No more excuses: 2024 is gonna be the year that you will start to make music. Cutting down on the start-up cost and inviting you to jump right in, Universal Audio has announced that LUNA, the company’s DAW (digital audio workstation) is now a free download for macOS.
Originally requiring UA’s Apollo audio interfaces, LUNA is a fully featured DAW. Universal Audio’s tagline is “Sound like your favorite records” and LUNA, they claim, is “the only recording software with the sound of classic studio equipment like analog console summing and tape machine emulations, built right in.”
That Oxide Tape Extension is one of the chief selling factors (in so far as there is a need to “sell” a free product). This may interest established producers, but new creators will find LUNA at least as easy and certainly not more complicated than most other DAWs out there.
Other free DAWs include Cakewalk, GarageBand and some variety of free trials and somewhat simplified or disabled versions of Serato, Ableton Live, Pro Tools and Reaper. There is a “pro” version of LUNA, but the free version is fully-featured, nothing is limited and from our experimentation it has everything a producer requires to mix professionally. The “pro” version contains several more plugins, which you can use during a free 30 day trial when you download the free version. So Universal Audio is hoping you’ll like LUNA enough to pony up for a paid version. But it’s not required.
LUNA’s workflow is smooth and makes for a good introduction to producing music. While it’s not a direct clone of any of the better-known DAWs, the skills you build and knowledge you acquire here are directly transferable to other DAWs you might use later. The only thing you have to lose, comrade, is a little harddrive space on your MacBook Pro.
LUNA is a free download at uaudio.com; Luna Pro Bundle is $199 (regularly $399) and included as a free 30 day trial.
