Here are a few examples:
- Logic Platinum for Windows (about 900 $ in todays' worth).
- An expensive video tutorial (about 90-100 $) explaining how to use Logic.
- Cubase SX1 (about 300 $ in crossgrading price when Logic for Windows suddenly was discontinued). SX was supposed to be more easy and straight forward than earlier products from Steinberg.
- An expensive (and deadly boring) video tutorial (about 90-100 $) explaining how to use Cubase SX.
- The Cubase SX2 upgrade (about 200 $), that was supposed to take care of limitations and bugs from SX1.
- Dozens of magazines with tips on how to use Cubase (costing about 20 $ each where I live). (Thinking about it, to me it´s actually in itself saying a lot about the ease of use of a software when expensive magazines do have to make basic tutorials for it AND people are ready to pay hard earned cash for them.)
I´ve always done my homework and read the manuals (for example the 828 pages of the Cubase SX). But since the details in Cubase are so overwhelming and - for me who don´t have an engineer background - so totally unintuitive to use, I tend to forget the details between the times I use them and have to look them up in the manual.
Every time I´ve struggled and lost time with this I´ve got angry over how I waste my life with manuals instead of making music. After a lot of bad feelings I actually lost hope of it all. I figured that I´ve got a full time job and a life outside music to take care of too (!) and I don´t have time for all of this crap.
But during the couple of weeks I´ve tried and tested the Tracktion 1 demo, I´ve got more sequencing done now than in the last 2 years together with other software. With Tracktion I don´t need a manual. And if I don´t immediately see what a specific button does, there´s always an explanation text up in the right corner of the Tracktion GUI.
As a T1 demo user, I will gladly pay the 199 $ for Tracktion 2. It´s certainly worth the money considering how much time I save. With Tracktion I can concentrate on making music.
Looking back, I can´t help asking myself how much I´d been ready to pay for Tracktion 2 back in 1999, had it been available, knowing what I know today…
).