UAD Luna vs Cubase?

very interesting Paul! i like hearing about other peoples’ workflows. I just got my UAD stuff in Dec, so this is useful.

one workflow/productivty improvement thing i’m trying to do: dont futz too much with fx and mixing whilst in the tracking phase of a song. i dont always follow my own rule about it tho and then kick myself for spending hours on what should be just a rough mix. so I dont end up using Console FX a lot, the exception being vocals through Unison. i briefly tried using Unison guitar amps and FX, but the Kemper is soooo good, the Unison amps etc didnt add any value to me and was more awkward to use.

I had been interested in a Kemper purely on the basis that I can’t have infinite amp heads here xD

But I eventually found a way to maximise what I had, and I’m happy with what I get out

I use UAD Buxom Betty. But I feed it with my own amp DI and use only the Buxom Betty Speaker Cabinet IR’s with the pre and power sections of the plugs turned off (any of the plugs that offer speaker IR are as good). A small bit of a room reverb completes the illusion. Ocean Way is really nice for this. I put this on an FX track in Cubase so I don’t commit but can keep the exact tracking reverb in the project.

Worth a try if you have a guitar head with a DI out. Make sure you turn your amp heads own speaker simulation off if you’re going to use an IR in UNISON like this.

The benefits of doing it this way is you get to put front end pedals into the front end of an actual amp and not an interface (or use a plug)

I route back out to my mod effects, reverb and delay from Cubase in Stereo and connect with MIDI. I have these effects added as External FX in Cubase and built Device Panels for them. Again, I can monitor live and not commit, and the effects settings I’m using in the project can be saved actually in the project with SysEx.

A lot better than bending over if your pedals are on a pedal train :smiley:

I cannot do this in LUNA at the moment, it’s worth pointing out. I doubt we’ll see something like Device Panels at any stage, but Hardware Inserts are on the way.

I do hope UA gives Luna to PC users so I can stop worrying – that NEVE Summing plus other summing engines looks as promising as Unison which I love.

I got the NEVE bundle and it is my favorite especially the 1073 or 88RS for Unison which I ALWAYS use and that obviously commits – It’s just the best I have. The total Neve bundle was very worth it. Also commit the 1073 or 88RS for non-Unison channels, I can’t just load up all the 1073s not enough CPU with 2 quad core Apollos.

So I do commit all those while monitor disabled in Cubase monitoring record with console, but I don’t record any effects – there is not much core power left – then I do that in Cubase while mixing splitting CPU use between Cubase PC CPU and in UAD inside Cubase using the 8 UAD shark cores from inside Cubase, plus having already committed all the recorded tracks with makes the most of my limited systems power.

So I could see using Luna to record then mixing the stems in Cubase doing the same thing recording maxing out the cores in Luna and then mixing in Cubase using the PC CPU and the Apollo Cores from Cubase.

my Recording Console setup - you can see my channels are pretty stacked with strips and my core is just bout gone


You’re definitely getting your money’s worth of those 1073’s :smiley:

But that’s absolutely the idea, to get the Neve thing going at every opportunity.

Even 1073 legacy on every bus/aux does a “thing” and it all builds up :slight_smile:

I modeled my Marshall and Vox and put 'em on Rig Exchange, and they are surprisingly good - I thought it would take a lot more experimentation to get it right. The key (for what I thought sounded best) was to use two mics, an SM57 and a U87 clone, both into Apollo Unison pres’s with 1073, about 2" left & right of the cone, so 8"-ish apart. I have a bunch of other paid Rig packages, and they’re fun and useful, but for now, the models of my own two amps is all I’m using (Strat with Vox, Les Paul with Marshall) on the album I’m tracking now. I always use my own synth patches, too; there’s just that extra little bit of satisfaction of total DIY. Same with guitar mods, (David Allen pickups all around), yada yada. Hell, I even built several of my own mics from Matt at microphone-parts.com, so I’m a little nuts that way.

When I first got the Kemper, I wanted to record 3 tracks - the stereo with FX and the dry DI. But a) at least until Cubase supports a 3-channel track format suited to this (I’ve tried the surround types and it’s no good for this), it’s just too much of a pain to edit the zillion cycled takes it takes me to get the part right :slight_smile: and b) since getting the Apollo and using Unison, where you are committed, I take that same approach with guitar & bass tracks via Kemper. If I really don’t like a part later, it probably won’t sound right just reamping it anyway - we got disabused of that notion with MIDI, yes? You usually can’t just take a MIDI track recorded with one synth/kbd (hardware or software) and have it sound right on another. Even the same kbd, different patch usually doesn’t transfer well. So, if I don’t like how a guitar/bass part sounds and I can’t easily fix it, I play it again with the amp, guitar, FX, whatever - and hopefully play it better :slight_smile:

I do still have my pedalboard and I still often run through it, in front of the Kemper, and that works surprisingly well. I like my vintage TS808 tube screamer better than the Kemper’s, Fulltone OCD, and specialty compressors like the JangleBox. But often the Kemper compressor and screamer suffice. One Kemper feature request I made (don’t hold your breath) was for it to take some standard flavor of plugins, e.g., VST3. To that end, one thing I have not yet tried is using the Apollo Unison tube-screamer, RAT, etc. in front of the Kemper, (hmm, I might have to try that today…), mostly just because I already have my bases covered, and then some.

