The new UA recording system - L U N A

[dawman]

Then again this hardware might sound better for 65,000€.

https://www.gearnews.com/sell-a-kidney- ... n-the-usa/

8410AB6D-DEB5-4A7D-A7C0-58724AD7B79E.jpeg (97.79 KiB) Viewed 3862 times

[valis]

GAS activated.

[garyb]

i suspect that even if it was free, most people couldn't tell the difference, and that they would complain that it's too complicated to interface with their computers anyway.

[dante]

Interesting - they have also an 8 x 2 rack mountable summing mixer that could be used in a DAW context (you’d have to get decent converters as well - although my Zoom could do that ).

It doesn’t say it’s Tubes like the mixer though - I expect for 5 large maybe it’s not.

Good to see someone’s making valve mixers though.

[dante]

Pic

[valis]

Not having looked at the documentation, if that's a summing mixer it won't have Pre's so (if it's passive) likely no input transformers or valves. I see mute/solo/on, Level (input gain?) & pan, and output with what looks like an insert point (that's again my presumption, intended for master compressor/limiter or combo unit with EQ).

[yayajohn]

i suspect that even if it was free, most people couldn't tell the difference, and that they would complain that it's too complicated to interface with their computers anyway.

Grouch!
Let the dreamers dream. Everyone has their own Holy Grail.
Currently mine is that Moog One....I really really really want one

[dante]

Not having looked at the documentation, if that's a summing mixer it won't have Pre's so (if it's passive) likely no input transformers or valves. I see mute/solo/on, Level (input gain?) & pan, and output with what looks like an insert point (that's again my presumption, intended for master compressor/limiter or combo unit with EQ).

I reckon youre right m8 : Heres what I found ref https://www.kmraudio.com/tree-audio-the-stem.php

"The Tree Audio Stem is a submixer designed to be used as part of a Roots mixing console or as a stand-alone summing mixer.

The Stem by Tree Audio features 8 input channels each featuring level controls, pan, as well as a mute/on/solo three-way switch. The master section includes two outputs and a big master level control. A stereo buss insert is also included allowing the connection of a mixbuss compressor or EQ. An insert bypass switch lets you engage the insert point.

Inside the 3U summing mixer can be found SP690 all discrete class A op amps designed to offer increased headroom.

Tree Audio Stem Summing Mixer Overview:

8x2 standalone submixer for sidecar or standalone applications
SP690 All Discrete Op Amps for increased headroom
Level, Pan Pot, Mute/On/Solo Controls per channel
Stereo Buss Insert with insert switch
3U"

[valis]

It's active then, not passive. That means it's designed to color the signal, which imho is good. I prefer the gentle leveling effect and color of analog when summing & mixing through an analog path, and so this may actually be worth using.

Digital mixers are the most transparent thing there is, why people would use passive summing mixers to go from digital, through a 'transparent' analog summer back into the box has mystified me. They like the sound of their DA/AD conversion?

[dante]

Agreed. That's exactly it about coloring, and the lack of from digital daws (even with their EQ & Comp which is still digital) that's the issue I've been trying to address by using MB32. A h/ware summer is another (albeit more expensive) approach.

[valis]

Yea I get it. I have:

Soundtracs PC Solo: small/budget mixer from early 90's, Mushy but gave me a nice levelling effect until I put it in the closet and replaced it with a...
Yamaha 40 channel mixer: was shocked at how much headroom this has, the pots on everything are decidedly budget but it sounds great for what I paid--used
Mackie 1202VLZ Mk1: kept for color when I want it, otherwise it's a submixer across the room attached to my DJ setup (Pioneer DJM-600/analog)
BOSS BX-8: old techno trick, can be pushed until the transistors on input create a great fizzy crunchy effect on drums & busses, which I mix back in parallel on a bus on my Yamaha to add color to parts while keeping their transients intact

I also bought software to try to get color, and aside from plugins from Soundtoys/Voxengo/Melda/Waves/NI/Slate Digital which do other processing and have 'analog simulation', I also bought bus/summing emulations like Waves NLS, Slate Digital VCC, Sonimus Satson and Airwindows components (Mac only). I don't use them as much as I used to, but once I had the gain staging down for each to get the 'sweet spot', I am able to pull them out and use them to taste.

