Apologies in advance for the long post. In summary, Luna Pro (not basic Luna) does have a (really good) sound that I find speeds mixing, and you can emulate it in Studio One.
Earlier this year, I gave Luna a spin to see what it's about. When you first get Luna, UA provides a trial of Luna Pro, which includes two tape plugins (A800, ATR 102), an API channel strip, API 2500 bus compressor and an API summing plugin. In Luna, by default every channel has the A80 and channel strip, every bus has a summing plugin, and the main bus has the 102 and 2500. These are tightly integrated, as the paradigm is to model an analog studio.
What I found was that a mix came together for me much faster on Luna than on Studio One, with much less EQ and compression required. The box character of the plugins did a lot of the heavy lifting.
My demo of Luna Pro (which has the plugins) then expired. Without those plugins, Luna is like any other DAW (i.e. it nulls - I checked), except with way less features and some very small controls. But, my attempts at building something that worked using the (many) plugins I had came short - and I couldn't figure out why.
Luna Pro came on sale over Xmas, and I picked it up. After some experimentation, I was able to get the (almost) same sound out of Studio One. In summary, it came down to these factors:
Earlier this year, I gave Luna a spin to see what it's about. When you first get Luna, UA provides a trial of Luna Pro, which includes two tape plugins (A800, ATR 102), an API channel strip, API 2500 bus compressor and an API summing plugin. In Luna, by default every channel has the A80 and channel strip, every bus has a summing plugin, and the main bus has the 102 and 2500. These are tightly integrated, as the paradigm is to model an analog studio.
What I found was that a mix came together for me much faster on Luna than on Studio One, with much less EQ and compression required. The box character of the plugins did a lot of the heavy lifting.
My demo of Luna Pro (which has the plugins) then expired. Without those plugins, Luna is like any other DAW (i.e. it nulls - I checked), except with way less features and some very small controls. But, my attempts at building something that worked using the (many) plugins I had came short - and I couldn't figure out why.
Luna Pro came on sale over Xmas, and I picked it up. After some experimentation, I was able to get the (almost) same sound out of Studio One. In summary, it came down to these factors:
- Gain staging - UAD plugins definitely are built to emulate the hardware at a specific input level (CLA confirmed this in one of his videos). Luna Pro defaults the plugins to that level, and has input meters to encourage you to gain stage correctly. BTW, their reference level is -14 db.
- Channel consistency - Every channel has a tape machine and channel strip that do a good job of emulating the box sound and distortion characteristics of those devices. It seems that this consistency does "glue" things together well.
- The output tape emulation (ATR-102 Master Tape) with their Luna default. This one shocked me. It really tightens up the bottom end in a way that has eluded me to date and gives it a finished sound. Note that this is NOT the default you get if you instantiate the plugin in Studio One and take the default. In fact, they make it so you can't export the Luna default as a preset and import it into another instance. But I was able to play with the parameters to get close to a null in Luna, and now have a preset.
- Bus "summing" - Their summing emulates a line amp. Luna doesn't try to emulate the crosstalk that S1 does, nor does the plugin do any of the per channel variability that Plugin Alliance does. I think their summing is the least important factor. This is just as well, since you can't use their summing plugin in Studio One. I used the Lindell API bus plugin instead, but again, I don't think the choice here, or even using their summing at all matters much.
- The API 2500 bus compressor. Choose you preferred one.