The What: Soundcraft by Harman has released an upgrade to its Ui Series digital consoles via a free firmware update, which adds several new features and extends browser and device compatibility.
The What Else: “These amazing remote-control mixers have led the way with respect to portable digital mixing,” said Danny Olesh, product manager, Harman Professional Solutions. “The revolutionary HTML5 control GUI, coupled with stunning on-board DSP from dbx, Digitech, and Lexicon have made the Ui12 and Ui16 the mixers of choice for many customers. The latest firmware extends the Ui12 and Ui16 mixers’ features and compatibility even further.”
Soundcraft engineers considered feedback from the user community and have included some of the most requested features in the update. Most notably, the software now supports Microsoft's latest Edge browser. In addition, the Ui12 now includes stereo recording features—previously found only on the Ui16.
The introduction of a more secure password-protected access limitation system now gives mix engineers the comfort of assigning secure access privileges to other users. A wide range of limitations are possible, giving flexibility on what areas of the mixer are opened up to individual user control.
A new sync ID feature has also been added, allowing users to maintain channel Sync across multiple browser windows, on different displays or even devices. On large screens or multiple screens, users can open multiple GUI Edit windows (EQ, DYN, and FX) and have them maintain channel sync. The user can select a channel on any of these pages and instantly view and control all EQ, DYN, and FX values across devices and displays.
Further enhancements include MoreMe Portrait on/off mode, enable/disable SSID broadcast, channel mute now mutes auxes in PFL mode, and new global pre-fade aux send point selection and AFS2 preset manager. MAC address visibility in network settings, a local user settings preset manager, reset local user settings as a default feature, and host of other optimizations and issue updates are also included in the firmware update.
The Soundcraft by Harman Ui Series mixers feature cross-platform compatibility with iOS, Android, Windows, Mac OS, and Linux devices, and can use up to 10 control devices simultaneously. In addition, the Ui12 and Ui16 each feature built-in Harman signal processing from dbx, DigiTech, and Lexicon, including dbx AFS2, DigiTech Amp Modeling and more. Both models feature fully recallable and remote-controlled mic gain and phantom power, along with 4-band parametric EQ, high-pass filter, compressor, de-esser, and noise gate on input channels.
The Bottom Line: The free software update for Ui Series digital mixers is available immediately. New and existing Ui Series mixer customers can download the upgrade from the Soundcraft website.
