Just to let you know I am feeling your pain as a new owner of a4. I will persist because it is such a cool instrument, but the start up is frustrating. Owning the Tempest makes me realize what a genius Roger Linn is.
I have to empathize as well. I was up and running with the octatrack within an hour, feeling confident and understand a large part of what I could expect to do and how to achieve it. A lot of this was due the ‘example’ sections.
With the A4, I was very underwhelmed with the machine both due to the ‘default sound’ used as a starting position, and with the relatively sparse manual.
I had to spend many MANY hours (2 weeks fulltime, 80-90hours) before I fully grasped the machine in a way that I felt an experienced user or designer could have explained to me in a proper manual. I know they have this capability re: octatrack manual.
I’m not a beginner either, but with the Analog 4 being such a unique machine, a more descriptive and example-based manual would go a long way towards understanding the capabilities and approaches that make best use of it.
I would have liked if a nice manual came with the A4 like the one that came with the OT.
to me when you buy hardware you can at least expect a nice paper manual with it. PDF is great for quick searching something, but at times I just need to rest the eyes and look at paper. Maybe thats why they increase the price, to include a manual 
Not that the PDF was well written, to date as strange as this sounds I compare user manuals to the Microkorg XL. Now that’s a manual for the small price of that Synth.
What’s driving me INSANE right now is trying to just build a pattern from scratch, or even just build sounds from scratch. The manual only assumes something has already been created and then tells you how to play it, instead of logically laying out, “To Create a Pattern, First Do X, then Y, then Z”.
Really, it’s done backwards, as though everything is already done and you’re just manipulating it. It’s incredibly frustrating and it makes me wonder if the person who wrote the manual is dyslexic. It’s all backwards, there’s almost no discussion in the manual about creation it’s all process.
Just an inexcusably abysmal manual which makes learning how to use this deep, complex piece of gear way more difficult than it needs to be. Every time I sit down with it, I want to tear what little hair I have left out of my head.
Hey Trickness et al, i would be interested to know if my Quick Ref manual helped. I never really know if these help other people or not and if its worth updating and uploading for others? Any feedback (good or bad) welcome.
Neil
My manual is at the bottom of my draw, as soon as I found out about a clean reset, ( turn off , hold function, turn on Press 2) I sat and pressed, played, reset, gave my self headaches turned al l the knobs and figured/ continue to figure it out after 6 odd months, falling deep into it void many times loosing many hours hurtling through space into the wee hours of the morning. 
Neil if yours is the Blueskyrepublic quick ref then yes, t’s actually been a big help especially as I have both it and the Elektron manual open at the same time, and your tips illuminate the Elektron way of explaining things. So thanks!!! If I have the right quick ref 
I do think it would be helpful to have sections with step by step practical scenarios like “how to create a new sound” and then go through the basics of doing it - I don’t mean synthesis, I mean explaining that you for instance load a blank kit slot, then create sounds, save them to tracks, etc. Coming from gear like my Moog Voyager OS, or the Ableton Push, both of which are really easy to jump right into, the A4 seems like they engineered it to do the most simple things via the least intuitive methods possible - I don’t think the words "create or “how to” are even in the A4 manual!
Hey Neil, your guide has put me on the right track… Cant thank you enough for your efforts. This thing is so cool! Dave
I’ve often bleated about how rubbish the Elektron manuals are. Personally I’ve had less of an issue with the A4 than with the Octatrack, which is a much more complex machine.
Someone asked, is the writer dyslexic. No they’re not - they’re an engineer. Which for the end-user is far worse! The OT manual is also a catalogue of technical features, and ignores the process of music making. It presupposes a familiarity with Elektron’s other products and concepts.
The Americans write the best product manuals IMO.
@iceritchie
YES! I for one would PAY for an intuitive manual update! When this next A4 OS update is released and if Elektron has not written a new manual and say, only posted a cryptic addendum to the craptastic one, after the update, your style would be VERY welcome for an updated manual that ALSO includes all the scattered about “work arounds” or functions that simply are nowhere to be found in user manual.
