Vocal Mixing - From Demo to Hit with LUNA | Part 3 of 4

In this four-part video series, watch producer ‪@AlinaSmith‬ (Red Velvet, ITZY, Fall Out Boy) build modern vocal arrangements and add pro shine as she turns her scratch demo into an album-ready track with LUNA and UAD Spark.
Get LUNA for free: www.uaudio.com...
Learn more about UAD Spark: spark.uaudio.com/
See more from Alina here: / thealinasmith
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
→ Like Universal Audio on Facebook: / universalaudioinc
→ Follow @uaudio on Instagram - / uaudio
→ Find @uaudio on Twitter: / uaudio
→ Subscribe to UA’s KZbin Channel: / universalaudio
→ Learn more about Universal Audio - www.uaudio.com/
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
#UniversalAudio #LUNA #UADplugins

[@jm_universe]

Hi Alina!!! It's cool to see Alina here! Her and her team produced some great songs! She is really good at what she does! Love and Pain (by Lyre) is my fav! 😍

[@shooting.starzzz]

Love the way this is sounding!! Hope Alina or lyre releases the song!

[@bparkpark1764]

When they can outdo Studio one with features, then I’m sold.

[@havefun7203]

Awesome. I have learned. Let's add this, let's add that, and will add this, oh sound really good but I'll add also that. Can't wait for part 4 to reveal the secrets of adding even more of this, that. It's going to be an auditory feast!

[@NickHolum]

Love the sarcasm… it’s where I’m at with this obnoxious marketing series.

[@QueMusiQ]

0:46 Off the rip, this song go HARD. Feelin this. 👍🏾

[@southpau]

Please add a “bounce in place/audiosuite/etc” feature. Thats one of the biggest parts of editing! I can’t use Luna until that’s added

[@bparkpark1764]

Preach

[@roberteismann1929]

Stay with Pro Tools.

[@southpau]

@@roberteismann1929 exactly what I’m doing! 😎😎

[@AndyKingCo]

Facts! Thinking of going back to pro tools cause of this

[@mikeschmid]

I’m loving Luna but hugely missing this feature too

[@Russplight]

Luna is so refreshing to use. Being that Luna is still in the early stages, it helps with just making music without clutter. In 2024 ARA support should be standard in every DAW.

[@InspelaRecords]

I switched to Luna a few weeks ago, buying the Pro bundle and took out a Spark subscription at the same time. As a DAW user for over 25 years, I find it truly refreshing and inspiring and hope it goes on from strength to strength. I’m seriously considering buying an Apollo Solo to be able to buy the Neve Summing Extension for Luna too. The time-stretching is the best I’ve ever heard. A great DAW for electronic musicians and remixers like myself and it sounds stunning!

[@UniversalAudio]

😍

[@InspelaRecords]

What does d it for me was the Clip Gain and Pitch controls being right there on the top of each clip. No tool switching needed! So fast and intuitive. Plus the mixing and effects (especially if you have a Spark subscription) are so unique compared to what comes with other DAWs. Sure, there’s things Luna still needs, but knowing UA, they’ll be added in the future.

[@henrikpetersson3463]

I hope that Luna will be fully usable to me some day. It has a lot of good things going for it. But as it stands now it’s lacking far too much to drag me away from Studio One. Also, the copy protection is a dealbreaker. I do use it for mixing sometimes however.

[@jenslempke7501]

Same here. Luna really gets me extra creative through its clean, on hands GUI and "real studio feel". And the quality of the API summing, eq and compressor and the other plugins in Luna Pro blows me away. I only use tape saturation on the masterchannel though, not to oversaturate the mixes.

[@Pandaa.rawrrr]

Alina is such a badass, great series!

[@wadewilliams1892]

Sure, it's all abut ckean quality tracking from the beginning, but this is a big, big, well written and put together song. A super video - my favourite UAD vid at the moment - Super approach!!

[@bparkpark1764]

Very valid point!!

[@ayokikando]

This was awesome! Could we get multiple genres for more series? Hiphop, trap, rnb, edm?!

