When working with a DAW (Digital Audio Workspace) like Cubase, you will have to do a lot of setting values, pressing buttons and moving your mouse. However, since I only have a mouse and keyboard, this already proved to be a bit of a hassle sometimes. When turning up a fader for volume or level for EQ, I had to drag my mouse to the knob and click and drag with precise movements to get to a desired value. But, in a bit, this will no longer be neccesacy.

I’ve added a MIDI controller to my studio!

There are a lot of MIDI controllers out there with lots of different combinations and layouts. But when I came across the Mackie Control Universal, I found my controller. It has motorised faders, which automatically change the values of Cubase, but also vice versa. It has playback controls (play, stop, wind, record), channel control (mute, solo, select, arm for record) and all kinds of other controls.

I found a second hand unit which has a broken fader (it does not run smooth, so calibration fails often, which makes it practically unusable). However, this seems to be fixable pretty easy. The positive thing about the broken slider is that the price was very fair. I’ve already gave it a spin with only one MIDI cable (Mackie to Cubase) and it works so far. So now we’ll have to get a second MIDI cable and we’ll be off to awesome control over Cubase!