Roto-Control tips from a new owner using in Max

I finally made the leap into purchasing a Melborne Instruments Roto-Control for using specifically with Max. I thought for an hour it would not work, but I figured a work around.

First I did play around with the new Max Package and could not get it to work. I think the reason it failed to work is that the moment I installed the Roto-Setup program on my PC it forced me to upgrade the firmware to 3.1 It says in the Max Package (which came out very recently) that it only supports 2.x version and I have no idea how the firmware can be reverted down. Could not find any downloads from the webite and nothing in documentation on how to do this.

So I decided to move to using the Roto in MIDI mode using CC values. I started with USB MIDI control and was able to move a knob and see the CC value change in Max using ctlin. However, no matter what I tried I could not get the motorized knob to move when I moved the control inside of Max using ctlout - so no updates!

Then I moved on to try just using plain old MIDI control using the full size MIDI in/out on the back of the Roto. I used input/output ports using 2 MIDI cables from Roto to my ESI MIDI interface. I also had to play around (again, no documentation in Meborne's manuals) with the system settings under "Midi Routing" to MIDI ports. Sucess! So you can use this controller using Max and get feedback for both the knobs and buttons controlling UMENU.

Hope this helps someone.