[@cekirdekci32]

okay. i love the tricks but I wanted to find out about vocal tracking chain. because it sounds like these vocals already have the crispiness, already has the saturation, already has the preamp dialed in, without knowing what the ingredient is in the recording chain( ingredient is the 50 percent of the job actually) I dont know if spark and luna would help to sound like this. but good vocal production video , i definitely learned things:)

[@ferienambalkon]

I wanted to ask the same question. The fact that dry vocal tracks which were recorded with only one microphone are stereo tracks makes me wonder what happened after the way in but before the tutorial starts?

[@AlinaSmith]

Hopping in to shed some light on it! So, actually for the lead, I’m running the SC-1 straight into my Apollo X8, no outboard pre or comp. My preamp (Neve 1073) was acting up that day so I just used the Apollo’s preamp. Everything else was done in post! The bgvs were cut on the Sphere, and I did go through the 1073 mostly used for its preamp and without many EQ settings added - I think I added a bit of the high shelf for that bgv crispness but that’s it.

[@ferienambalkon]

@@AlinaSmith Wow, that's impressive! Thank you so much for sharing!

[@RaducuGabriel-dl1hj]

I'm so excited to see girls/women tweaking reverb, eq, and compressor settings. :D

[@IntheDAW]

Gotta be honest this was a fun series to watch.

[@officialWWM]

It certainly sounds great!

[@Ant3739]

That's all good, but as I'm trying to get to grips with Luna, I would have liked more explanation of how to do things, rather than seeing for example the Luna mixer looking great for your song and wondering how you got there. For example, after recording your main vocals or BVs, where and how did you edit them, because I don 't seem to see many audio editing functions? You were seen mixing the vocals, but what about editing? This was more about you going through the motions as you were producing and mixing your song (great song, btw) and - incidentally - using Luna, rather than offering useful how-to tips on how to use Luna. Super marks for the song and how you produced it, though.

[@mike42441]

Sounds awesome! When will the album drop?

[@LegendSummingMusic]

Just a curious question but why you have the 2500 api compressor in the beginning of the chain of the send for both reverb and delay and the de esser to control sibilance n those plosives ?? On the bus compressor I’m pretty sure your side chain cause I hear the duck but I just want to know the thought process 😂😂😊

[@jonneves01]

Very cool production Alina Smith, well done!

[@claudiobackoficial]

+ Videos Luna ❤ please Modo ARA ❣

[@mrvron]

hopefully we will have access to the template

[@KtraaOfficial]

We need LUNA on windows asap 🙏

[@UniversalAudio]

We’d love to do LUNA for Windows at some point in the future, but there’s nothing to announce at this time.

[@onejreaper2420]

Yeah that was a cool song.

[@jdigital1]

Sound's Amazing!

[@skirmantasstankevicius458]

I am amazed with the production. True professional at work! Wow. Nice work, Alina!

[@jkmusikpro]

Y porque no tiene un navegador de archivos? porqueeeeé?

[@onejreaper2420]

Try running it through a mixing desk for cleaner power.

[@unknownid998]

question, how much dsp was used in this project, i feel like my apollo twin duo + quad satellite wouldn’t handle it

[@Jouwick]

It's hard to see the vocals in stereo.

[@NickHolum]

Sphere is a stereo mic

[@future_Victoryofficial]

Why we can't use Luna without UAD interface

[@UniversalAudio]

You can!!! You've been able to do this since version 1.4. And now, we're giving LUNA away to all Mac users.

[@future_Victoryofficial]

@@UniversalAudio very good I’m on Mac and UAD-2 octo for mixing and mastering. Next year I will get Apollo interface.

[@Rgdonaire_07]

Nice series, but what’s Luna Pro? That’s new to me. Didn’t know there was a Pro version.

[@InspelaRecords]

UA recently decoupled Luna from their interfaces and now the standard version of Luna is free but there’s a version bundled with more UA plugins called Luna Pro. It’s on offer at the moment for $199 and will go up to $399 shortly. Unfortunately the Neve summing extension in Luna still requires you to own an Apollo or Satellite interface, which’s odd now the DAW can be used with any manufacturer’s interface.

