**UPDATE**
thought you guys may find it interesting that now when checking the reviews for neve summing on UA's website (link below) THEY HAVE REMOVED ALL NEGATIVE REVIEWS EXCEPT 1 ONE STAR REVIEW AND FLOODED THE REVIEWS WITH NOTHING BUT 5 STAR REVIEWS. WTF!?!?

THAT SHIT IS CRAZY AND DECEPTIVE AS FUCK. 2 DAYS AGO THERE WERE AROUND 40 REVIEWS, 33 BEING 1-2 (INCLUDING MY OWN WHICH HAS DISAPPEARED FROM THE REVIEW BOARD BUT STILL SHOWS UNDER MY UA ACCOUNT THAT I CAN SCREENSHOT AND POST IF YOU LIKE) AND 6-7 BEING 5 STARS. NOW THERE ARE 28 TOTAL REVIEWS AND ALL OF THEM ARE 5 STARS BUT 1.

IF THEY WILL STRAIGHT DELETE CUSTOMER REVIEWS THEN IM PRETTY SURE THAT A PRETTY GOOD AMOUNT OF THE NEW ONES HAVE BEEN SUBMITTED BY EMPLOYEES. HOW THE FUCK ELSE DO YOU GO FROM HAVING 90% NEG REVIEWS TO 97% POS IN 2 DAYS?

IF THE OP DIDNT PISS YOU OFF THEN THATS FINE. IT WAS MORE SUBJECTIVE IN NATURE. BUT THIS AIN'T FUCKIN SUBJECTIVE. THESE ARE FACTS. THEY STRAIGHT UP CHANGED AND REMOVED THE REVIEWS FOR THEIR PRODUCT THAT THEY DIDNT LIKE.

THIS SHOULD PISS EVERYONE OFF. ONE OF THE LEADERS OF OUR INDUSTRY RELEASED A PRODUCT AND RATHER THAN ACCEPT AND LEARN FROM THEIR CUSTOMERS FEEDBACK THEY HAVE CENSORED AND SILENCED THEIR CUSTOMERS OPINIONS IN ORDER TO TRICK PPL INTO BUYING THEIR PRODUCT.

SHITS FUCKED UP


First, for some background, before your read further just check this link to the reviews page for the neve summing that was marketed as "included" with luna.

https://www.uaudio.com/review/neve-summing/#second-nav

if you just "don't wanna" then the short version is LUNA has been released for like 3-4 days at this point and since you cant review LUNA itself on ua's website, ppl have been leaving their thoughts on the review pages for the integrated plugins that are part of LUNA. the link is to the neve summing reviews and at this point, which again is only days in, there are around 26 reviews and its hovering around 2 out of 5 stars. the reviews all have one central theme. that theme is "UA lied to us and we're fuckin' pissed".

i have been a bit of a fanboy of UA since just a few months into my recording journey (only ab 2 yrs in). if it tells you anything i started out with a focusrite solo and my hp envy laptop and after a few months of devouring everything on the internet i could about recording and trying to learn as much as i could in a hurry, i came to the conclusion that i must have an apollo twin mkII interface. and in order to upgrade to an apollo interface i also had to upgrade to a macbook pro bc apollo's connect via thunderbolt.

i am a regular working dude. i don't make $$ from recording. this was not just a easy purchase for me to make. but i believed in the product and the quality of the product and what it could bring to my workflow and productions so i made a way, as we all do in this small universe of bedroom musicians/producers.

i love my apollo, i love my uad plugins, especially the unison stuff. i am totally sold on UA as a brand and as a quality company. so when NAMM 2020 rolls around and i see the UA LUNA announcement i'm stoked. i even sold my apollo twin mkII SOLO and put that money toward a QUAD edition so that i would have plenty of dsp to run all the bad ass "included" integrated extensions and instruments that LUNA would offer. extensions like Neve summing on every track or bus, oxide tape on tracks and busses, the beautiful Ravel grand piano, and minimoog synth to name a few.