They're nice to 'gel' drums and level them on the peaks without overprocessing with limiter/comp (which makes them go puh puh puh imho), thicken and gel basses & midbass when combined, and make pads and backing parts sound less 'transparent'. NLS is a bit on the crunchy side so best used in parallel, VCC is rather 'dark' like my Mackie (but not as crunchy) and Satson really is one of the simplest to use and gives great effect on busses. Airwindows is the best though because it models individual component parts and you can use what you want and combine them in any order.

I don't tend to do this to entire mixes however, as I find things get over processed sounding when I do. I used to do this with Scope, native and my analog boards and mix parts on my board and then in the daw, and then do final bus mixing in Scope because it's exceedingly transparent with great headroom (32bit INT), dithering and somehow much clearer than DAWs were in 2003. I still do this to some degree, but these days everything gets mixed in the DAW as a final step and my analog board is a means to easily track external gear while Scope has turned into a box which basically does one to two complex 'busses' of whatever I want to become a part of my mix. A synth stack or layered Scope plugins with my Virus or JD800....

Anyway, to be back on topic I'm sure UAD has great models in their own right, I just dislike the workflow of using DSP bound plugins in a DAW context as Logic & Ableton start to feel very 'laggy' to me. I guess having done PDC (plugin delay compensation) manually back 15-20 years ago, I can tell the latency that is hidden 'behind' the automatic compensation we now have today. Sluggish digital performance is a big personal hangup, even if it's just in the mixing phase.

[dante]

Yeah I have to do some manual PDC on mostly vocal tracks. It’s great you have all that outboard to color your mixes with.

I’d like a Fat Rack Valve one like

https://www.audiochocolate.com.au/all-p ... ing-mixer/

[valis]

Not even close to the same league as that or the Tree Audio stuff above. However I can clearly see a leveling of peaks (and a bit of a companding on troughs, somehow...) on drum tracks and basses where the peaks otherwise vary wildly in a purely digital signal path.

[Sounddesigner]

There are more than 2 'main' dsp's manufacturers and there are multiple unconventional solutions (when UA used the MPACT2 long ago that was unconventional solution). Texas-Instruments is a major player. Avid left Motorola and ported the Protools HDX platform to Texas-instruments dsp's. The HDX plugins run on TI dsp's and its Mixer runs on a FPGA Processor. There is also unconventional solutions like Waves Soundgrid REALtime co-processor wich uses a intel computer or Kurzweils solution wich is a custome made dsp for their Synth Workstation. UA has hinted at they were currently designing their own chip processor for the future when many of their users were complaining about the lack of power in mainstream dsp's. There is also multiple families of dsp's with many models in those families even with Analog Devices alone so it's just a little suspicious that UA ended up using the exact same chip as SCOPE, its the same family and same model. On its own using the same chip as SCOPE does'nt mean much but when i look at all the suspicious moves they made at a whole and it looks like they are copying SCOPE. It's the whole picture

No disagreement that there's more solutions on the market, and custom made DSPs is where this all started, until companies started absorbing these products just for the Intellectual Property (looking at YOU soundblaster/creative labs). TI, Xylinx, x86, MIPS and more can be put to many uses of course, and TI is actually used across so many industries it's rediculous. They did create the first silicon transistor after all. Heavily embedded in the Defense & Ecommerce world, it's a sure bet to find their components in a lot of our gear (especially as they make a lot of the interface components to bridge the analog & digital divide).

Still, Motorola and A.D. have been used widely enough in the audio industry to have SDK's that facilitate getting up & running pretty quickly. Which isn't to say that other solutions don't have an SDK, but if you check these they give the basics pretty much out of the box.

