Control surface
Hardware with physical faders, knobs and transport buttons that drives a DAW — a mixing desk that never touches any audio itself.
A mouse is excellent at moving one thing at a time, which is exactly the wrong tool when you want to ride four channels at once. A control surface brings back the feel of an analogue desk: motorised faders follow the automation, displays show channel names, and knobs can flip between pan, sends and plugin parameters.
The surface talks to the software over a protocol layered on MIDI or Ethernet. HUI, developed by Mackie with Digidesign for Pro Tools in the 1990s, and Mackie Control became de facto standards that nearly every DAW still understands. Euphonix's EUCON, owned by Avid since 2010, runs over the network. Simpler MIDI controllers are instead mapped one parameter at a time with MIDI learn.