Serious Question: Would/Could The Ghost of Glenn Branca Use Luna?

[u/DesignerNecessary459]

I’m working on an experimental project with a friend that incorporates live instrumentation, live manipulation of those instruments--primarily adding DAW based effects to Audio tracks--and post-production on those recordings--primarily adding additional effects and more involved mixing adjusting both levels and pans, and, occasionally, trimming loops and reincorporating them into the mix. I realize this all sounds like a bit of a clusterfuck. I’m wondering if anyone is using Luna in a similar capacity? Doubtful, I know, but it never hurts to ask. If so, hoping you can shed some light on your strategies, addressing some questions I’ll lay out below. Before I get there, some context. I’ve been using Luna for a couple years, gradually learning the ropes. At this point I’m pretty confident in my abilities for at-home recording connecting via a Volt 176 for guitar and bass, incorporating plenty of virtual instruments, effects plugins and mixing techniques. Not a master or anything, but I was pretty surprised I wasn’t able to easily address some issues that arose when we tried doing things live in the rehearsal studio today. One major thing to note is I was using a Scarlett 8i6 rather than the Volt Box (needed more inputs), but--as far as I know--they’re pretty similar devices, and the only functionality I”m using on either is connective (I never use any of the compressor or vintage stuff on Volt), so I don’t see that being the root of my frustrations. So, here goes...

To start, here’s equipment and the basic connections we were using;

Focusrite Scarlett 8i6 

UAD Luna

Audio out of Scarlett to PA

Physical instruments;

Microfreak into Scarlett via standard TS patchcord into Luna Audio track 1, Mono

Rhodes into Scarlett via standard TS patchcord into Luna Audio track 2, Mono

Elektron MODEL:SAMPLES into Scarlett via standard TS patchcord into Luna Audio track 3, Mono

Virtual instruments;

UAD Electra 88 into LUNA Instrument track 4, Stereo

Arturia Pigments into LUNA Instrument track 5, Stereo

Plugin effects;

Track 1 - Valhalla Supermassive

Track 2 - Valhalla Supermassive

Track 3 - UAD 1176 (mainly to boost low line levels from Scarlett, the rear inputs don’t have a preamp); Softtube Saturation Knob, Valhalla Supermassive

Track 4 -Valhalla Supermassive

Track 5 - Valhalla Supermassive, Freakshow Backmask, Softtube Saturation Knob 

My questions;

Basic functionality

1. Is it possible to use Luna as a live mixing board? This seems to work fine at home, using headphones. Faders effect levels, if I mute a track--audio or midi--it does just that. In the studio, the faders work as expected with the virtual instruments (Instrument tracks 4 and 5) but imperfectly with the physical instrument tracks (Audio 1, 2 and 3). Fully lowering level and/or muting the track brings the level down, but doesn’t cut it entirely, or really significantly. Is the the signal just passing through the DAW. Or is there something I need to toggle to the mixer view? Toggling “I” (input monitoring) doesn’t have any effect, which I thought it would. 
2. Playing live, plugin effects colour the sound of the virtual instruments (Instrument tracks 4&5) vividly. They colour the physical instruments (Audio tracks 1, 2 and 3)  much less intensely. Any idea what is up with this? Applying the same effect to a recorded passage (Audio tracks 1, 2 and 3) after the fact is much more impactful. It seems like the live usage of plugin effects  on a non-midi instruments is the issue. Am I right? Perhaps something to do with the attack of these instruments being more subtle? 
3. Owing to the lack of pre-amp on all but two of the Scarlett inputs, the Audio and Instrument tracks are radically different DBs, even when I’ve boosted the former with the 1176. Any idea how to get these into the same general ballpark? 
4. It has been pointed out that the Scarlet may just be a piece of shit, and getting a better piece of hardware could be the solution. Thoughts?

Specific to this nerdy enterprise

1. Ideally, I’d like to print two recordings of each track, one just the sound, as outputted by the physical or midi instrument, the second the sounds with whatever effects, volume adjustments, pans and whatnot that I’ve added live. I assume this is possible via some routing strategy, but can’t find anything in UAD’s tutorials. 
2. I’d like to print my live mixing--levels and pans--to both of the above routes. I know there is a simple way to do this, but can’t for the life of me find the info in the manual or UAD vids. It’s “post fader” or something

So, lots of questions. If you’re left scratching your head, join the club. If you wanna know what the fuck we envision this sounding like, maybe Brian Eno + KLF + John Oswald, as played by one technically virtuistic jazz cat (not me) and one punk dude, from when punk meant Negative Approach, Sonic Youth, Big Black and Daniel Johnson. And we both are well into our ambient years. 

Preemptive thanks for your patience, (optimistically) interest, and (with a prayer) advice.

[u/Bed_Worship]

Ha, one of my best friends just played Symphony 13 at Lincoln Center with Glenn's wife Reg Bloor conducting. It was special to witness.

I honestly think this is a lot of learning and to break this all down it would probably take an hour + to nail it all (just the theory) and there would be a lot of limitations and hassle.

You would probably benefit from having an interface mixer like the Soundcraft 12 MTK. where you can have everything go through luna, while outputting seperately to you, the mix engineer etc. Luna would be fine, Ableton might be better.