Fair point. I agree a easy to learn and use SDK is a important factor and i have no doubt that getting up and running quickly is a very serious consideration for many, heck UA keep their own products they sell to their users simple and easy to use (two knob compressors, 3 band EQs, simple and limited routing for Apollo, etc) and many Audio Engineers love that. Even after considering this, I admitt, I may just be a little cynical but i've seen too many bogus moves by UA over the years to have suspicion with every questionable step they take and like now call bogus operation when i see too many 'coincidences'. Especially when some of the coincidences are pretty blatant copying. But your point is good and valid regarding certain dsp SDKs, i may just be a little cynical .



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[valis]

Hey, use what you want.

I've stated my dislike for UAD was the latency it adds 'behind the scenes' and I can feel that when I hit spacebar and also when I move automation data and midi on the screen and have complex bussing going on, as it will be the next pass (when cycle playback is enabled) before I can hear changes OR they come in many seconds after the fact. Digital systems should be responsive, we don't like 150ms of latency when playing (music) and even 100ms of latency in a video game bugs me. It all adds up basically, and most users in this era haven't a clue that strapping 3 UAD plugins on the master bus/main output, 5 busses and then as inserts on their tracks is even the cause of how sluggish things seem to be. They just run out and buy a new macbook

Anyway, that's me and my preference. I also stated I think that the 'official vintage model' approach to marketing seems to work for them, and the 'exclusivity' of having it on their platform is somewhat akin to boutique audio in the modern digital toolset when a good many of the peers of this userbase is using 'free' (cracked) plugins in dodgy versions of Ableton Live (on expensive laptops with expensive headphones).

I see the same thing in the VJ realm now too, people who spend 50 grand on LED screens and yet still use a cracked copy of resolume, and route their video setup through 4 expensive--and redundant--processors. And then when I step up and pull out 3 of the 4 processors, show them that their 5mil 12 megapixel screens are really running at an effective resolution of 800x600 and kick it up to 2k input res with a latency that's now sub-50ms they're usually 1. shocked and 2. have no idea what I'm blathering on about. And more importantly 3. offended because PRICEY STUFF is what gets them the gigs and SHINY stuff is their marketing and performance. Nothing new there, and now I sound cynical too. Only I've repeated it in the audio AND video realms...and I do this professionally in the commercial/post production world too since 1995 (I'm a 3D animator, video post, compositor, AR/VR bla bla person in my daytime persona).

Oh yes, now I'm a college instructor as well.

[Sounddesigner]

...

[dante]

Yea, SCOPE still has its advantages, but the gap is closing overtime with UAD. Just my 2 cents ofcourse.

Well, Ive thought about this at length & Im wondering just what gaps are being closed. Yes the chip is similar - but not the same - XITE is ADSP21369 whereas the UAD is 21469 (slightly faster & more RAM). So thats a bit like discussing gaps between DAWS that run on similar chip - eg Logic vs Cubase closing gaps coz they both run on Intel. As for the Moog Clone well that's Native - so to me is more like just another VST. ie to match that, UA would have to get for example Dave Smith to code up a Sharc synth - which would parallel what John Bowen has done on Scope. EG you have the maker of real hardware bringing their design to DSP. And that ain't happening w/ Luna synths as far as I can tell.

Primarily what LUNA is - is a DAW with baked in DSP. Well, this has already been done i.e. w/- profools - and had been tried and failed on Scope w/- Parsec. So if someone else wants to have a go - well why not ? The only thing missing from those products so far is full circuit emulation of an entire (classic) desk - which UA are aiming for the Neve. At least at a summing level - but are they going to circuit model an entire desk with all its crosstalk/analog/non-linear characteristics ? Remains to be seen.

Thats also nothing new coz Harrison have already done it w/- MB32C and whether its an accurate 1:1 sonic representation or not I have no idea coz I've never owned a Harrison 32C console - so to me personally thats kind of a moot point. Whats important is to me it sounds way more like an analog 'record' than any other DAW mixer Ive used. And the fact you have a hardware designer themselves (Harrison) coming to make the software gives it the same kind of cred that Bowen brings to soft synths.

So if UA can work close enough with Neve to pull off a Neve sound or close to it (if thats the plan) - good luck to em. And yeah the name Luna is a bit dodgy - but that was from the now defunct Creamware era and its been used since by others anyway so slim/belated pickings there by UA.

