Mackie Hui and SawStudio

[evan]

Before we purchase Saw Studios, we are wondering if it supports Mackie's "HUI"? Not the Baby HUI or the new Mackie Control. The original HUI........

[Bob L]

Not completely... the real support is for the Mackei Control... it is a very intense and complete template that allows control of the entire 72 mixer channels... all details.. eq, compressors... gates... etc... also some editing commands as well as full workspace switching and so forth... read the details of what is controlled in the helpfile in the Midi Controller section.

Bob L

[evan]

Thank you for the info! I looked in the demo version of SawStudios under the Help file regarding the midi control section and noticed that the "HUI" is not one listed but the baby hui is. Do you know if the controls for the baby HUI would be the same as the original HUI?

[Bob L]

They are not as complete and I think many things may be different even on similar controls... its now been too long ago since I programmed it to remember.

Try it with the demo, before you buy... that way there will be no surprises.

Bob L

[Perry]

Hi,

I'll jump in here at this point, if it's ok with you guys. :) I may be able to add some things on this.

I used SAWStudio briefly with HUI mode from the HUI layer of me d8b (now sold). I also later owned and used the Mackie Control Universal with SAWStudio.. in Mackie mode (also now sold).

At any rate.. HUI mode did work, though for myself I had to do a little trick with it to get it to initially respond... though I talked with someone else once that said they didn't have to do this. What I'd have to do was start the HUI mode with some other app that dirctly used HUI, then close that and open SAWStudio and it would "take over" HUI. Then it worked more or less as expceted, however.. the meters didn't respond as Baby HUI didn't support meters. Also, if I recall correctly, Baby HUI only supported 4 aux sends.

Sorry, I don't remember much other details now as it's been a while. I eventually abandonded using a controller with SAWStudio myself... not because it didn't work but because honestly it seemed to be not necessary and I found myself rarely using it. Bob has SAWStudio set up so well to be used with a mouse and keyboard that once you get a full grip on the program it seems almost a bother to switch to the controller... or at least it did to me. Also, as Bob has said here already, Mackie Mode is very in-depth as a controller with SAWStudio... but, even with that I found it not really necessary. It was more of something that slowed the process down rather than speed things up.. IMHO :) On very rare occassions I would grab a fader for that "feel" to write in an automation fade or something, but this too wasn't really necessary and it just became essentially a "boat anchor" for me that was taking up space, so I sold it.

Please understand that I'm not trying to convince you of this mind you, just relating my own experiences. :)

I do still have a controller... the Tascam US-2400... but I use that to control my Sydec/Soundscape soundcard mixer rather than SAWStudio directly, and this setup works quite well for me.

I did consider buying a HUI though, especially since they can be had relatively cheaply now and they do have a lot to offer, with monitoring features and such. It sounds as if perhaps you already have the HUI? If you do, I would also add that from my point of view at least, a bit of control from this for SAWStudio would be enough, while retaininng the contol room monitoring features, talkback, etc that the HUI offers. Again... merely my opinion here. :)

At any rate, best of luck with this.. and I'll just add that if you decide to purchase SAWStudio it is a VERY powerful program... much more so that what it might even appear to be at first look. I'd hate to see you pass up what it has to offer just over the HUI issue. If there's anything I can do to help in terms of further discussion about this, feel free to contact me personally through the forum "PM" feature if you like... or post back here if you prefer.

All the best,

Perry

[evan]

Thank you very much for the information!!! I will try using it with the demo version of SAW. I did not realize that I could use that feature with a demo version.

Thank you again!

Evan