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Universal Audio Luna

Luna supports ARA from version 2.0, and the Acoustica 8 ARA plug-in is installed in the VST3 format that Luna requires. ARA plug-ins are not inserted in a channel strip in Luna as they are in most other hosts — they are assigned as the Warp type of a track or a clip, in place of Luna's own warp algorithms.

Step-by-step guide

For this guide, we assume that you have set up a Luna session with an audio file present on an audio track. If you are unsure how to do so, please refer to the Luna manual and user guides.

  1. Make sure Acoustica 8 ARA has been scanned and enabled in Luna's plug-in manager.

  2. Assign Acoustica as the ARA plug-in, in either of two ways:

    Option 1: In Timeline view, click the Warp control on the track you want to edit, choose ARA from the list of warp algorithms and select Acoustica 8 ARA.

    Option 2: Double click the clip you want to edit, then choose ARA from the Warp Type menu and select Acoustica 8 ARA.

  3. Acoustica 8 opens in the ARA panel at the bottom of the Timeline. You can now make your edits and use all of Acoustica's processes and tools. Your changes are synchronised with the Luna session automatically.

  4. Click the name of the plug-in at the bottom of the Timeline to show or hide the ARA panel. The panel stays open as you switch between tracks and updates to show whichever track Acoustica is assigned to.

Committing existing warps and pitch changes first

A clip or a track in Luna can have either a warp algorithm or an ARA plug-in, not both. If the clip you are about to edit already has warp edits or Clip Pitch changes, Luna asks you to commit or revert them when you assign the ARA plug-in:

  • Commit bounces the existing warp or pitch edits into the audio, so that Acoustica works on the result.

  • Revert discards them and hands the original audio to Acoustica.

Decide which you want before assigning the plug-in — committing is not undone by removing the ARA assignment afterwards.

Limitations in Luna

The following restrictions come from Luna's implementation of ARA rather than from Acoustica:

  • ARA cannot be combined with Luna's own time compression and expansion warping. You cannot use Polyphonic, Monophonic or Varispeed warping, LUNA Poly or LUNA Razor Blade on a clip or track that has an ARA plug-in assigned.

  • Clip Pitch and ARA cannot coexist.

  • Only one ARA plug-in can be assigned to a track at a time, so Acoustica cannot be used alongside another ARA plug-in such as Melodyne on the same track.

If you need both, commit the first plug-in's work before assigning the second.

Rendering your changes

As with any ARA host, we recommend rendering your changes once you are happy with them, so that the session no longer depends on Acoustica being installed. In Luna this is done by bouncing or freezing the track — see the Luna documentation on bouncing and freezing tracks.

Removing Acoustica from a track

Since ARA occupies the warp assignment, you remove Acoustica by choosing a different entry from the Warp control or the Warp Type menu.

If ARA is not available

If you are running a version of Luna older than 2.0, use one of the approaches described in Acoustica and your DAW instead: set Acoustica as the external editor, or edit the file in the standalone version of Acoustica and re-import it. Both write to the file rather than to the session, so Undo in Luna will not revert changes made in Acoustica.