LUNA 3.0 puts stem separation in the free tier and caps it at four tracks

Universal Audio released LUNA 3.0 on 15 September for macOS and Windows, and split the DAW into two editions: LUNA Free and LUNA Studio at $199.

The headline additions are stem separation, audio-to-MIDI and a recording mode called LUNA Play. Where the line between the editions falls is the more useful thing to read.

The split runs through the middle of a feature, not around it

Stem separation is in both editions. LUNA Free separates a song into four tracks, LUNA Studio into as many as six.

That is a deliberate way to draw a paid boundary. Four stems is the familiar drums, bass, vocals and everything else. Six means the “everything else” gets broken up further, which is the part that is actually hard and the part you need when you are trying to isolate one instrument rather than mute one.

Lyric transcription and chord extraction, both powered by Moises, are Studio only. Audio-to-MIDI converts a track into MIDI for replacement or layering.

LUNA Play is in both. Universal Audio describes it as detecting the instrument being recorded, setting levels and suggesting UAD plug-in presets.

The free edition got the boring things too

Folder Tracks, a piano roll with scale-aware editing, an Adaptive Grid that follows zoom level, clip gain automation before the plug-ins, Strip Silence, click track automation, and recording mono sources onto stereo tracks.

None of that is exciting and all of it is the reason people bounce off a DAW in the first week.

Record FX is the one worth flagging. Universal Audio’s own wording is that it gives native users the same recording workflow previously exclusive to Apollo. A company whose DAW existed partly as a reason to own its interfaces has just handed a piece of that workflow to people who do not own one.

Price

LUNA Studio is $199. It is also included in UAD Spark Studio, which Universal Audio lists at $19.99 per month or $149.99 per year and which bundles the DAW with the company’s native plug-in library.

The catch is the usual one with this generation of features: separation and transcription are arriving everywhere, and a paid tier drawn at four stems against six is a line that moves.

Producer’s note

If you are converting something to MIDI, separate the stem first and convert that, rather than pointing audio-to-MIDI at a full mix. Transcription is far more reliable when only one instrument is present, and LUNA can now do both steps without leaving the session.