I don’t play out, so my tube amps mostly just sit there and look pretty, but occasionally - when the wife isn’t home - I fire 'em up and blast 'em to 11.

Finally on the Kemper - anybody tried or gonna try the new Kone / Kabinet? I have a single-12" custom cab I could try it in, and pull out the greenback, but since I don’t play out, and I don’t have mic speaker cabs to record, that’d be more of a toy than anything. But it looks very interesting.

What a great time to make music, eh?

Huh? That’s how I always record guitar in Cubase. A 3 channel input with 2 channels wet and 1 DI. That puts all 3 channels into a single audio event. That way if I do any comping or editing, my dry gets edited the same, thus making it easy to reamp later if I want.

YEP! its simple but its GOOD :stuck_out_tongue:

Those Kempers are interesting wouldn’t mind having one. How do those MICs stack up to nice factory mics?

I’m using a POD HD pro in a 4-wire stereo patch feeding a Marshall VintageModern2466 full stack right and a Crate V32 combo left just love that combo the 2466 is probably fairly well respected but that little V32 is one hot little Class A screamer, very underrated IMHO. I user 12 mikes on the cabs, turn most of them way down, and then automate transitions in the mix. I have used petals, but with these tube amps I just don’t need em the POD is easier and just as good - the custom tubed amps make up any difference. Like you tweak with your Kemper I tweaked with custom tubes and bias settings. I need a good vocalist because I’m just not very good, never stopped Joe Coc-=ker just made it work for him - eh?
(the forum auto edited poor old Joe’s name)

GlenO - what 3-channel Cubase audio track are you using? I tried using LRC, tried using two tracks - one stereo, one mono. PITA. If I do decide I need the dry DI along with the amped signal, I can record a stereo track with L being the DI and R being amped (but not the post-amp/cab FX), which can then be fed back to the Kemper to re-amp. For now tho, I just decided it was unnecessary and needlessly slowed things down. IMHO this is the coolest thing about LUNA: how it makes your workflow much more about fixing it on the way in and moving on, rather than leave a zillion things to tweak later. But I don’t need LUNA to do that; just having the Apollo Unison pre’s helped me make that mind-shift to how I use Cubase.

nettydrown, IMHO the micparts products are fantastic. These aren’t Radio Shack DIY; this is serious, top-notch design and components, including capsules, mod kits, whole mic kits, etc. They’re not inexpensive - the T47 kit was $600, where the Roswell pro Audio Mini K47 is under $400 - both companies started and run by mic guru Matt McGlynn. Naturally I asked Matt, why would I pay $600 for a '47 kit when you sell a finished '47 for $400? Simple, he says. The K47 is a $1000 mic that costs $400; the T47 is a $6000 mic that costs $600. (a new U47 on Sweetware is actually $9000, never mind a vintage one).

I’ve built several of Matt’s kits: the T47 (which I’m floored by) and two mod kits for my 1st gen Studio Concepts C1, making them much more like a U87 than the hyper-crispy Chinese circuit; it’s a complete replacement for the circuit board, with the proper de-emphasis filtering. I do not claim a lot of experience with a Neumann U87, but I can say that these C1-cum-U87s are now really sweet on piano and VOX. But I usually don’t have to impress clients unless I’m looking in the mirror, so I don’t give a flying fig about what the case says on the side. YMMV.

So don’t take my word for it; do some searching and see what “experts” say. Or just build one, if you have the skill. They’re not that difficult; you just need to have some soldering skills and associated equipment (which in my case also includes dentist loupes to see, several “helping hands” devices, etc., in addition to the soldering pen (NOT gun!!), and, ahem, desoldering tools) If you aren’t so inclined, the Roswell Pro Audio mics get tons of love out there and are really inexpensive. Or, Matt offers built mics on microphone-parts.com, too.

Non-disclaimer: I have no affiliation with Matt or his company except as a very satisfied customer, no matter what nice things I say about them.

Just been reading about Luna looks Ok but not a replacement for Cubase.

I was comparing the features on the Apollo X thunderbolts interface to the AXR4T but to find out if the interface does what I want I got side tracked into the functions of the supporting software. Never having used any UAD hardware / software before I wonder if any on this post could clear up a couple of points for me.

1: I use Loopback to feed internet audio backings to mix with incoming mic. The Apollo via the console software seems to have virtual channels to aid mixing and routing in this sort of circumstance based on a You tube video tutorial, but saw some comments that Apollos virtual channels no longer show up in the audio inputs on Cubase. Not sure if this was a Catalina related issue. Any comments appreciated from seasoned UAD users.

