Universal Audio’s free DAW, LUNA, has a major update that just cleared the launchpad – LUNA 2.0 for both macOS and PC. It includes ARA 2 support, AI-infused instrument detection, and, if you own or purchase the LUNA Pro upgrade, a total of 29 UAD plug-ins, some new third-party ARA and MIDI effects plug-ins, and – critically – new hardware insert capabilities inside LUNA.
ARA, or Audio Random Access, has been on the block for some time now, and although it’s a killer timesaving, editor-friendly feature, industry adoption has been a little sluggish, with only a few DAWs (like PreSonus Studio One and Avid Pro Tools) supporting it natively. For those unfamiliar, it’s a technology that allows ARA-ready plug-ins, like Celemony’s Melodyne, to work directly with the source audio in your DAW, saving the headache of having to record or transfer audio back and forth to an outside application.
I’ve been a Melodyne user for almost a decade, and having ARA 2 in LUNA 2.0 makes the Melodyne editing process feel much more natural and less time-consuming. It’s nice to see LUNA keeping up in this regard, and the implementation of ARA unlocks future capabilities as more plug-in developers adopt this standard. It took me a second or two to discover this (hey reviewer, RTFM), but to access the new ARA view, you have to navigate to the Warps menu within a selected track, then choose the ARA submenu, where you’ll get a list of the VST3 ARA plug-ins currently installed. Once you open the ARA plug-in window, it appears below the session timeline and can be resized or expanded into a floating window. Tip for Melodyne users: choose the option to “Zoom to Selection in DAW” under the Melodyne Options menu. This keeps the timeline and ARA windows aligned in their respective zoom levels and saves editing time.
There are a number of other workflow enhancements in the free LUNA 2.0 update, including refinements to the “AI-powered” instrument detection that was introduced in version 1.9. In LUNA 2.0, you get new track-type icons in the timeline track headers, automatic track color and warp algorithm selections, as well as optional track auto-naming based on LUNA’s analysis of your audio. LUNA can also listen to your voice for basic hands-free transport commands – sadly, “Hey LUNA, lock the beer fridge before the bass player gets back!” is not recognized. You can enable or disable these features with a click.
As mentioned earlier, LUNA Pro unlocks hardware inserts, which, to me, is worth the price of entry, as it opens LUNA up to all of my outboard gear with single-click automatic delay compensation. UA’s implementation here works remarkably well, and I was happy to learn that I could create insert presets for different hardware patches, which makes for quick and easy session recall. There are 29 additional plug-ins that come with the Pro upgrade, including three new virtual instruments and three additional guitar amplifiers, including UA’s new Showtime ’64 amp (a Fender blackface clone that sounds great). If you don’t own Melodyne, the Pro upgrade comes with Melodyne Essential and also adds NoiseWorks’s DynAssist Lite, a vocal editing plug-in suite with some automated approaches to dynamics and vocal cleanup. It’s interesting to see UA include third-party plug-ins in the bundle, but I found the authorization process outside the centralized UA Connect app a bit fussy, and, other than Melodyne, I haven’t found uses for the other third-party plug-ins in my workflow so far.
The new Volt 876 USB interface (see my review in this issue) was tested in parallel with LUNA 2.0, and it appears to be as deeply integrated with LUNA as its more expensive siblings in the Apollo range. This translates into many quality-of-life features when recording with LUNA and the 876, including integrated preamp adjustments plus full control over the Vintage circuit and the built-in 1176-style compressor mode. Essentially, everything on the front panel has a corresponding digital control in LUNA, which is handy. Plus, the Auto-Gain feature is a great quick start when you have a consistent signal source you want to rapidly set level on. The Volt 876 settings are all recallable per track/per session, just like Apollo. Unlike Apollo, the 876 doesn’t offer monitor correction or calibration, and you can’t combine an Apollo with an 876 (unless using the 876 as an ADAT expander), but if you opt for the LUNA Pro upgrade, you can take advantage of the new hardware insert options – neat!
Broadly, this update keeps LUNA in direct, spicy competition with the other DAWs on the block and offers a persuasive set of enhancements for artists and mix engineers. To the moon!