so a few days ago i get an email saying that LUNA is released and ready to be downloaded. im excited to jump into it and get started so i wait for the download to finish and anxiously open luna and im greeted with a home page offering neve summing for $300. the instruments are similarly priced as well. i think "hmm, i guess they're selling these as plugs to ppl outside of LUNA maybe?". i brush by it and jump into a session. i record a quick guitar and vocal track just to see how they sound with the Neve. i go to add the Neve and i'm hit with "do you want to start the demo?". wtf..

i think "no bitch, i'm an apollo user. this is supposed to be an included integral part of LUNA for me".

i was fuckin' wrong.

so i go to ua's website thinking "maybe i'm an idiot and don't know words". how did i misunderstand this through months of marketing for LUNA? I watched EVERYTHING they put out up to launch over those months since NAMM. i knew that the Studer tape was a paid add on but most of the other extensions were made to sound like part of the package. i mean no way could UA think that the use of Oxide tape would be enough to make ppl jump ship from PT, Reaper, Logicx, etc. if you want to jump start a paradigm shift in an industry, surely a company of UA's history and pedigree knows that Oxide tape ain't gonna cut the perverbial "FUCKING MUSTARD".

i was fuckin' wrong again..

turns out i do know words. and i'm not the only one who heard UA's bs over the last few months to say "this is LUNA and this is what we are including for all of our loyal customers who pay a premium for our products." just to then release that product with a steep as hell.FUKYOU. paywall to use those included, integral, parts of their "not a daw".

Sorry for the novel ppl but i felt a staple of the recording industry misleading their patrons deserved a well thought out write up.

what do you guys think of the situation and did anyone else feel like you got slapped in the face when you opened LUNA for the first time. and lastly what do you think UA should do to account for the way they marketed this product. bc it's undeniable at this point, it was more than just ppl misinterpreting the lingo. just read the reviews for Neve summing alone. if 90% of the ppl interpreted it that way then thats not an "us" problem, its a UA marketing department problem.

I'MOUT

 

Last edited: Apr 15, 2020

I also think it was sneaky - all the sneak peaks and "Luna is completely free" and "oh look at our shiny *instruments* in Luna" and so on.

I was also then surprised to see that those things they had been showing in the "completely free" Luna we paid add ons - pricey ones at that. And so, Luna becomes yet another way to nickle and dime people into buying more stuff for another locked in platform - and also a sneaky way of finally introducing the *native* plugins that instruments require, but making them only usable in their locked in platform (they can't afford to have native regular plugins - it would kill their hardware UAD business overnight - *but* they *need* it for instruments due to latency etc). And now you see a big part of UA's investment into Luna. It's not just an add on app that comes free with their interfaces to give you a convenient recording platform - it's *all* about lock in.

I've been a UAD user for a long time, and I really like their plugins, they are definitely "up there" for me. But it's an expensive hardware platform. If you can afford it, then great, it's a good, if underpowered system. But it's not like there aren't mostly good alternatives these days - and cheaper and more flexible at that. And UA aren't they company there were at the dawn of the UAD platform, for sure.

 

well said. i totally agree. i hope they pay attention to what they're users are saying on their own site. honestly i think the only way they could rectify this poor launch is to include the things they said they would for free and acknowledge how they bait and switched us. i know that is very unlikely but if enough ppl get on forums and say its not ok then at least they cant play dumb.

it would have been so much more palatable for them to have stuck by what they said and included the neve, minimoog, etc. at launch, then go forward with "those are the shiny offerings to get you to at least give luna a chance, but from here out, future native releases wil be paid add ons." like i said in the post, just oxide tape isnt enough to make us leave our respective daws that we have time and $$ already invested in.

 

Need a TL;DR if possible please!

 

some existing ua customers are totally pissed that a new product (luna) didn't come with hundreds of dollars of free new software. some others have posted 5-star reviews of luna that say ua never promised anything of the sort.

 

TL;DR is LUNA BAD and ua think we're fuggin idiots

 

Sounds like bullshit. But imho UA has always been bullshit. Not the stuff itself but the price and the marketing.

