I think the price is not bad at all. With these encoders, screens, motion recorder.
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That’s a better price than I was expecting. Tempting.
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I’m curious how it’ll translate to GBP of course but it seems pretty reasonable to me.
The controller market is absolutely overflowing with cheap, flimsy, plastic crap that’s just the same old stuff regurgitated. If this thing is sturdy, reliable and it does what it says it does, I think they’ll sell quite a few.
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This seems like it would be really cool to pair with a vintage analog that has lots of CC control but no knobs and it’s way cheaper than these kinds of controllers Controllers – Tagged "Controllers" – retroaktiv
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Is this MIDI 2.0 capable?
I was kind of waiting for the Behringer BCR32, but this one is much interesting! Although the BCR32 (if it will come) will be cheaper and more direct approacheble knobs.
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I agree that the price is totally fine. A comparable Faderfox like EC4 is 350€ new and doesn’t have motorized knobs, which are more expensive and elevate the controller to a different level.
What do you mean by directly approachable?
If you don’t feel the need for the motorized knobs, you don’t need Roto Control, that’s it’s selling point. Owning a Nina, I can say that for me personally, the motorized knobs are a gamechanger in terms of workflow and UI. I hate to use the term since Youtubers throw that around all the time, but here it’s actually appropriate. Having knobs that will always show you what the values on your synth are even when you’ve just opened a preset is fantastic. It means you can use presets that are quite complex, understand them by just looking at the knobs and tweak them without any stupid catch mode workarounds. It removes that disconnect between having a hands on interface but the interface isn’t showing what the knobs are actually set to. The haptic feedback that the knobs will give you is also great, they can e.g. switch between seamless control or going through only 12 steps for something like coarse tuning, where you will feel each step like on a hardware synth built this way.
I can see this being a huge thing for a MIDI controller, especially if you’re using it with plugins. It could potentially mean that using plugins is more hands on than using hardware, if you spend some time programming and saving templates on Roto Control and limit yourself to eight knobs over which you want to have direct control.
Like I said, how useful this is depends on the knobs showing what the preset is currently set to. This means there needs to be some feedback loop when opening a preset on hardware or in a VST that will send information to Roto Control so that it adjusts the knob positions. I guess this is relatively easy with VSTs, but how would that work with hardware? MIDI 2.0 was mentioned as a solution, but afaik, most synths and drum machines don’t have that.
My use case(s) would be to
a) control Ableton FX, which should be easily doable
b) control compact hardware like a Roland boutiqe or Elektron for performing while using and jumping between presets. I don’t know how well this will work yet.
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its Midi recorder too have to weight this up with the electra one controller
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With regular MIDI hardware devices the work around is for Roto Control to remember the last set values. Problem is if the hardware being controlled had that CC changed by something other than RC the controls will be off.
In that case having a mode where the RC just assumes the values have changed and just sends some choice of new values ( at some selectable circumstance ) is the best you can do.
There are some limited numbers of hardware devices with MIDI 2.0, mainly that wonderful set from Korg that are all available now as modules. ( ADDED : And the Iridium now too. ) Hopefully MI is getting a chance to connect with the MIDI 2.0 experts with the MIDI Association at NAMM,
Does the RC do NRPN ?
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I mean more knobs without paging.
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I see, fair point. I also would have preferred 16 knobs or 8 knobs and 8 sliders and could have lived without displays and keys. The eight knobs you have however will be a lot more useful than on any other controller, so it will be a tradeoff. I wouldn’t want to set it up in a way that I always have to go through pages on which the knobs do different stuff so I have to read the display each time or build up muscle memory.
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The automation phrase recorder feature is really smart, would love to try it (shown at 5:40 in vid). Looks great for expanding automation possibilities of Elektron gear that can only do per-step on their own.
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Far as i’ve seen there isn’t a macro control, where you can control multiple CCs simultaneously, particular across multiple devices, with one knob.
Anybody have other information.
… and “by something other than RC” means if you change presets on the synth or even if you jump between tracks on a multitimbral device like an Elektron. Which to me personally means that if you’re not using it with MIDI 2.0 powered hardware, it will only make sense if you keep the same preset the whole time and only use it with one track / machine.
Like: I only want to control the SY Raw bass of my Syntakt with RC. At the start of a set, I will decide which paramaters of that track I want to control and map them to the knobs. But as soon as I will move to another pattern, RC knob positions will be off for that track. Unless I know exactly at what point each knob will be in the next pattern before changing the pattern. Or I decide to only use macro controls for changing SY parameters (which stay the same when jumping between patterns). Would work better on DN II or DT II, which have performance kits. Or AR/A4 that always have kits.
Writing this, it already sounds like quite the headache with lots of potential issues. I think it will work best with non MIDI 2.0 hardware if you hook it up to a small synth like a Roland boutiqe and then program your patches on RC. In a live set, you can then load up different presets for the boutique on RC between songs. It will mean you’ll have to stay away from the boutique’s controls altogether. Again, lots of potential issues and probably more headache than necessary with unclear benefit. I see it more as a studio tool then that works best with plugins and occasionally with hardware. It won’t turn your hardware into a Nina or Delia though. I wish all synth manufacturers would just build in motorized stuff in a pro version.
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“All” will never happen, but some OEMing the motorized knobs ( or engineering their own ) would be nice.
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What are you talking about here? RC has MIDI input, it receives CC changes from the instruments, so it should be able to reflect changes made on the instrument / from other controller.
When it doesn’t.
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£389 on Signal Sounds. I think that’s decent considering that’s more or less what Kenton sells the killamix for, and this is basically a Killamix with bells and whistles (but no joystick 
).
I’ll probably buy one if they add NRPN functionality to it.
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Looks great! Price less than I expected
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I would have gladly replaced my Bastl MIDI Looper with this, but it’s a pity MIDI looping is limited to 8 parameters.
Maybe they will expand this in the future?
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