“Can you make me a quick video?”

[Mistercharlie]

Inspired by @bibenu’s excellent thread, “It should be simple to code,” I’d like to moan about people asking others to make them a video to explain something.

The main thing is that a video is a major piece of work. Even if you manage to get it in one take, you still have to record it, work out how to explain something, hold the camera (probably a phone) steady, trim it, upload it… etc.

They might say, “Well, it doesn’t have to be good, just point your phone at it.” There’s no way I’m going to spew out some low-quality junk at your request. I think this says more about the asker than anything else.

I can understand a request like this in a YouTube channel, but not on a text-based forum.

This argument spills into a more general rant about what people expect for free. Software, videos, making presets, Max devices, they all take time. Why do you expect somebody to waste their time building something for you, an entitled stranger, for zero reward or even thanks?

And half the time these requests for videos aren’t even punctuated properly. [shaking fist emoji].

[Sternenlicht]

Well, it surly depends on who you ask, a youtuber spitting out content on a daily basis, using your prompt to generate interest or ideas for his videos, where he is making a living from, or a random dude on a forum requeating a free lesson for x,y. from someone who isnt a tuber.

For some people stuff is easy for others its a lot of work, i tried to investigate how to make my own music videos with unreal engine, but that is a crazy amount of work to put in, learning it, and god bless mastering it is a complete different subject.

If my dayjob was making cutscenes for a video game, i surly would have no issue translating that to my other interests, dosent mean i would do it for free, and i wouldnt mind paying elektron some bucks for further engines on digitone, syntakt.

[lopodyr]

I have a youtube channel where I just post jams sometimes. I often get asked for tutorials. I know how long they take, and the music is what I like. All the time I spend working on a video is time I don’t spend making music.
So I have learned to be brave and tell them that I won’t make tutorials.

Especially since, as you mention, I would want those tutorials to be good. I have a fulltime job, and I can’t throw two weeks of my spare time into making a tutorial I did not even intend to make.
I don’t necessarily read entitlement into it, but definitely a lack of understanding from people regarding the time it takes to make anything.

[cutlery]

I see this with students all the time.

Nearly every time, it is because they can’t or won’t read textbooks or manuals.

[FiveTenFiftyfold]

Genuine question (and not thought through tbh): it’s 2024, yet manuals are paper based using the same methods employed for hundreds of years. Should manuals these days be only written?

Why not use a combination, or whatever works best - for example, why not have electronic manuals with videos embedded to show certain things?

Obviously this would not apply to printed manuals, but it always strikes me that certain things are always left unquestioningly in old methods

[plragde]

“I’m a visual learner,” because somewhere along the line they learned that people would accept this as an excuse not to read. I point them to the scientific studies debunking the myth.

[plragde]

@FiveTenFiftyfold

why not have electronic manuals with videos embedded to show certain things?

I have actually done this, not in a music/manual context, but in a computer science / teaching context. In the following link, scroll down to “Click to show asciicast” to see the visuals: 4 Proof Assistants

But as to this point of yours:

@FiveTenFiftyfold

it’s 2024, yet manuals are paper based using the same methods employed for hundreds of years

I still lecture using a blackboard and chalk, technology that the students of Socrates some 2400 years ago would recognize. I don’t do this because I am a dinosaur (as I hope the example above illustrates) but because it works and I don’t have something better with which to replace it (I have tried, and I do use typeset slides on a computer, but sparingly).

Yes, we should do what works best. But just because someone is more used to watching videos than reading, does not mean that they learn more from videos. Even videos of old-fashioned lectures.

[alechko]

trust me, I’d wish to read everything, by my brain doesn’t work like this, every time I try to read a busy paragraph I can barely understand a sentence, I did see once a concept of highlighting words within a sentence for people like me and it was waaay easier for me to understand, but in the popular format where it’s just a text I get lost, it’s like a blurb to me.
a video though, I can catch half a phrase and my brain completes that sentence for me, it’s like magic… I can read an article or a page from a book 50 times and won’t be able to connect the dots…

found that snippet:

now this I can read and even understand, maybe not from the first time but definitely after couple iterations, but without these highlight my brain is like rejecting the text, don’t know how to explain it better…

---

I too never demanded video from anyone ever lol, first time hearing about such entitlement

[jamesstiff]

Why use text to ask that question and not a video? I suspect the answer to that explains why we are still reliant on tried and tested methods of communication.

Text based manuals are way more efficient and economical to create and distribute. I’d argue that most are digital rather than paper based these days. Video manuals are more costly to create and a nice to have rather than a necessity in most cases.

