Melbourne Instruments’ Roto-Control Motorized MIDI Controller Hands-On Demo + Review
Host Ziv Eliraz – in the latest loopop review – offers his usual in-depth look at the new Melbourne Instruments Roto-Control, a unique MIDI controller with motorized pots.
The Roto-Control costs about $420, and features fully-assignable motorized touch-sensitive knobs, user definable haptics for detailed control, high-res screens that provide easy-to-read labels for every control, and internal memory with storage for over 8000 assignments.
Topics covered:
0:00 Intro
1:45 Overview
2:50 Modes
4:25 Build
4:45 I/O
6:00 MIX mode
7:25 Automation
7:55 PLUGIN mode
8:20 Live learn
10:10 ROTO Setup
10:40 VSTs
12:00 Racks
12:50 Issues
13:05 Automation
13:40 MIDI mode
14:45 MIDI learn
16:50 Motion rec
18:45 Software
19:20 Pros & cons
23:30 Outro
Eliraz notes several issues that he’d like to see addressed:
- Automap, at the very least in instrument racks is a must I think, but since Ableton Live devices have so many parameters, it would be great to be able to pre-populate with automap and then customize
- Drum rack parameters aren’t remembered across different drums.
- If a parameter changes its name, you lose control of it (e.g., Meld, Echo)
- Need to rename racks otherwise, ROTO control doesn’t identify the rack properly – though apparently that’s a feature not a bug 🙂
- Clock sent out isn’t tracked properly by external devices in the first bar.
- I didn’t test this with every Live device so there may be other issues!
- Learning 14bit CCs doesn’t work; doesn’t support 14bit CCs with custom MSB/LSB pairs
View the video and share your thoughts on the Roto-Control in the comments!