[@UniversalAudio]

LUNA Pro is a bundle of plugins and Extensions that you can buy to get going fast and for a great price! There is only one version of LUNA.

[@roberteismann1929]

It is very odd, especially as the Neve summing clearly works in the demo version in Luna without Apollo. I have emailed UAD about that but have not heard back. It makes no sense but they probably want you to buy an Apollo. The whole exercise strikes me as a massive realisation from UAD that a lot of people are plugin junkies and releasing Luna for free and not tied to an interface must have made them millions in plugin sales alone in the last few weeks.@@InspelaRecords

[@InspelaRecords]

@roberteismann1929 I messaged UA on X about the Neve Summing and they said: “That is correct. You do need to own a UAD device to purchase. It's a quirk of its licensing.” I too found it odd that it can run natively as a demo but needs an Apollo or Satellite to be purchased, especially as Luna can run unshackled now, but if that’s how it is, that’s how it is I guess!

[@cekirdekci32]

WOWW, absolutely amazing.thank youuu

[@stamecec2003]

dope stuff baby

[@REMRODFILMS]

Are you recording vocals in stereo?

[@henrikpetersson3463]

Most likely bounced to stereo on the main vox. But the sphere mic records onto two channels because of its polar pattern flexibility.

[@iliravdyli4109]

She recordet in ableton live then bounced it and importi it into luna

[@NickHolum]

Sphere is a stereo mic.

[@roberteismann1929]

Sounds all great and of course great skills from Alina but it would not really sound any different if that would have been done by her in any other Daw. It's her skill and has nothing to do with the Daw. Her main Daw is probably Pro Tools anyway.

[@restlessmosaic]

It's Ableton, with Studio One for vocal production because Ableton's lacking features in that area.

[@VibeMusicRo]

Luna on Win în 2024?

[@henrikpetersson3463]

Original comments in 2024?

[@FernandoDCDuarte]

Yes, Luna wins in 2024.

[@SeriousTipStudio]

I can't understand what her vocals are saying. I understand the word (this), but that's about it.

[@techniciendushowbiz]

Sans parler de la voix de Madame qui est surement excellente, pourquoi rajouter et rajouter ? C'est une course sans fin... et au final, on dirait un synthétiseur qui chante, désolé. Sans parler de faire un concert en direct... Vraiment dommage de ne pas mettre en valeur la jolie voix de la dame.

[@iliravdyli4109]

seeing vocal tracks in stereo means she recorded the vocals in Ableton live.

[@_Alex_Sander]

Logic also exports as stereo (if you use the key command at least which is common ig)

[@NickHolum]

Sphere is a stereo mic

[@planetmayhem5557]

What's with the lip gloss?

[@henrikpetersson3463]

What’s with the stupid comments?

[@adamadam33892]

what about it? Alina is mother asf

[@NickHolum]

This series has gone from intriguing production to obnoxious marketing ploy and Disney era Star Wars level pandering.

[@Jamielove73]

Watches a marketing video on a brand’s channel. Ignores all the helpful content from a hit producer, included with the marketing. Is mad the video sells them things 😂😂😂

[@NickHolum]

@@Jamielove73 there’s nothing helpful here It’s also not supposed to be a UA plug-in marketing video. It’s supposed to be developing a demo to a hit using Luna… not a demo on how to randomly pick thru every plug in the UAD catalog and mix with presets. Zero techniques using Luna. Zero insight into creation, arrangement, writing… things that actually make a hit a hit… as opposed to using every compressor in the catalogue and cycling thru some presets in solo. If you’re getting anything helpful out of this, you’re definitely not working on anything that sells.

[@Jamielove73]

@@NickHolum lol the subtle aggression of “not working on anything that sells”. I’m a student making music for fun, I have no intention of selling it. But it sounds like you do and you’re falling short. But keep killing it, king.

[@NickHolum]

@@Jamielove73 nothing subtle about it. You wrote a dumb comment and I just got paid, again.

[@Pandaa.rawrrr]

@@NickHolumok, enjoy your $3 salary and picking on women, I’m sure it will take you far in life