I use Ableton for over 8 years now, and I’ve had this controller for three weeks. The most important part is that it feels like hardware and stepping the knobs helps me to compare slight changes, without loosing reference and staring at the screen.
Assignment:
The assignment is simple, but can get a tiny bit straining after the 10th plugin you assign. Yet once you’ve assigned the plugin, it works on all instances you load up. You should plan some time for this (I’ve currently spent nearly 2 days updating my workflow).
Haptics:
you have three options:
- a subtle indent at 12 o’clock / you can also add indents at preferred spots
- choose 2–24 steps (yet only up to 16 can be labeled; after that all labels vanish, unfortunately)
- continuously smooth
The key layout and menu navigation is well desinged, It uses a typical WASD finger positioning, which seems intuitive for most people who have played video games.
Resolution:
The pots can make very fine adjustments in the 0.01 dB range (via the USB connection).
Negatives:
More of a problem is bunching a lot of plugins into a single macro rack in Ableton. The Roto Control plugin selection menu now becomes crowded and makes it hard to navigate your plugins. It would be nice to have a collapse/expand option here.
Also, in Plugin Mode, it would be nice if you could expand track groups by accessing the “Func” setting; this is currently only possible through “Mix” Mode.
If you’ve once made an assignment to a plugin, it will always appear to the Roto in your last setting. This also has a downside for me—for example, using an EQ in different ways (broad shaping, precise cuts, only mid or side channel cleanups). This becomes a workaround where you have to put the EQ into an Ableton Rack, by which you are consequently limited to 16 macros.
In General:
I highly recommend this controller. It has improved my approach to music production, which is amazing - and worth the money in my opinion.
Check out the M4L ShortcutBuddy in combination with this controller it really speeds up my workflow.
More on the MIDI capabilities to follow.
