Human User Interface Protocol (commonly abbreviated to HUI) is a proprietary

MIDI MIDI (; Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a technical standard that describes a communications protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, computers, an ...

communications protocol A communication protocol is a system of rules that allows two or more entities of a communications system to transmit information via any kind of variation of a physical quantity. The protocol defines the rules, syntax, semantics and synchro ...

for interfacing between a hardware

audio control surface In the domain of digital audio, a control surface is a human interface device (HID) which allows the user to control a digital audio workstation or other digital audio application. Generally, a control surface will contain one or more controls th ...

and

digital audio workstation A digital audio workstation (DAW) is an electronic device or application software used for recording, editing and producing audio files. DAWs come in a wide variety of configurations from a single software program on a laptop, to an integra ...

(DAW) software. It was first created by

Mackie Mackie is an American professional audio products brand. Founded in Seattle in 1988 by Greg Mackie as a manufacturer of affordable and versatile compact pro audio mixers, Mackie is the primary product line of LOUD Technologies. History Mack ...

and

Digidesign Avid Audio (formerly Digidesign) is an American digital audio technology company. It was founded in 1984 by Peter Gotcher and Evan Brooks. The company began as a project to raise money for the founders' band, selling EPROM chips for drum mac ...

in 1997 for use with

Pro Tools Pro Tools is a digital audio workstation (DAW) developed and released by Avid Technology (formerly Digidesign) for Microsoft Windows and macOS. It is used for music creation and production, sound for picture ( sound design, audio post-prod ...

, and is now part of the

Mackie Control Universal Mackie is an American professional audio products brand. Founded in Seattle in 1988 by Greg Mackie as a manufacturer of affordable and versatile compact pro audio mixers, Mackie is the primary product line of LOUD Technologies. History Mac ...

(MCU) protocol.

Functionality

HUI protocol allows a

(DAW) and a connected hardware control surface to exchange

signals that synchronize the states of their sliders, buttons, wheels, and displays. The user can write

console automation In music recording, mix automation allows the mixing console to remember the audio engineer's adjustment of faders during the post-production editing process. A timecode is necessary for the synchronization of automation. Modern mixing conso ...

which can then be seen in the DAW. It includes support for 10-bit/1,024 discrete values.

History

The HUI protocol was created jointly by

and

in 1997 for Mackie's Human User Interface (HUI), the first non-Digidesign hardware control surface for Digidesign’s

. It was subsequently implemented by hardware controllers from manufacturers such as

Solid State Logic Solid State Logic (SSL) is a British company based in Begbroke, Oxfordshire, England that designs and markets audio mixing consoles, signal processors, and other audio technologies for the post-production, video production, broadcast, sound ...

Yamaha Yamaha may refer to: * Yamaha Corporation, a Japanese company with a wide range of products and services, established in 1887. The company is the largest shareholder of Yamaha Motor Company (below). ** Yamaha Music Foundation, an organization estab ...

, TASCAM, and

Novation Novation, in contract law and business law, is the act of – # replacing an obligation to perform with another obligation; or # adding an obligation to perform; or # replacing a party to an agreement with a new party. In international law, no ...

. By the time Mackie introduced the Baby HUI in August 2002, the protocol was also supported by DAWs including

Digital Performer Digital Performer is a digital audio workstation and music sequencer software package published by Mark of the Unicorn (MOTU) of Cambridge, Massachusetts for the Apple Macintosh and Microsoft Windows platforms. Ancestry In 1984, Mark of the U ...

and

Nuendo Nuendo is a digital audio workstation (DAW) developed by Steinberg for music recording, arranging, editing and post-production. The package is aimed at audio and video post-production market segments (marketed as an 'Advanced Audio Post-Productio ...

, making them cross-compatible with HUI-compatible hardware controllers. Other DAWs to support HUI protocol include

Logic Pro Logic Pro is a digital audio workstation (DAW) and MIDI sequencer software application for the macOS platform. It was originally created in the early 1990s as Notator Logic, or Logic, by German software developer C-Lab which later went by Em ...

REAPER A reaper is a farm implement or person that reaps (cuts and often also gathers) crops at harvest when they are ripe. Usually the crop involved is a cereal grass. The first documented reaping machines were Gallic reapers that were used in Rom ...

, and

Cakewalk Sonar Sonar was a digital audio workstation created by the former Boston, Massachusetts-based music production software company Cakewalk. It was acquired by Singaporean music company BandLab Technologies and renamed Cakewalk by BandLab. Notable fe ...

Mackie Control Universal (MCU)

In 2003, the Mackie Control Universal (MCU) protocol was introduced, combining together functionality from Mackie Control,

Logic Control Logic Control is a control surface originally designed by Emagic in cooperation with Mackie. History Logic Control was designed by Emagic as a dedicated control surface for their Logic digital audio workstation software. It was manufactured by M ...

and HUI into a single protocol. DAWs which support MCU (in addition to those which support HUI) include Ardour,

Ableton Live Ableton Live is a digital audio workstation for macOS and Windows developed by the German company Ableton. In contrast to many other software sequencers, Ableton Live is designed to be an instrument for live performances as well as a tool ...

Studio One Studio One or Studio 1 may refer to: * Studio One (software), digital audio workstation software, developed by PreSonus * ''Studio One'' (American TV series), a 1948–1958 American television anthology series * ''Studio One'' (Emirati TV progra ...

Cubase Cubase is a digital audio workstation (DAW) developed by Steinberg for music and MIDI recording, arranging and editing. The first version, which was originally only a MIDI sequencer and ran on the Atari ST computer, was released in 1989. Cut-d ...

, and

Reason Reason is the capacity of Consciousness, consciously applying logic by Logical consequence, drawing conclusions from new or existing information, with the aim of seeking the truth. It is closely associated with such characteristically human activ ...

. ACID Pro 9 and ACID Pro Next from MAGIX also support MCU. An

Arduino Arduino () is an open-source hardware and software company, project, and user community that designs and manufactures single-board microcontrollers and microcontroller kits for building digital devices. Its hardware products are licensed und ...

library has also implemented a large portion of MCU, enabling control surfaces to be built with Arduino-compatible microcontrollers.

References

{{reflist MIDI standards