[dmtri]

Simply code the video

[bibenu]

@plragde

“I’m a visual learner,” … the scientific studies debunking the myth.

Errm, sorry I definitely remember stuff better when it’s made into a picture. I don’t know if that necessarily conflicts with your debunking, but my statement is unquestionably true for me.

I don’t however use it as an excuse to demand free tutorial videos.

[plragde]

@bibenu

Errm, sorry I definitely remember stuff better when it’s made into a picture.

Obviously some things are best illustrated. It’s easier to grasp the graph of a waveform than a written description of it. Beyond that, there are known memorization strategies which involve associating a picture with a word, phrase, or concept. It’s a bit of a leap from that to a claim that one’s primary form of knowledge acquisition is nontextual and nonverbal.

[bibenu]

@plragde

It’s a bit of a leap from that to a claim that one’s primary form of knowledge acquisition is nontextual and nonverbal.

So there’s no contradiction …fair enough.

[dmtri]

Telling “visual learners” to read a study is kinda hilarious ngl

[jamesstiff]

I must admit, I find retaining information difficult but not impossible when reading manuals. My neurodivergent brain has a tendency to glaze over. It helps if I’m hyperfixated on learning something or if the act of avoiding RTFM becomes an obstacle.

[FiveTenFiftyfold]

I am not talking about videos replacing text as a method of communication in some existential way. Merely talking about the context here - which is manauls for music equipment!

[FiveTenFiftyfold]

Interesting points, thank you!

Yes, I have also done the same in my line of work. Not teaching students in a classroom environment, more training for system usage.

I agree re the point about for example blackboards, and I do not advocate throwing out tried and tested methods of teaching. But the context I meant it in was that of manuals for music equipment.

And what is that context? I think when it comes to manuals, there are two things to separate - function, and usage.

Most manuals focus on function (in my experience) rather than usage. Of course, usage can end up being huge, and often the usage of something goes way beyond the designer’s intent or even the designer’s imagination. To use an admittedly very crass example, imagine a manual for a piano which describes function. It will tell you how the piano works, but no one has ever learnt the piano by reading a (hypothetical) manual.

That in turn is not to say that it is the repsonsibility of the designer in this case to teach people how to ‘play’ the instrument, but we do hit a bit of a grey area wherein we have devices which are much more technically complicated than say a piano, and do have certain capabilities in mind for usage.

My point is really around making manuals strike a bit more of a balance - the aim of a manual shouldn’t be to enforce learning by reading (that’s a whole other topic in my mind), but should be informative, and quick. No one really wants to ruin their flow by reading an abstract manual (and by definition a written manual is more abstract than a video), getting into a totally different headspace, before going back to their art.

Just my two pennies worth, my view is that potentially there can be a big improvement in this area.

[JES]

A couple things:

I get asked this a lot now by tech support when I have a problem with hardware. I hate it (#miserablegit). I describe clearly in prose how to reproduce the problem and then they ask for a video. The video shows what I just described. And I am not set up for or interested in video recording my setup but do the best I can. And it does take longer than the very precise email I just sent. It’s always companies with professional paid (or outsourced) tech support. I recently had an issue with ID700’s VST version and the developer wrote back quickly with a clear and concise answer that solved my problem.

As for manuals. I think I’ve said it before on this very BBS but I don’t want to sit through a 45 minute video with minimal timestamps to find out how a hidden function works (#miserablegit). I want a text-searchable document. There are some notable exceptions to this trend of course: thank you Torso, UDO and Roger Linn to name three companies that do manuals well but differently. But we have now reached a point with music tech where most new gear has multiple videos for those that want them and no decent written documentation. It doesn’t help that companies release beta versions of products so multiple software revisions are guaranteed.

I think it’s great that there are so many videos out there for people who want them. I just want written reference manuals.

One last thing: There is a difference between neurodiversity, which most education caters to terribly–and which should be better addressed–and overreliance on slide ware, a de-emphasis on reading, etc., which is a habit drilled into neurotypical students due to a number of other factors.

[jamesstiff]

@JES

I get asked this a lot now by tech support when I have a problem with hardware. I hate it (#miserablegit). I describe clearly in prose how to reproduce the problem and then they ask for a video. The video shows what I just described.

As a very occasional tech support agent at the software company I work at, I’m always grateful for clear and concise support tickets. Unfortunately, many appear to have extreme difficulty describing the issue or assume that they are interacting with AI or outsourced support and the experience is often akin to getting blood out of a stone.

[Landings]

This is the age of Pornhub. People dont want words anymore.