Why LUNA and Why this Page

Why LUNA

This thought process for this page started when a few friends interested in recording some of their music at home or creating a podcast asked what the best DAW to use and how to get started. These are, in fact, possibly two separate questions. The best DAW to get started with may not be the best DAW for your intended purpose (unless you have a lot of time and money to outlay from the start). My intention is not to get into a heated debate about DAWs, but my answer is generally if you want to work in a studio, learn ProTools; if you want to make beats, use FL Studio or Ableton Live.

If you just want to get started without a large outlay, I suggest LUNA. Why - because I think it's great in itself (it is actually my preferred DAW for much of my work), and it is also free. Free, you ask, what's the catch? Well, when first released, it would run only when connected to Univeral Audio hardware, then it only ran on Macs and only supported AU plugins. To me, this indicates its place in the world. It's free because it's not UA's primary source of income. UA makes money through its hardware and plugins, so I basically see LUNA as a promotional tool; that doesn't mean it isn't any good; in fact, I think the opposite. You don't sell quality plugins by promoting them through bad free software. If I have a criticism, it is that it is still fairly new (compared to other DAWs), so it may not have all the features of some better-established DAWs like Protools. So, if you are working in a studio or with a team, it may not have everything you need, but it will be more than adequate for someone working at home, even for a large project.

As mentioned, LUNA now runs independently on Windows and Mac and recently introduced VST3 support, which means it is flexible and usable across platforms.

Why these Plug-ins

There is still one issue: any daw offers inbuilt functionality for recording and editing, but you will need plugins when it comes to mixing. Plugins offer functionality such as EQ, compression, delay and saturation. As far as I know, no DAW offers this functionality directly as part of the base program. They do it by including plugins to varying degrees (with varying levels of quality and usability) with the DAW to give this functionality. Some are written by the same people who write the DAW (such as Ableton), so they look integrated but look closely and are still implemented as plugins. Some offer 3rd party plugins bundled in the base price, such as ProTools.

LUNA does offer a range of plugins, but you HAVE TO PAY for them (they initially have a 14-day trial); no long-term free plugins come with installation. That seems to be a catch, and it sort of is. If you want to, you can purchase the LUNA Pro Bundle for $399 which offers a range of professional plugins.

So what can you do? Luckily, there is a solution. There are some very good third-party plugins that are absolutely free. So download and install LUNA, then download and install the third-party plugins suggested in the installation steps above. This is a great way to start. I don't think these plugins are sub-par; they are good plugins, and you should be able to do some very competent mixes with them.

Why plugins from Tokyo Dawn Labs and Melda Production? Well, I think they are great plugins in themselves, but both these companies offer a range of plugins, not just one or two. If you search the internet for the best plugin of a particular type that is also free, you may find some better ones but will end up with a whole hog-podge of vendors, and what will be particularly irksome is a whole range of licensing regimes. Tokyo Dawn has no licensing; you just download and install them. For Melda Productions, you must register and download their installer to install the plugins, but they offer 38 free plugins, many very useful ones, so I think it's worthwhile.

Another reason I have chosen these two particular sets of plugins is they represent the two general approaches to plugins and their design that are common in the industry. One is to look like and act like or even deliberately emulate existing analog hardware, and the other is to embrace the world of digital and take full advantage of that. Tokyo Dawn, although not directly emulating existing hardware (see UA's plugins for some of the best of those), you can see from the design they tend to have dials and buttons that look like or emulate real-world hardware and, very importantly, may "colour" or affect the signal in some way such as real tubes or electronics might. For example, the two compressors, TDR Molot GE and TDR Kotelnikov GE.

Melda Production, on the other hand, produces what are clearly digital-style plugins. The interface is much more computer-style, exposing more options and having more moving graphics. This can be confusing at first, but it lets you see what's happening on the inside so can be a great learning tool.