hey folks, at NAMM yesterday we announced the product that I am writing documentation for at Universal Audio... LUNA.
https://www.musicradar.com/news/namm-2020-universal-audios-luna-is-a-free-daw-for-apollo-audio-interface-owners
It's a recording system that's free to all Apollo/macOS users, and will be released this spring. All the jams I've been posting for the past few months have been recorded in this system.If you have a UA interface and a Mac, you should give it a try when it comes out.
Cool. I'm glad you posted about this. I looked into it when I got an email the other day. At some point I will want to move away from my antiquated DAW and upgrade to something newer. I've look into a few offerings out there in the DAW department but wasn't overly impressed with much, So I've stayed with my very functional copy of Sonar Professional.
Best I could tell from my glancing scan is that this DAW from UA is free to hardware owners. So my entry point would be to purchase the Arrow, which initially seems to be comparable in features to the Focusrite 2i2 that I currently use.
The upside from what I can tell is that if I went that route is that the probably much better quality hardware also comes with several UAD plug-ins. So, the added features with the DAW makes the initial cost of the hardware less shocking. I would certainly have to wait until UA was running some awesome Black Friday Super Sale type deal.
But, I am intrigued.
Question, is this fully VST functional from the get go? No added costs? I have some McDSP Native stuff that own that I would want to keep using.
So, it's only Mac? Edit: So, I went here https://www.uaudio.com/luna after my initial post and saw that it is available for the Arrow, but that it is only MAC. Will it ever be available for Windows? The Arrow is Windows compatible but the DAW is only MAC. I could possibly get the hardware first, and wait for Windows compatibility if it's coming.
Yes, it is Mac only. I can't say anything about future compatibility. All your AU plugins (that's the macOS plugin format) work on it.
If you are interested, I can get you an interface at the friends and family rate for 40% off the minimum advertised price, ie the sweetwater price.
I have a focusrite interface (they sell the most interfaces by a factor of 10 over the next biggest competitior). I also have a number of UA interfaces through work now, but mostly I use the Apollo Twin. I can tell you the step up in sound quality is like night and day from the Focusrite.
As for mac vs PC, I am a complete convert. I went from constantly worrying about how my PC was set up, and troubleshooting weird crap, to plugging in a power cable and my interface, and everything just working. YMMV.
I looked deeper into it yesterday. I watched some of the UA Live feed from NAMM. 40% off. That's an attractive gesture. Thanks. I have some hurdles to jump if I was to try this. My McDSP stuff I could just download as AU, so that would work, if I convert to MAC. There were a lot of questions flying in the chat of the Live Feed. UA was answering them on the fly. Seems they are a couple months out from public release so I can look into a computer upgrade.
Any suggestions on an affordable Mac system that will run this setup? I have no idea or experience in the MAC world, so any help would be appreciated. It seems the full conversion to MAC is the better route, considering Thunderbolt 3 upgrades and all that jive.
I watched a good portion of the OX demo on the Live Feed. That thing sounded good. I had bought a similar Reactive Load Box from Two Notes a while back. The Captor 8. It's pretty cool. Works great with their cabs and with Amplitube cabs bypassing the amp. I had bought a Fender collection and some Mesa Stuff from Amplitube, so those cabs are pretty nice.
Damn shame I didn't win yesterday's UA Giveaway! ;D
Ox is amazing. We had it wired up at the show with a Deluxe head, a Plexi, a Bogner and PRS head. It was the most fun I had playing guitar at any booth except for the Suhr booth. It's pricey though... I'll get one because it's really sick to play through a 100 watt head at your desk, but my employee discount is really good
I use two-notes Torpedo WOS software and I visited their booth at NAMM and played everything.... Captor X was cool, but the thing that most impressed me was their tube preamp pedals, especially the clean and crunch. Nice stuff, full 200 volts on the preamp tube with a 12v adapter. Still slightly cold, 230-270 would be even better, but impressive engineering nonetheless, and they sound good, which is really what counts. Not bad for $300.
For a minimum Mac, you'd probably want a Mini with a quad-core processor-- plug in your keyboard, mouse, monitor and interface and you're good to go. Probably actually includes mouse and keyboard. Easier to have everything all-in-one with a Macbook but I've run it on a Mini with no problems. Ping me if you are interested, LUNA ships "in the spring" but you don't have to get into it at version 1, it will likely be free to Apollo owners forever.
I'm Definitely interested. It'll be a bit before I take the plunge. I like The Mini. It seems that most 2018 builds have the needed Thunderbolt 3. It gets sketchy considering OS version and processor size. The UA site for Arrow recommends 3 OS versions as "tested" and recommends I7 core. Problem with looking at 2018, I7 stuff, most are running OS X. I can find a Mini I5 2018, that runs an OS tested version for under a Grand. But does the I5 have enough ass? Will OS X systems work? There is a lot of Re-furb stuff. The price drops considerably as just a little time passes. I'll keep looking
What are the particulars of the Mini that you run? OS version and such? I7?
Yeah that Torpedo Captor that I have is the best money that I'd spent in a while. I don't have any big amps anymore, but it's nice to run the full 6 watts of the VHT Special 6 balls out with headphones. I have the WOS cabs. I bought two cabs initially years ago when they came out to have a licensed version, and the Captor 8 came with about a dozen cabs. It's an excellent product.
I liked that the OX setup had some presets that they were using for cabs. I guess in the software that comes with it. Yes, I got scared when I saw the Price tag for that thing.
They all have os X...Mojave and Catalina are supported. Most Macs you can buy will have one of the two. High Sierra is not supported officially but probably works, but it's also a pretty easy upgrade. an i5 would work, also you don't need Thunderbolt 3, you can use TB2 and even use TB2 devices with a TB3 adapter. I used a quad core mini, I think it was a 2016 model.