Universal Audio put 4-track stem separation in the free version of LUNA 3.0

Universal Audio shipped LUNA 3.0 on September 16, 2026, less than a year after LUNA 2.0, and the headline for anyone not paying for the DAW is stem separation. The free version now splits a stereo mix into 4 tracks, adds a piano roll with scale-aware editing, Strip Silence, folder routing, an adaptive grid and chord, key and time signature rulers. Paid LUNA Studio, a one-time $199, takes separation to 6 tracks and adds audio-to-MIDI, lyric transcription and chord extraction.

What LUNA 3.0 gives away and what stays behind the $199

The free tier’s new centrepiece is LUNA Play, which Universal Audio describes as a voice memo app designed for making music, with automatic level setting and UAD plugin presets already loaded. It is a capture tool, and capture is where most ideas die.

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Great songs start with an idea. And we’ve all been there, when you hear something in your head, hit record, and suddenly the inspiration’s gone or the tech gets in the way.

LUNA Studio is where the analysis features sit. Audio-to-MIDI turns a clip into MIDI so you can double a part with an instrument. Lyric transcription writes vocals into a time-aligned lyric browser. Chord extraction, powered by Moises, detects chords from audio and drops them onto LUNA’s Chord Track. The paid tier also bundles Celemony Tonalic Elements, Dreamtonics Synthesizer V 2 Core and Topline Vocal Tune.

Why free 4-track separation matters more than the feature list suggests

Stem separation used to be the reason producers opened a second app. My roundup of AI stem splitters exists because the good ones were standalone, subscription-priced, and sat outside the session. Putting a 4-track split inside a free DAW changes the default: you can pull a reference apart on the timeline where you are already working, without an export round trip.

Worth checking before you switch: Universal Audio has not published separation quality comparisons, and a 4-track split is coarser than the instrument-level separation some dedicated tools now offer. If your work depends on clean guitar or keys isolation, test it against what you already use before you retire anything. The full feature breakdown is on MusicTech, and Universal Audio has the release details on its LUNA product page.

Alongside the DAW update, Universal Audio launched UAD Spark Studio, a subscription that packages LUNA Studio with around 70 native UAD plugins from Neve, Ampex and Lexicon plus instruments including Minimoog, PolyMAX and Electra 88. For anyone who was already renting UAD plugins monthly, that is the tier to price out.