HI
Ahh, a rant that I have had - in particular about SX3 which I recently bought - I'll be dammed if the fx routing makes sense - even after reading the PD bloody F, so I ordered a tutorial DVD, and I will get a book that is due out in a few weeks - life is too short to wade around in the dark!
I like video tutorials and think they should be standard fare, I prefer a well written book - I bought a couple for help with Reason and they were BRILLIANT - pictures, illustrations, diagrams all with every mouse click described.
I thought LOGIC pc was a terribly documented piece of complex software (that I loved and used up until recently), even third party books were poor (I have 3!) and did little to help.
So a book or video is only as good as the writer/producer - they can be worse than a bloomin pdf if not written/designed with some thought.
Flipper.
The "Wot - No Tutorial" rant
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original flipper original flipper https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=8999
- KVRAF
- 2541 posts since 14 Sep, 2003 from Essex
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- KVRist
- 34 posts since 28 Oct, 2003
It's difficult not to get nasty here (which would be only returning tit for tat) but I prefer not to be drawn into a shouting match.
One thing is for sure, quite a few people disagree with Kevvvvv's premise that video tutorial are necessary, prefering PDFs, hyperlinked documents, flash, etc.
And that sortof proves one of my points: one person's "this should be standard" is another person's "why waste time on that crap?".
The notion that I don't know what I'm talking about is silly. Let's not just get into a pissing match here, eh?
Kevvvvv, I'm glad you know your way around Flash ... I sure don't. Wouldn't it be silly of me to imply that "expensive, demanding and time-consuming to to produce" Flash tutorials could be easily produced in a few hours with just a borrowed copy of Flash MX and a few days time? C'mon you just throw up some graphics and do some quikee animations and your done, right? You know better than that.
And you ought to know better than to suggest that throwing any old borrowed camcorder on a borrowed tripod, pointing it at a screen and "saying some words" is is going to end up producing anything but crap.
After all, your suggestion is that any pluggin costing more than $149 ... "a pro plug deserves pro support". Is aiming any old camcorder on any old tripod at any old monitor and having the developer (who may have zero presentation skills) "say some words" ... really "pro support"? I'm surprised that you would suggest such a thing.
Given the long list of awards you claim ... which of your award-winning projects were produced in such a manner?
One thing is for sure, quite a few people disagree with Kevvvvv's premise that video tutorial are necessary, prefering PDFs, hyperlinked documents, flash, etc.
And that sortof proves one of my points: one person's "this should be standard" is another person's "why waste time on that crap?".
The notion that I don't know what I'm talking about is silly. Let's not just get into a pissing match here, eh?
Kevvvvv, I'm glad you know your way around Flash ... I sure don't. Wouldn't it be silly of me to imply that "expensive, demanding and time-consuming to to produce" Flash tutorials could be easily produced in a few hours with just a borrowed copy of Flash MX and a few days time? C'mon you just throw up some graphics and do some quikee animations and your done, right? You know better than that.
And you ought to know better than to suggest that throwing any old borrowed camcorder on a borrowed tripod, pointing it at a screen and "saying some words" is is going to end up producing anything but crap.
After all, your suggestion is that any pluggin costing more than $149 ... "a pro plug deserves pro support". Is aiming any old camcorder on any old tripod at any old monitor and having the developer (who may have zero presentation skills) "say some words" ... really "pro support"? I'm surprised that you would suggest such a thing.
Given the long list of awards you claim ... which of your award-winning projects were produced in such a manner?
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- vvvvvvv
- Topic Starter
- 2578 posts since 24 Oct, 2000 from skelmersdale, west lancs, uk
Hey ... we're not nasty ... that's not me 
You're entitled to your view, as I mine.
And ppl who read it will be influenced accordingly.
Which is the true strength of a view, I guess ... let's see how many ppl take it up.
See you in a year
btw did you check out any of my sites?
You're entitled to your view, as I mine.
And ppl who read it will be influenced accordingly.
Which is the true strength of a view, I guess ... let's see how many ppl take it up.
See you in a year
btw did you check out any of my sites?
Member 12, Studio One v6.5, VPS Avenger, Kontakt 7, Spitfire, Dune, Arturia, Sonible, Baby Audio, CableGuys, Nektar Panorama P1, Vaporizer 2 to test out
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- KVRist
- 34 posts since 28 Oct, 2003
Yes, and I noticed the complete lack of a prominent "Don't hire us because you can do the same thing with a borrowed camcorder and tripod" disclaimer at the top of each page!kevvvvv wrote:btw did you check out any of my sites?
