Baby HUI joins the emerging group of Mackie control surfaces designed to improve workflow and creativity by allowing users to interact with their favourite DAW through a familiar analogue style interface rather than a mouse. "With Baby HUI, users will no longer have to rely on a mouse to delicately move a fader or rotate knobs on screen," explained Keith Olsen, Corporate Director, Global Recording Market and Product Development at Mackie Designs Inc. "These simple actions can become frustrating and even time-consuming when attempted with a mouse. Baby HUI provides the ‘human touch’ of analogue faders and knobs. Actions that would require multiple mouse clicks can be accomplished with a simple push of a button, slide of a fader, or a turn of a knob."
Baby HUI features eight channel strips that each include a 60 mm touch-sensitive motorized fader, mute button, solo button and a signal LED. Multi-functional rotary encoders accompany each channel strip as well. These provide pan or send level controls along with channel select, record arming and automation arming functions. Baby HUI also supports a full automation assignment section, display buttons, undo, tape-style transport controls and a shift modifier to double up with certain controls.
"Baby HUI is ideal for hobbyists and professionals alike and is perfect for just about anyone looking to improve the ergonomics of their studio without straining their budget," commented Olsen. "And, it has a marked advantage over similar products because it will work right out of the box with a huge family of digital audio workstations that already support the HUI protocol."
(Ruth Rossington)
