Editing Audio control surface (section)

== History ==
In the 1950s the history of Mixing Control Surfaces began with the Altec Revocon remote mixing controller for sound reinforcement. It was the first type of equipment that allowed a sound engineer to control a backstage or booth mixer from anywhere in the audience or space that they were in with motorized controls on the mixer. Soon after in the 1960s, Fairchild introduced the Integra Control Surface mixers. These mixers were the first ones that incorporated channel strips that look like fader channels today. The Integra Control Surface controlled a rack mixer using LDR (light-dependent resistors) and reed relays. The next major development happened another decade later in the 1970s when motorized faders (flying Faders) were invented. This allowed for the integration of mix automation capabilities into consoles, allowing the position of the physical faders to correspond with automation data. A good example of this is if there needed to be a fade out. The automation data would tell the fader from its current position down to 0 over the specified time period. This technology was expensive at first, but the products improved through the 1980s allowing the cost to decrease and making them more commonplace.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |title=Control Surfaces for Audio Mixing with DAWs {{!}} GearCast |url=https://www.fullcompass.com/gearcast/control-surfaces-for-audio-mixing-with-daws |access-date=2024-07-16 |website=Full Compass Systems |language=en}}</ref>

[[Robert Moog]] introduced the first MIDI keyboards in 1982 which are control surfaces. Shortly after, Sequential Circuits released the Prophet 600 which was a keyboard with a MIDI interface as well as Roland releasing the MPU-401 which offered software that allowed the device to communicate directly with a PC. Both were released in 1983.<ref name=":0" />