So I'm not sure where gaps are being closed on Scope. In terms of my next investment it might be a toss up between an Apollo x16 and a full XITE-1 - for the purpose of running more Bowen synths at 96Khz (thats how he runs Solaris) - in the absence of a rack mount (stand alone) Solaris. Ideally i'd have both an Apollo x16 and a Solaris Rack (if that ever happens - if not a full XITE-1) - but in any case I consider them different gear for different usage. I don't think about what they do the same but what they do different.

[valis]

Luna as DAW, wish them luck.

Cubase, Studio1 & Logic have the bar set high in regards to a complex and complete composing/recording/midi/audio/everything in one box solution. Live & Bitwig have the bar set high as far as modern digital workflows go, and go well beyond what Cubase/Logic/Studio1 offer when it comes to that specific type of workflow (realtime arranging & performing while recording the results) plus the Bitwig UI automation/modulation possibilities and Max's Max4Live extensions are wholly unique.

Luna can do 1 latency setting (this surely makes their PDC calculations easier, so we can see why this is the case for v1) and host vsts and do recording & midi. Although I recognize that Tracktion & Sonar now have freemium offerings to upsell other software, surely UAD isn't raking in enough money to compete with Steinberg & Apple+eMagic levels of complexity, and so it's likely this DAW will be more like the former two examples than the latter for the foreseeable future.

However I wouldn't wish anyone in the market to fail just because they're trying something new. I just wonder what sales angle this has for anyone that is NOT using their DAW as a simple tape recorder.

The only thing missing from those products so far is full circuit emulation of an entire (classic) desk - which UA are aiming for the Neve. At least at a summing level - but are they going to circuit model an entire desk with all its crosstalk/analog/non-linear characteristics ? Remains to be seen.

Yes that remains to be seen indeed. Out of the ones I own (again, Satson, REDD+NLS, VCC & Airwindows) the only one that claims to recreate 'crosstalk' is VCC and it's pretty obvious that it doesn't actually do that, in that it doesn't react to what is present or absent on other 'busses' and 'channels' that you have instanced, rather it just adds a smearing effect and a bit of extra noise that can be disabled. Also, isn't it ironic how we initially moved to the digital realm to get AWAY from capstan head movement issues (wow/flutter), crosstalk and analog noisefloor problems, image smearing, phase issues with EQ's and filters in the analog realm and so on...only to now have those be the most sought after digital emulations? Since we are nearing the point where there's CPU cycles to spare for many, hey why not? However in my above treatise on using these things myself I have admitted that I find limiting their usage to add color & 'glue' sparingly seems to give me better results than slathering 'warmth' and 'goo' all over my entire DAW's working surface. Reach for the lotion boys, it's about to get heated for many people's solo studio action! And when the steam settles, hopefully we find we have gained something rather than lost...

[dante]

Agreed. To me its about the cumulative effect of **small** effect amounts here and there. p/ex if I have 4 mastering processors each one contributes only 1/4 of the gain than if I had only one etc etc....

Regards irony of going back to old ways, its also about re-capturing a lot of the evolution that was lost when digital came. eg the best of both worlds now (best of old + best of new = more than sum of the parts).

[Sounddesigner]

Well, Ive thought about this at length & Im wondering just what gaps are being closed.

What i mean by "the gap between SCOPE and UAD is closing", is that there were MANY things that SCOPE could do that UAD could not but as time passed UAD now does those things. For over a decade the old UAD-1 was just a high-latency dsp card that only allowed you to use the effects in the DAW and it only had a handfull of effects while SCOPE had several 100's of plugins and more different types of plugins. When UA launched UAD-2 they soon after took their platform well beyond the limitations of the high-latency and limited uad-1. They soon after launched Apollo wich closed the gap to a great extent with SCOPE in many ways. Apollo gave them ultra-low-latency processing, converters, routing, portability, Mic Pre's, I/O, Virtual Mixer, etc for the UAD-2 platform. All of these SCOPE already had as a advantage over UAD and now those many advantages are gone. UA entering the interface market was a significant step twards closing the gap with SCOPE for the many advantages i mentioned that a interface has over the plain co-processor high-latency cards wich slow down the performance of modern computers.


