At launch, available LUNA Instruments will include:

● Moog® minimoog — developed in partnership with Moog Music, the Moog minimoog is an incredibly accurate and inspiring emulation of the archetypal 1971 Moog synthesizer
● Ravel™ grand piano — a breathtaking model of a Steinway Model B grand piano based on UA's proprietary sampling, physical modeling, and new Ultra-Resonance technology — providing all the sonic nuance of this studio classic
● Shape™ — a complete creative toolkit with VINTAGE KEYS, drums/percussion, guitar/bass, orchestral content, and realtime synthesis, courtesy of Universal Audio, Spitfire Audio, Orange Tree Samples, Loops de la Creme, and more — included free in LUNA

UAD LUNA announced at Namm.

 

They lost me at mac only and no vst support. (Talking the LUNA platform) not the instruments.

 

wonder if this instrument pack will be available also for the UAD2 DSP cards also, like satellite pcie and so on!

 

These instruments will use your computer CPU, no way DSP cards can run them, if they are any good (comparable in sound quality to modern vstis). UAD's hardware is very outdated, but it doesn't look like they are looking in changing it for some modern DSP or native solutions (probably because they have to recode all their catalogue).

 

My guess is they refuse to go native mainly to avoid piracy.

 

Hmm. Looks interesting.

Im unsure about UAD. I use their Apollo Quad and find one or two of the plugs quite good. But I feel they've missed the boat somewhat, a half-baked DAW and a few new sound plugins...I don't know. Maybe I'm just old school, but if I start something in Pro Tools I tend to work in Pro Tools. If I start something in Logic I tend to finish in logic. I can't really see myself jumping in and out of this new UAD DAW if for no other reason than its inconvenient and I have to work quickly.

Meh. Let's wait and see how good this Ravel piano is.

 

No, they can use something like ilock + internet access registration/access; good luck pirating this (see East West and similar).
To recode your plugins, you have to pay someone to do this (that's money, software development in not cheap) - right now they are selling people 15 years old hardware that should cost like 10 to 50 euro max for like 5 k euro max (I think). That's insane profit.
(Some of the guitar amp/effects modelling processors on the market right now actually use way newer DSP chips.)
(All this DSP stuff is not the only example for overpriced hardware - for example RME are the only company with actually stable and low latency drivers (at least for Windows, I am not sure about Mac-land), so they can overprice all their stuff, because there is literally 0 competition.Other companies can offer better hardware for the price, but if it doesn't work right, it is useless.
Or all the retards that buy hardware modulars. Yeah, it is totally fine to buy something like that is overpriced like 10+ times, if you are braindead.)

 

On the Sonic Core (ex Creamware) Xite-1 hardware, that is equipped with the same Analog Devices dsp processors, there are many high quality synthesizers, including the modular platform. I use it every day together with some good vst. I think UAD avoided to develop synthesizers on the dsp platform because of the complexity of the polyphony management on those dsp processors. Other than the Xite-1 I still use 2 old computers equipped with the older pci cards (Pulsar, Scope etc.) and I use them as hardware Synths/FX units digitally connected via Adat to the Xite-1. Today we have high quality vst's, but I like both worlds.

 

Some modern vstis emulate digitally the actual analogue components accurately. I doubt that you can pull off this on a hardware that was even back then slower than CPU technology (15 years ago!) - the main selling point of DSP chips back then is that the products was mostly audio stuff, no heavy commercial OS tasks, but 15 years ago is like an eternity in this technology sector.
But you are right that, if this does the job, it is fine... but what they offer pricewise is not fine.

 

The low latency you are talking about, is not a problem for dsp based hardware, it's a problem for vst-only based environments, because of the ASIO driver needed in the middle to communicate with the audio card, so you are forced to use 96 KHz (and more cpu power) to work at 1ms latency, but if you have a dsp based hardware such as the Xite-1 or UAD and you do your monitoring straight on the hardware, latency is under 1ms and this is what I do with the Xite-1 and the included Scope software which allows me to use real time high quality effects, record multiple sources and playback at the same time without affecting the computer cpu. It's just a different approach and something that costs more at the beginning, but will not force you to update your computer hardware very often as the processing is done on the hardware dsp processors.

 

That's the point, those dsp processors (with the proper software engineering), can run high quality Synthesis and FX even on a Pentium II windows xp machine and all this with a latency under 1 ms, I think you should try it, quality is outstanding.
I agree with you on the price point and i never bought UAD because of the missing modular approach that I have with Xite/Scope, but once you have one of those systems, it will be for the long term.

 

Last edited: Jan 18, 2020

Definitely outdated but still, they sound so good and do not eat up your CPU. Stuff like Acustica Audio on the other hand, sound just the same (mostly) and kill your brand new DAW right in its tracks.
So sorry, but i still prefer UAD FX to let some processing power room for my demanding VTIs like Diva for instance.

 

The new LUNA instruments are native CPU powered instruments.

 

Acustica uses multi-convolution responses, they are basically sampling the sound of some original unit. Of course, it will be CPU-intensive. Good modern synths are also heavy (like U-he Repro).

 

No way they compare to modern top synths and effects. Latency you describe is also too low. In a normal project even using last gen DSP offerings by Antelope or Apogee and similar latency will be higher than that, and they are way more advanced tech. than what these old cards offer.

 

In what way does numercal processing date? There's a strange dissonance between rating a UA offering because it exactly emulates a sixty year old compressor but then berating it because it runs on a ten year old processor that has no significant audio difference with the latest generation. And it's a single generation of SHARC behind the current offering, which is a curious use of the word very.

UAD2 does what it does. Use it or not, who cares why? Or is it that it has to be the latest to have any validity. That's morphing the latest version of software mentality into hardware. Doesn't work on studio gear. That LA2A has to be old. The two fallacies of audio gear: this is good because it is old, and, this is good because it is new.

 

Well said.

 

Noone is stopping anyone from buying overpriced crap. For the same kind of money, you can get better performance than what these old technologies offer (and no, I don't talk about the software!)
About the glorifiers of the past and analogue collectors - well, I am not in this camp.
In the end, all this stuff is just a tool; there are probably kids with freeware/cheap software that produce more interesting music than some guys with expensive studios.

 

Oh shit it actually is Mac only. This is great, I support anything that promotes the superiority of coreaudio. Will be getting an arrow soon. This will be an amazing mixing platform.

What "better performance" are you referring to? Show me the alternatives for a professional product that runs stable and sounds on par or better than UAD. The appeal isn't all the light up buttons and plugins LOL. You think the person buying 16io interfaces is using them to run compressor plugins? At that level you're dealing with professionals with racks of hardware and instruments they need to record. $150 for a plugin to mess around with isn't a big deal when you become a big boy.

 

Last edited: Mar 12, 2020