You have to send MIDI note on/off messages for buttons, and MIDI control change messages for potentiometers and rotary encoders.
Take a look at the
MIDI specs.
The potentiometer value should be mapped between 0 (0%) and 127 (100%) (7 bits). For note on/off, just use a velocity of 127.
You can pick any note number between 0 and 127 for the note on/off, and any controller number between 0 and 119 for control change.
Once you have that working, map these note/controller numbers in your DAW.
What kind of emulator are you using? How do you know that Ableton received the message?
Like Grumpy_Mike said, please post your code. Use code tags (type [code][/code] around your code or select the code and click the
</> button).
You may be interested in my
USB MIDI controller library. It creates the appropriate MIDI messages for you, you just have to connect the potentiometers and buttons, tell the library what settings you want to use, and what pins to use, and it should work.
Pieter