| An Overview
of HUI.
When Pro Tools 4.0 was still in alpha form, Digidesign
and Mackie formed a joint project to combine Pro Tools' enhanced capabilities
with Mackie's mixing console expertise. The HUI!™ (Human User Interface)
is the result.
Digidesign's 4.1 release of Pro Tools represents
a quantum leap forward in workstation software. Among its
many new features is the ability to bidirectionally interface
with many more types of external hardware... such as HUI.
This complete hardware workstation console
has the user-friendly features and ergonomics that Mackie
is renowned for… including instantly touch-updatable
100mm motorized faders, transport controls, DAE™ Plug-Ins
control, keyboard shortcuts, window buttons - even built-in
mic preamps! What used to take multiple mouse moves and clicks
can now be done at the push of a single button. Instead of
individually adjusting "faders" on screen, Pro Tools 4.1 users
can now enjoy hands-on tracking and mixing with touch-updatable
motorized faders. 
With full automation control and recall
capabilities, HUI™ is anything but a conventional fader
pack. For serious professionals who work day in and day out
with Pro Tools, HUI can significantly boost productivity through
direct hands-on control.
The Human User Interface is organized into
seven parts:
- In the upper-left corner is an assign section where internal
mix bus and physical hardware I/O assignments are made.
- The
main part of HUI is composed of eight assignable channel
strips with big-console-grade, 100mm motorized faders and
Mackie's innovative new V-Pot™ rotary controls.
- In
the upper-right corner of the interface is a vacuum fluorescent
alphanumeric display for controlling the parameters of DAE-compatible
Plug-Ins.
- Below
the DSP section is a switch matrix for assigning channel
status and/or global session attributes.
- The
lower right-hand section, with keypad and jog wheel, dedicated
keys, and even extra cursor controls, is dedicated to transport/locate
functions.
- The
lower left contains a keyboard shortcut section bank and
selector buttons to switch between various Pro Tools screens
.
- And
shoehorned in the middle of all this is a complete analog
control room section with 3 sets of speaker/phones controls
and built-in talkback mic. (Trim controls for the two integrated
mic preamplifiers and talkback mic are on the back.)
But our obsessive engineers couldn't stop.
If you had a couple of studio-grade microphone preamps, they
reasoned, you'd have it all and probably wouldn't even need
a cool Mackie analog mixer. So, being fanatic tech types instead
of marketing mavens, they went ahead and added two of our
renowned high-headroom low noise preamps with balanced XLR
inputs. Beginning to see why HUI blows a mere fader pack into
the weeds?
If you make your living using Pro Tools,
our interface can dramatically add to your productivity. Once
you've used it for a short time, you'll wonder how you ever
got along with just a mouse. |
