NAMM Preview: CM Labs MotorMate Shipping

(Click for a close-up)

MotorMate Rear Panel (Click for a close-up)

CM Labs has announced the release of their MotorMate multi-platform DAW console with monitor section.

MotorMate is the newest and most powerful control surface yet from CM Labs. The MotorMate Console features 100mm, precision touch-sensitive motorized faders, an 80-character bright backlit display for easy viewing of track labels, pan positions, send levels and plug-ins. Eight high-resolution endless rotary pots are 360 single turn types.

MotorMate features a built-in monitor section. The Speaker1 and Speaker2 controls allow on / off and level control of two sets of speakers, i.e. "bigs and littles", or control room and studio speaker feeds. The Monitor Interface Module (MIM), which is included with each unit, has all the audio connections. At the center of these is the headphone volume control. MotorMate is the only DAW console to have a front panel headphone jack and monitor section according to the company.

The 8-character timecode display gives you session location information in frames, beats or samples.

Central to the Edit Section is the Jog Wheel. The Jog Wheel is a machine tooled aluminum precision jog / shuttle wheel. Just above the Jog Wheel is the Shuttle/Scrub switch and indicator LED's. Use it to access the Jog Wheel for Shuttling or Scrubbing. The Jog Wheel is also used with the Navigator section to control the beginning and end of regions for editing.

The Cut, Copy, Paste, and Delete switches allow fast access to the Clipboard, Edit Modes and Tools. MotorMate has full size transport switches in a layout which allows great ease of operation in a minimum space. The dual-purpose locator controls allow you to set and recall markers with great speed and precision, and all without sacrificing precious panel space. When you press the LOCATE switch, it automatically makes the locate list appear on the computer screen.

The Waveform Navigator section includes the up, down, left and right switches for moving the edit cursor from track to track and back and forth. At the center of these is the "Zoom Stick" which controls the horizontal and vertical zoom in the edit window. The "Zoom Stick" is an innovation of CM Labs, and provides a perfectly intuitive way of viewing the details of waveforms.

MotorMate operates as a stand-alone console or a machine remote for Pro Tools. When used as the remote for CM Labs SixtyFour 32 x 32 router, you may control routing, input and output levels (including surround decoders, speaker set levels and offsets) right from the console.

MotorMate is expandable with the MotorMix control surfaces. CM Labs control surfaces are supported by most DAW Applications. Pro Tools supports use of one MotorMate and up to three MotorMix units to allow control of 32 channel banks. The complete list of supported software is availble on the company's website, along with QuickTime movie clips showing installation, editing and plug-in control with the consoles.

The MotorMate measures 14" (W) x 12.5" (D) x 4.75" (H) / 35.6 x 31.8 x 12.1 cm, and is shipping now. MSRP: 1,699.99.