Sentient Systems Labs
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Sentient Systems Labs
Sentient Systems Labs
Sentient Systems Labs

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Sentient Systems Labs
Text Chat
Desk
Snapshots
Notes
Voice commands

Tap the mic and talk the way you would to a second engineer. Some things you can say:

Mixing

  • "Bring the lead vocal up 2 dB"
  • "Pull all the drums down 3"
  • "Set the bass to minus 6"
  • "Solo kick and bass" · "Unsolo everything"
  • "Mute the room mics"
  • "Pan the guitar hard left"
  • "Flip the knobs to send B"
  • "Show me the plug-ins on the vocal"

Getting around

  • "Bank to track 33" · "Bank right"
  • "Put the drums on the desk"
  • "Go to the top" · "Go to chorus 2"
  • "Loop playback" · "Play" · "Stop"

Recording — it asks first

  • "Arm tracks 1 to 8"
  • "Record"

Session

  • "Drop a marker called chorus 2"
  • "Rename track 12 to Lead Vox"
  • "Make 4 new mono tracks called BGV"
  • "Save" · "Undo that"
  • "Bounce the mix to MP3"

Snapshots — the motors move back

  • "Save this as rough mix 1"
  • "Put the faders back to rough mix 1"
  • "What did I change since rough mix 1?"

Watching

  • "Is anything clipping?"
  • "Which tracks are quiet?"
  • "What's on the desk?"

Help and notes

  • Press a button and ask "What does this button do?"
  • "Note: the vocal needs a de-esser in the chorus"
  • "Read me my notes"

Ghost Hands never deletes anything — tracks, clips, markers, notes and snapshots are safe from it.

Setup
What you need
The ProControl (Main, Edit Pack, Fader Packs), a cheap Ethernet switch, Ethernet cables, the studio Mac (Apple Silicon is fine) and Pro Tools 2022.12 or newer.
Plug every ProControl unit and the Mac into the Ethernet switch. New Macs do not work with a cable straight from the desk.
On the Mac, download and open the installer: GhostHands-installer.zip. Double-click Install Ghost Hands.command. It asks for the Mac's password once (to let Ghost Hands talk to the desk over Ethernet), then a 👻 appears in the menu bar.
Power the desk on. In the 👻 menu each unit turns green: Main, then the Fader Packs. If one stays white, check its cable.
In Pro Tools: Setup > Peripherals > MIDI Controllers. Rows 1–4: Type HUI, Receive From and Send To Ghost Hands 1, 2, 3, 4, # Ch's 8. Leave "Enable Legacy Controllers" off, and turn EuCon off (with EuCon on, Pro Tools sends no meters).
Here on the phone: ☰ > Link your Mac, type the link code from the 👻 menu.
Tap the mic and say "what's on the desk?"

If the desk is not heard

Open Terminal on the Mac and run the listen-only test — it only listens, it sends nothing to the desk:
/Applications/Ghost\ Hands.app/Contents/MacOS/GhostHands --listen
Power the desk on; every line it prints is the desk talking. The log is saved in the Ghost Hands data folder (👻 menu > Show the data folder).
Manual
What Ghost Hands is. Free software from Sentient Systems Labs that brings an original Digidesign ProControl back to life on a new Mac with current Pro Tools — and lets you run it by voice. The Mac app talks to the desk in its own Ethernet language and shows Pro Tools four HUI controllers. The motors move, the buttons light, the names and meters show, the counter runs.

The faders

Pro Tools takes 4 HUI controllers of 8 faders = 32 faders at once. The Main unit is faders 1–8, then each Fader Pack in order. Fader Packs beyond the 32 show Pro Tools' 2-line display across their strips. Each strip's top display shows the fader level in dB, the bottom one the track name. Bank Left / Right moves 8 tracks; hold Nudge to move one.

Pro Tools' own limits through HUI

Plug-in editing works on the first 8 faders only. Track meters only (no output meters). 4-character names. Turn EuCon off in Pro Tools or it sends no meters.

Snapshots

Press Snapshot on the Channel Matrix (or say "save this as rough mix 1") and Ghost Hands stores every fader. "Put the faders back to rough mix 1" moves the motors back. Saving a name again keeps the old version too — nothing is thrown away.

What the buttons do

Transport: Play, Stop, Record, Rewind, Fast Forward, Go To Start/End, Loop Play, Quick Punch, Online, Audition, Pre/Post Roll, In/Out, Talkback, Scrub and Shuttle (the jog wheel).
Edit: Cut, Copy, Paste, Delete (Pro Tools' Clear, still in Undo), Separate, Capture. Shuffle/Slip/Spot/Grid step through the edit modes; Trim/Select/Grab/Pencil step through the tools (HUI has one switch for each).
Windows: Mix, Edit, Transport, Memory Locations, Status. Undo and Save.
Assignment: Pan and Send A–E point the V-pots; Send Mute, Default, Assign, Suspend, Insert Bypass, Rec Ready All. Automation: Write, Touch, Latch, Trim, Read, Off, and the Enable buttons.
Strips: Select, Mute, Solo, Rec, Auto, Inserts (plug-in edit), Pan/Send (V-sel), touch-sensitive motor fader, V-pot with its LED ring, meters.
Not used by Pro Tools through HUI: strip EQ and Dynamics, Counter Mode, the Channel Matrix letters, and the analogue Control Room section (Ghost Hands leaves the analogue section alone).
Press any button and ask Ghost Hands "what does this button do?". The full map is a file on the Mac (👻 menu > Show the data folder > button-map.json) and can be adjusted there.