HUI Electromagnetic Field (Part 2) The sequel

[StevenHeller]

My Hui works in some ways, BUT channel 8 chatters once and a while, and the faders have sticky points, and I am suspicious that it adds noise overall to my system, and when I try to use the talkback mic port it adds an unbelievible amount of rf noise to the signal.Does anyone know of a fix for that problem in particular?
Thanks.

[Mikey MTC]

How's this:
As readers here know, I've just moved down into a new studio and discovered that my HUI's faders no longer worked as smoothly as before. Yesterday I tried again and they were nearly perfect. They bit back a little but were pretty good. I'd call it usable. Oddly I asked my girlfriend to try them and she couln't move them reliably at all. We were both wearing rubber souled joggers.

I got her to sit in the same seat, place both feel flat on the floor and still nothing - yet for me it was almost OK. As usual, the moment she touched the meter bridge, full movement was restored. VERY ODD!! At least it's me who can use it and not her!

On the really bad side - one of the selling points of the HUI for me was the talkback facility. Today I've got my-first vocal session in my new room, so yesterday I was working out all the logisitics of how I'm going to do this (what to route where etc) and part of my plan was naturally using the HUI talkback in the equation until I discovered this:

The talkback level is affected by the master volume. Have a think about how stupid this is!! If we're monitoring loud in the control room, when I use the talkback it will be overly loud. If we're monitoring soft in the control room, the talkback will be too soft. (For the record I'm talking about my main monitoring coming from outs 1 and 2 and the talkback is coming out 5 and 6). This renders the whole talkback useless to me.

As a hacked up alternative I've got an old cheap mic patched through a pre and into a channel on Pro Tools. I'll have to mute and unmute the channel on the HUI as I want to use the talkback. OK unless the bank is scrolled off somewhere on the HUI, then I'll have to hunt for it. At least it's something.

To finish on an up - As I was designing my tracking and vocal template, the thing started to get quite complicated for reasons too messy to get into here. Having done it now and being quite happy with the felxibility of what I've come up with, there's no way I'd want to run it without a HUI. I can now get at most things really quickly. If the talent wants more track in the cans? No worries. More reverb in the cans? Easy. It's the whole two mixes thing - one for me and one for the talent and having complete and fast control over both including having an 03D slaved into the system with two mixes coming out of that as well.

The HUI makes it workable. A mouse would work but it's a lot harder and slower. Both together is the best solution.

MIKEY

[Ray Fabi]

Today or tomorrow, I am meeting with my rep about the HUI issue. He says he had not heard of anything concerning the HUI problems... I have a feeling this fellow will try something with Mackie.
Ray

[TMS]

ROCK ON RAY!!!!

cheers

Craig

[Ray Fabi]

Radio Canada in Montreal supposedly ended up with the same "sticky fader" problem as some of us encountered with their HUI... I believe they were able to solve the problem (lucky them), and Mackie is definately aware of the issue. I will try to find out more about the whole thing.
Just keeping everybody aware of what's going on!
Ray Fabi

[bjorn for a reason]

sounds like the things a piece of ****.. i'll keep using my old promix 01 faders midi style. has talkback and main out functions when im not using a "real studio"

[Ray Fabi]

Well. I finally decided to give my HUI back and I bought a Pro Control (at four times the price $$$ mind you). In the end, there was no real indications nor expectations that Mackie could resolve the design flaw on THEIR own Hui. What a shame! So after a year of mixing (and cursing) only being able to use one fader at a time (since my other hand was busy being connected to a nearby "electromagnetic field" in order to get reasonable conductivity for the faders), I had no choice but to do it. As you know, I was really hoping Mackie could handle this, but for some unknown reason, this "problem" was not a priority for them, and I had no alternative but to switch over to the Pro Control... Perhaps, they only lost my sale, but personnaly, I believe thay lost a heck of a lot more than just one sale...
Thanx everybody for the help and support that all of you gave me.
Ray Fabi

[Steve MacMillan]

As a Mackie stock holder I must say I'm very disappointed that so many people have had HUI problems and are not getting joy from Mackie. A pretty big tarnish on a previously spotless image. The HUI would be all I need if it only worked as well as the ProControl. Sad.

sm

[DAPG]

Hi,

I have a JL Cooper MCS 3800 midi controller. It uses the HUI profile. It has no control room section, but works great with Pro-Tools. It has moving faders and rotary encoders for plug-ins, etc and is expandable. Check it out. It is definately a good alternative to HUI and ProControl.

Roy Machado
Dallas Audio Post Group

[MLocascio]

Ray, you are not the only sale they lost with their HUI product. I returned mine to Mackie several months ago and got my money back as well.

Unlike you, I didn't spring for a Pro Control. It's difficult for me to justify spending that kind of money for something that doesn't pass audio (unless of course, money is no object!). For the same reasons, it was hard for me to spend $2600.00 US on the HUI. In the end, my mixes will sound the same, with or without the HUI or Pro Control.

For now I've reverted back to using the keyboard and a graphics tablet.

Mark Locascio