Most Native interfaces (RME, MOTU, etc) tend to have a dsp chip in them and dsp plugins and routing, one of the things that separated SCOPE and Metric Halo from Native interfaces is that they are'nt limited to a couple mediocre plugins like Native interfaces but you get many plugins that are high-quality and there are add-on expansion plugins from third-party and the dsp platform manufacturers. Dsp platform interfaces specialize in developing plugins and thus offer advantages over Native interfaces and thus UA entering this market was huge since there is little competition. And in some ways their interfaces are more versatile than Native interfaces and they are more popular than the very few other dsp platform interfaces. UA essentially has a area of the interface market sowed-up by themselves. A area that use to belong to SCOPE on Windows and Metric Halo on Mac. UA getting into REALtime interfaces helped them take many steps twards closing the gap with SCOPE.

Apart from Apollo there are MANY other ways the gap has been closing with SCOPE and UAD. Brainworx created a SDK for UAD for third-party developers as the old uad-1 had no third-party developers. They now have a SDK, third-party, side-chaining, etc like SCOPE thus the gap is closing. Third-party helped to greatly increase the number of plugins UAD had to many like SCOPE and helped give them more unique and sophisticated effects like SCOPE's Optimus Prime (UAD use to have no sophisticated multi-effectors like SCOPE unless you want to count that old crappy guitar amp on the uad-1). The old uad-1 platform was severely limited and laughable when compared to SCOPE but the new uad-2 is more comparable. As time passes there are many ways that the gap is closing with SCOPE, especially since UAD is rapidly developing and SCOPE's development is very slow right now. But SCOPE still has many advantages, the question is for how long?

Yes the chip is similar - but not the same - XITE is ADSP21369 whereas the UAD is 21469 (slightly faster & more RAM). So thats a bit like discussing gaps between DAWS that run on similar chip - eg Logic vs Cubase closing gaps coz they both run on Intel. As for the Moog Clone well that's Native - so to me is more like just another VST. ie to match that, UA would have to get for example Dave Smith to code up a Sharc synth - which would parallel what John Bowen has done on Scope. EG you have the maker of real hardware bringing their design to DSP. And that ain't happening w/ Luna synths as far as I can tell.

UAD uses both ADSP369 and ADSP469 on older quad cards and newer Octos respectively. Their uad-2 platform launched using solely the ADSP369 and they upgraded the chip as they expanded their platform with new technology. BUT what may counter my arguement to some degree is the possibility that the newer UAD-2 was released a few months before XITE-1 and prior to XITE SCOPE used a different SHARC , I don't remember exact dates. I just believe they chose AD SHARC chips in general after studying SCOPE and Metric Halo and i know that on its own my arguement of chip copying is weak and pathetic but when i look at all the other things they copied i suspect the SHARC is one as well. I admitt i am probably being cynical and a little crazy but i do believe it .

As for the new MOOG synth: I know it's Native-only but UA has still entered the virtual instruments world like SCOPE and still has expanded their platform with instruments, and i'm sure more are to come. I don't doubt they'll have some running on dsp's as well at some point.

So I'm not sure where gaps are being closed on Scope. In terms of my next investment it might be a toss up between an Apollo x16 and a full XITE-1 - for the purpose of running more Bowen synths at 96Khz (thats how he runs Solaris) - in the absence of a rack mount (stand alone) Solaris. Ideally i'd have both an Apollo x16 and a Solaris Rack (if that ever happens - if not a full XITE-1) - but in any case I consider them different gear for different usage. I don't think about what they do the same but what they do different.

You stated above that your next purchase might be a toss up between a Apollo and XITE-1; this sort of helps make my case in that UAD is now competition with SCOPE as you are deciding between the two. The only reason it now competes is cause it has closed the gap some (and even beats SCOPE on a few fronts) . If Apollo did not exist would you be more likely to buy another XITE-1?

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