 

if it is truly the case that ua did not deliver what they promised, you should be able to show at least some proof of the lies. an advertisement? a video? anything? it's very difficult for me - as a non-ua customer - to believe that they would outright lie to their current customers. and when i followed the link in the original post, the first four reviews were five stars with some quotes like these:

"I can’t believe people are really complaining about Neve Summing Being free. It was never said to be free. Most of you are engineers, Open your ears. Luna was free."

"Don’t mind the others who wrote reviews about how it was meant to be free, it wasn’t. And it’s not UAD’s fault people can’t read or listen and watch videos where they were told constantly it is a paid add-on."

"These people giving it 1-2 stars are incredibly disrespectful to the entire UA team who from the very first day Luna was announced made it very clear what the extra features would be and how they would be purchased."

"First off, I’ve been following the Luna news since launch and have always known it would be a paid add-on for Luna - I don’t know why all of these other reviewers are complaining its not free - ridiculous."

 

They said it was built into luna

 

Last edited: Apr 13, 2020

the 5 of 36 reviews that are 5 stars have gone up literally since i wrote this post 3-4 hours ago or less... it looks like ua doing damage control honestly. of the 30 reviews before the last few hours 2 gave it 5 stars. the rest were mostly 2 and below with a few 3 stars. all saying the same thing. this was advertised as a free extension. this is what these big companies do. sneakily word shit so that they have deniability when they produce something totally different than what they made it sound like they were going to do. you must admit that there has to be a reason so many ppl were under the impression that it was included. its a little more than just boohoo wheres my free shit. its that they presented and advertised it as such so they could get their download count as high as possible on launch so they can hit you with an ad upon opening the software for the first time. its numbers. the more eyeballs you can get on your ads the more statistically you will SELL. its principle. ppl dont like being duped or feeling like they were manipulated.

 

they did

 

as for proof, just watch the luna videos from namm and see how it sounds to you. this post was mostly for ppl who were current ua users and had been following lunas release. so it was kindof assumed that they would already be privy to how it was marketed. but thats my fault. i should have maybe included links to that stuff for ppl that were not really following it. my bad for that. i figured posting a link to their sites review page would be sufficient enough for ppl to see that the overwhelming majority of reviewers echoed the same thought. that being it was presented as built in/included with luna. but bravo to ua for acting quick and piling some 5 stars right a the top of the list to completely negate the 30+ that came before the last 3 hours..

 

it is customary for the person who is making a claim to at least put forth the effort to provide the evidence. don't ask me to go out searching for it. because i just don't care enough to do that.

 

It's a free DAW. Free. It is only for UAD customers and as such I see it as a gift. Did they blow it with the launch? Why would you think that? They gave a preview of it and said it was coming in Spring. They delivered it in Spring. I did not once read anywhere in print that Neve summing would be included free. It represents quite a bit of UA's time and resources. They have to recoup their expenditure on the LUNA project. UA don't give away hardware or plugins for free, so if you assumed this would include all present and future content for free, you have not been following them on Facebook where they have been addressing these questions now for months. They have been thoroughly transparent.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Apr 13, 2020

just to put this into perspective - no company ever stayed in business by giving away its latest and greatest products for free. i look at this luna software giveaway as being very similar to apple giving away the itunes platform with the understanding that they would make billions by selling the songs. or maybe an example that is closer to the heart is uvi giving away the uvi workstation platform in hopes that people would buy the uvi instruments that run on the platform.

 

Do you think they will address the issue on their Office Talks?

Do

 

it's not actually what i would call a daw. you can't use third party plugins and there's no way to create music with midi.

 

All of my Audio Units can be used. With regards to midi, LUNA is, at this stage, primarily focussed on being a recording platform. Also don't forget, this is version 1 and UA are happy to hear all feedback. It's even got a button on the app for you to give them suggestions.

 

And if you thought Neve summing would be free because of how it was described, would you think that when they spoke of how unison technology incorporated dynamics, preamps and channel strips, that it meant those plugins were going to be free?

 

DAW means Digital Audio Workstastion. If you cannot perform any of the basic work you normally do on a DAW, who gives a f**** even if you give it for free? It's just as good as a Notepad file with some programming lines in it. Sorry if it sounds too harsh, it is just to make a point. A very basic one at that.