration is important to me, and the stupid simple way to get super low (<3ms) latency when recoding works like magic! There are some similarities to Pro Tools on basic levels, which is also helpful since I've been on the PT train since literally version 1.0.

Even though LUNA is still on version 1.0, it already has enough features to keep me happy, many things I've been begging RS to add for years now such as auto punch w/pre and post roll, markers, show/hide tracks, hardware labels for I/O, basic "proper" mixer automation modes, solo isolate, edit groups, track groups (user defined, and selection based group which affect ALL parameters in linked channels), etc.

And just like I felt Reason was made "for me" (with all the instruments I knew, connected the way I knew how to connect them, and even with an SSL right there front and center), LUNA is having the same effect. I'm not sure what market research they did, but I feel like I'm the PERFECT target audience for LUNA as I felt like the perfect target audience for Reason. It's just like magic!

My hardware experience is relatively limited to mostly college, but it certainly has the immediacy of not having to worry about buffer sizes and monitoring (all the console stuff) being integrated into any active channel. It’s a seamless workflow that no other DAW has. Even more so if you’re using the UAD plugins even if just for monitoring.

[antic604]

Any info from UAD on whether or not they're working on Windows version?

I'd get the Pro bundle for $199 in a heartbeat!