Certainly you want to be honest with your customers?
(Its' all good. Contrary to popular opinion, great minds almost never think alike)
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- KVRAF
- 13090 posts since 14 Nov, 2000 from Hannover / Germany
Sorry to be a bit OT - but what's so difficult regarding the FX routing?original flipper wrote:
Ahh, a rant that I have had - in particular about SX3 which I recently bought - I'll be dammed if the fx routing makes sense
There are 3 kinds of people:
Those who can do maths and those who can't.
Those who can do maths and those who can't.
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- KVRian
- 1008 posts since 9 Aug, 2004 from helsinki rock city
have you seen any of the video tutorials available to photoshop?
that kind of documentation is what I would like to see in sequencers and plugins, too (I have heard about the cubase tutorial, but haven't seen it as I don't use cubase).
I see that such a video would cost at least several huandred bucks to make, but I would see availability of one (or several) would eventually be worth it*.
I don't know about you guys, but I absolutely /hate/ the tedious process of trying to learn new sequencers and softsynths etc (it actually feels worse than school) and walk-trough video(s) of all the basic functions would really ease things up.
I'm not sure if it's just me, or is music software really boring to learn? ;) .. I mean, I'm an windows+linux+network admin, and I just love to fool around with computers (and as sick it sounds, don't have anything against RTFM either), but of some reason I find that reading the manuals to f.ex. sequencers don't really help that much at all**. I've found the photoshop videos at least a bit entertaining, and in that way (too) much less annoying. also there's the point mentioned earlier: in the photoshop videos you can actually SEE what kind of an effect a button has. it's like you have a friend showing the things to you. NO, wait! it's even better! you can revind and pause, and take your time digesting the information ;) and of course in case of music software you can both see /and/ hear what's happening. a much greater information flow. than reading, half-guessing and imagining.
* "worth it" in this context can be defined by an example: I am in the process of changing gear. I've never really felt confortable in logic, so I'm searching for a replacement for it, and at the same time trying to find good new synths to work with.
whichever software that: 1.has the features i need and 2. start feeling comfortable first will win the bet.
a video would sure as h*** help with both of these. a video would reveal the basic features and way of working in the software even before downloading and learning how to use the product (! or better yet, a competing one !). it would, too, contribute to "a faster learning curve" which, thank god, is finally getting more attention amongst software developers.
my point of course being that if i find and learn something I like, I will stick to it. and thus will the money eventually pour from my bank account into theirs. and everybody else will follow ;)
writing this rant I really can't come up with any other reason for not harnessing the incredible potential of the audiovisual methods of transferring information than that the software companies would actually want to /hide/ the crappy usability and lacking features of therir products.
maybe this is actually the reason why ground breaking products like tracktion, energyxt, and ableton DO have atleast some kind of free video available of their products.
** and as opposed to what d2 might think (I think he misunderstood the original poster in this way, too), I /don't/ want (nor need) any more information about how sequencers in general work, how different sound synthesis works, how musical composition works etc etc. trust me, I know /enough/ of those things, its just the GUI's I hate. the huandreds of paradoxal and cryptical sliders and knobs and whatnot. and the pdf manuals just don't transfer /that/ information into my brain and memory just efficiently enough to keep me awake ;P (now I hope you don't get this the wrong way. this was not an attack of any sort. just trying to be as thorrough as possible)
there is nothing in the world that I love more than making music. it's just the tools i seem to hate.
that kind of documentation is what I would like to see in sequencers and plugins, too (I have heard about the cubase tutorial, but haven't seen it as I don't use cubase).
I see that such a video would cost at least several huandred bucks to make, but I would see availability of one (or several) would eventually be worth it*.
I don't know about you guys, but I absolutely /hate/ the tedious process of trying to learn new sequencers and softsynths etc (it actually feels worse than school) and walk-trough video(s) of all the basic functions would really ease things up.
I'm not sure if it's just me, or is music software really boring to learn? ;) .. I mean, I'm an windows+linux+network admin, and I just love to fool around with computers (and as sick it sounds, don't have anything against RTFM either), but of some reason I find that reading the manuals to f.ex. sequencers don't really help that much at all**. I've found the photoshop videos at least a bit entertaining, and in that way (too) much less annoying. also there's the point mentioned earlier: in the photoshop videos you can actually SEE what kind of an effect a button has. it's like you have a friend showing the things to you. NO, wait! it's even better! you can revind and pause, and take your time digesting the information ;) and of course in case of music software you can both see /and/ hear what's happening. a much greater information flow. than reading, half-guessing and imagining.