2:Does the UAD console App still work OK with Cubase 10.5? Any observations appreciated. Software changes are happening at such a pace these days and many posts / comments never have dates attached allowing you to work out what the current position is.

Thanks in advance for any observations / feedback.

Cheers
David

Compared to Cubase, Luna is nothing but a better tape machine in digital format.
Not even a close match for an allround DAW like Cubase, really.

UAD apollo MkII user here. Finally got it working reliably with one of my UR 824s for 10 inputs and being able to use UAD plugins. Not interested in LUNA so far Because it looks like spending money just to approach what I’ve already got with Cubase. However, I also use the UAD OX and I think that is a great example of how brilliant UAD can be.

Steve

UAD heavy here too, no UA interface and on windoze, but it strikes me that Luna is a fantastic tracking environment but, currently, not too hot for ‘advanced’ mixing.
It’s not like people have never used one studio to track in and another for mixing now is it :wink:
Track in Luna, mix in Cubase… sounds like a pretty nice combination to me!

From a personal perspective i quite like a distinction between the two processes, for my own workflow of course, so i don’t get tempted to try and start mixing when there’s material that still needs tracking YMMV of course :smiley:

I use a Kemper and absolutely love it and feel it is the best solution out there for guitarist who want to bypass amps or record without a fuss and who don’t like the UAD emulations. However, be warned there are issues. Firstly more profiles are not very good, or perhaps should I say not to my taste. That is the thing, most people like sounds I can’t stand. Most profiles take little account of mic placement, or at least there is no info on this. Many profiles are too bright and fizzy. That said, once you find some profiles you like you can get some amazingly satisfying sounds. I decided to get a Kemper rather than an Apollo, partly because I mostly record guitars and I have been very happy with my RME Fireface.

I see the whole Luna thing as another cash cow for UAD. Spend a lot of money on hardware, get Luna for free and then discover that all the things you want cost a lot of money. Yes, I am sure the new piano sounds great, but I’ll bet you will hardly notice the difference between that and Pianoteq in a mix. Also, yes there are plugins out there that are as good, if not better than UAD.

I got a Kemper about a year and a half ago and ultimately sold all of my amps I’d collected over the decades. That said, there are a couple of key points I learned regarding profiles.

I’m a classic rock guy. There are over 10,000 free profiles on Rig Exchange, and yet most of the ones that were highly rated sounded terrible to me. Eventually I realized that because a profile is a snapshot of a single tone that someone dialed in, a Marshall profile may not be the Marshall I’m expecting. Someone who plays New Age Post Apocalyptic Lunar Metal is going to dial that Marshall in completely different than a guy playing a Bad Company song - even though it’s the same Marshall.

Once you realize this and look at profiles as a single amp setting rather than an amp emulation where you get a Marshall and dial it in however you like, it all comes together. After you find people who are into the same style of music as you, getting great results is much easier. For my taste, the M. Britt profiles were spot on, as well as some clean stuff from Tone Junkies. For metal guys, these wouldn’t be the best fit so they’d go with someone else who’s into metal.

I would imagine the UA amp sims are pretty good as they do nice work, but one of the things I enjoy about Kemper profiles is that it’s a complete tone ready to go rather than an amp simulation. With UA or VST amp sims, Line 6, Fractal Axe Fx, etc. you can get great tones, but you have to dial them in yourself. I kinda suck at dialing in tones, so I enjoy using profiles created by people with similar taste who are better at the tone thing than I am. Pick profile, grab guitar, rock and roll.

As for Luna proper I’m a Windows guy so for the moment it’s irrelevant. That said, it’s just another DAW and as others have pointed out it will need many years before it’s as feature complete as Cubase (or most other DAWs on the market today).

You might be interested to learn ChrisDuncan, that all the profiles I use have been adjusted a fair amount to suit me. I have been using the new Rig Manager 3 for quite a while and find that it is much more intuitive to use. I am more of a fusion player and don’t really use out and out distortion and overdrive as I like to be able to tell what guitar I am playing. You could tell from my very old Soundcloud stuff. - which must be a few years old, but done with the Kemper. The thing is you need to know what you want to get the best out of the Kemper. Yes you can have a happy accident, but that does not happen very often. I actually feel the same way about Luna. It might be ok if it fits in with what you want, but if you are used to th sophistication of Cubase then maybe Luna is not for you. Actually they can’t be bothered with windows and that suits me fine.

I owned Logic back in the day. Then Apple bought them and couldn’t be bothered with Windows. That’s actually how I ended up on Cubase.

I tried Luna, didn’t think much of it, uninstalled it. Then Cubase didn’t work, so re-installed that. Now Halion 6 doesn’t work, and would not re-install, and when I loaded up Wavelab, it told me a few UAD plugins were not responding. I’m sure most people won’t have these issues, but tread carefully if you do want to check it out. i.e. Backup your system first.