I’m with you on the Elektron manuals being excellent, but I know I’ve read some great intro manuals in the past and suspect you have as well. If I could rewind time, I would be up for buying improved manuals 20 years ago and suspect that many who are new to or curious about synths would too.
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“How to Keep Your Octatrack” would be a good working title.
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There is occasionally a need for a decent reference manual, but more often there is a need for tutorial material. I prefer reading to watching videos, but I think I am just old-fashioned now. I don’t get the sense that many people are capable of sustained engagement with long-form writing that isn’t genre fiction. Nonetheless, I have been writing things, but not trying to profit from it.
One thing I would stress if the word “premium” is to be used is that good spelling, grammar, sentence and paragraph structure, organization, and overall prose quality are important. Many third-party manuals and even some originals fail this test, sometimes miserably.
I’ve had to start writing my own manuals for almost all of my gear as most manufacturers manuals, while covering the same material, seem to document stuff in an illogical order based on my (very personal) way of learning.
I want some global concepts followed quickly by a logical ‘how do I start making music on this thing’ diving deeper into features later in the manual after I’ve grasped the basics.
The Synthdawg manuals are good and very well priced. I prefer to get mine printed so I can scribble notes on them as I go.
So…I’m a yes for paying for 3rd party manuals that match my learning approach.
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Am on the point of printing out the Basic Guide, Parameter Guide, Voice List and all the Expansion guides for a Korg Triton…
turns out it’s so many pages you have to get it printed as a bound book, so probably back to the PDFs tbh.
IME every time I have printed out the manual, I don’t actually end up looking at it very much after trying to read it all the way through once, so I think it’s maybe romanticism for me.
I think all MFB manuals are prime candidates for rewriting.
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Jemmons has all these covered in spades.
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I’m sure! I wasn’t referring to jemmons. It’s just that there are disappointing instances out there.
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