* "worth it" in this context can be defined by an example: I am in the process of changing gear. I've never really felt confortable in logic, so I'm searching for a replacement for it, and at the same time trying to find good new synths to work with.
whichever software that: 1.has the features i need and 2. start feeling comfortable first will win the bet.
a video would sure as h*** help with both of these. a video would reveal the basic features and way of working in the software even before downloading and learning how to use the product (! or better yet, a competing one !). it would, too, contribute to "a faster learning curve" which, thank god, is finally getting more attention amongst software developers.
my point of course being that if i find and learn something I like, I will stick to it. and thus will the money eventually pour from my bank account into theirs. and everybody else will follow ;)
writing this rant I really can't come up with any other reason for not harnessing the incredible potential of the audiovisual methods of transferring information than that the software companies would actually want to /hide/ the crappy usability and lacking features of therir products.
maybe this is actually the reason why ground breaking products like tracktion, energyxt, and ableton DO have atleast some kind of free video available of their products.
** and as opposed to what d2 might think (I think he misunderstood the original poster in this way, too), I /don't/ want (nor need) any more information about how sequencers in general work, how different sound synthesis works, how musical composition works etc etc. trust me, I know /enough/ of those things, its just the GUI's I hate. the huandreds of paradoxal and cryptical sliders and knobs and whatnot. and the pdf manuals just don't transfer /that/ information into my brain and memory just efficiently enough to keep me awake ;P (now I hope you don't get this the wrong way. this was not an attack of any sort. just trying to be as thorrough as possible)
there is nothing in the world that I love more than making music. it's just the tools i seem to hate.
do us both a favour and try not to purposefully misunderstand me ...
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- KVRist
- 368 posts since 3 May, 2002 from Canberra, Australia
Is it that time of year already, kevvvv?
Every time kevvvv brings this up, I agree with him. I'll agree with him again. I don't think video tuts are essential, but they sure can make learning a new bit of software a hell of a lot easier. I'm not talking about "synths 101" but the ins and outs of each particular program. Most programs you spend a chunk of cash on are not your bog-standard 2 osc VA (I did say "most"
). Some synths might have an innovative mod matrix that is different from all their competitors, or they might have a unique flexible routing system or whatever. I personally feel that there would be benefit in having some quick vids outlining the best of what new things the product has to offer. Or maybe that is just me.
Incidentally, I prefer not to have pdfs as I hate having to either flick windows or print it out and have an awkward A4 sized collection of paper floating around the place. I'm the kind of person who would happily pay for a dead tree manual if I think the manual is worth having (and I've found that there aren't that many manuals that are, to be honest). If there has to be a electronic manual/help, make it an online help system that can be launched within the product (I love the FL Studio approach to online help within the program - I also like their flash tutorials but they don't seem to have been developing more in the last few years which is a bit of a shame).
Anyway, I think my rambling has lost focus. I'm a visual person who learns best with a "monkey see, monkey do" approach. Obviously, everyone is different. I would always consider paying for video tutorials but would do that on a case-by-case basis, taking into account what's in them and how much they would cost.
My unfocused, possibly quite pointless 2c.
-s
Every time kevvvv brings this up, I agree with him. I'll agree with him again. I don't think video tuts are essential, but they sure can make learning a new bit of software a hell of a lot easier. I'm not talking about "synths 101" but the ins and outs of each particular program. Most programs you spend a chunk of cash on are not your bog-standard 2 osc VA (I did say "most"
). Some synths might have an innovative mod matrix that is different from all their competitors, or they might have a unique flexible routing system or whatever. I personally feel that there would be benefit in having some quick vids outlining the best of what new things the product has to offer. Or maybe that is just me.Incidentally, I prefer not to have pdfs as I hate having to either flick windows or print it out and have an awkward A4 sized collection of paper floating around the place. I'm the kind of person who would happily pay for a dead tree manual if I think the manual is worth having (and I've found that there aren't that many manuals that are, to be honest). If there has to be a electronic manual/help, make it an online help system that can be launched within the product (I love the FL Studio approach to online help within the program - I also like their flash tutorials but they don't seem to have been developing more in the last few years which is a bit of a shame).
Anyway, I think my rambling has lost focus. I'm a visual person who learns best with a "monkey see, monkey do" approach. Obviously, everyone is different. I would always consider paying for video tutorials but would do that on a case-by-case basis, taking into account what's in them and how much they would cost.
My unfocused, possibly quite pointless 2c.
-s
A suffusion of yellow...
