[pjettter]

But then you have to “draw circles” with your mouse?

[couchand]

The UI usually maps linear motion quite naturally. In real use the control is mapped to a physical knob via MIDI, if you'll be tweaking it on the fly.

[riversflow]

I wanted to learn Ableton and have determined that it,s futile unless I get a MIDI controller

[codedokode]

No. There are so many plugins and so many knobs that you will never have enough MIDI control panels and time to set them up.