Lunacy's NOVA is a free host for instruments that live in the cloud

Lunacy launched NOVA on 17 September, described by the company as a growing library of instruments that live in the cloud and work between your DAW and a browser. Access is through a free plug-in called the NOVA Host. Lunacy’s pitch is no licence keys and no installs.

Removing installers and licence managers from sample instruments is a real irritation removed. Anyone who has rebuilt a machine and spent an evening reauthorising a sample library knows the size of that problem.

What the announcement does not say

The launch post is short, and the questions that decide whether this is useful are the ones it leaves alone.

It does not say whether the instruments work without a connection. For a library that lives in the cloud, that is not a detail, it is the whole thing: a plugin that needs the internet is a plugin that cannot be opened on a train, at a venue, or in any studio with the network locked down.

It does not say what happens to a finished session if Lunacy stops running the service. A sample library on your drive keeps working when a company folds. A hosted one is a different arrangement, and it is worth knowing which one you are agreeing to before a project depends on it.

It also gives no pricing structure in the announcement beyond the host being free and the library mixing free and paid instruments.

None of that makes it a bad product. It makes it an unanswered one, and those are the answers to get before you put it on a session you need to reopen in two years.

Producer’s note

Test the offline case before anything else. Load it, pull the network, and see what the plugin does. That single test tells you more than the announcement does, and it takes a minute.

If it does need a connection, treat it the way you would treat any instrument you cannot guarantee reopening: print the audio. A rendered stem outlives the company that made the instrument.