Again, not about basic synthesis…I have all kinds of synths and gear and pending an update I placed my A4 in it’s box until then because to be quite honest, with new features implemented and new combination of controls to have to learn, et al…I did not wish to go through this painful process a whole second time.
Notice I have not thought about selling the A4 because for MY needs and MANY new potential owners, FULL MIDI OUT is necessary to be utilitarian in my set-up.
The DSI Evolver User Manual was written BY and like FOR engineer-minded rather than musicians. Someone early on took it upon himself to write “The Definite Guide To The Evolver”, which is truly a labor of love and opened the door/turned on the lights for many people.
In same vein, and to answer your question, PLEASE, after this update publish another great User Manual…or something beyond a “Getting Started thing”.!!!
Kudos for your effort and it’s much appreciated.
Hi Neil
First post here - Just created an account to express thanks for the quick ref guide. Had an A4 about a week and I downloaded the guide yesterday. It cleared up pretty much all the grey areas!
I highly recommend any new users downloading both this and the official manual and going through both methodically. It certainly help me as a newcomer to the elektrons.
Found something really funny about the A4 manual…
Let’s say that sometimes it misses some important informations, something reeeally important and then it writes this:
Specifing:
Frequencies above the cutoff get damped, while frequenciesbelow pass through the filter.
R E A L L Y? ahahhahahah
Actually i dont want to act as an asshole (i dont dislike Elektron’s manuals)
But A4 manual looks like missing something important about inter-operativity of controls.
Then adding some dumb-proof info…ehehehehe, this makes me smile!
I think they should spend more words also on the LFO depth…is a completely new algorithm since you can grain modulate parameters…finally!! But they should write that even if you read 0 on the depth but it is not between brackets…then the Depth is not actually at absolute 0 !!!
HI sicijk could you expand on grain modulation a little? I think I’ve had exactly this problem with LFOs modulating parameters even though the depth is set to zero.
The filter frequencies / oscillator pitches and destination depths are all 14bit (addressable by an nrpn pair of 7bit values) - the screen only shows the most significant byte - you can ‘snap’ to zero by holding fn - so it’ll read (0) on screen - if u use fn whilst turning encoder it’ll step thru without touching least significant fine control - the knob graphics give indication that you’re tweaking fine as the number does not update whilst the knob appears to spin - it’s a good compromise between control and UI but I’ve put in a feature request to have more info available in UI
aaah that makes a lot of sense, thanks
I would like to add my voice to the chorus of users dissapointed in the manual for the A4.
When it sounds good it is really great, but I keep stumbling onto things I can’t find an explanation for in the manual. I suppose it will show up but?
It really would have been better if they had started with how to make patterns, then went on to the various sound sculpting tools.
Instead it is like reading a Chilton manual from start to finish.
Everyone agrees that it is a steep learning curve with these machines but I believe the difficulties are a consequence of the possibilities that these machines give you. I found the User Manual`s quite good … as a reference. For a task oriented manual this only makes sense for basic tasks, something I did in the “How to…” sections of MY NOTES.
The help with workflows and music production that many desire is difficult to realise because this depends on the individual circumstances and needs. But this is also where other Elektronauts and teachers can come in. As a user of Ableton, I eventually did a course with a certified trainer (Keith Mills from Quantize Courses). That made a big difference because it was professionally executed training with a clear concept. This could also be done for Elektron machines but it would be a lot more difficult.
I am one of those “sad” creatures here who enjoy the process of making music as much as the music itself. I have this weired attraction for knobs, buttons, faders and enjoy figuring out how thinks work, or can be made to work. This is why I like the Elektron machines, because they are so open to how they are used, giving space for experimentation and adaptation to one personal needs.
Regarding the A4, I am myself a noob but my strategy, after having experimented extensively, would be to take a course, say the syntorial, or a book on synthesis and learn this with the A4.
The manual and my notes give me the basic handling. The music production and sound design aspects, I do not expect from the User manual. Having said this, a more effective forum would be helpful. There are various technical limitations that limit this forum and its members from being more helpful.
I have benefited from the advice I got here, and as a result I am happy to share my knowledge. I don’t think I have ever been involved in a forum or online discussions of this kind but so far, so good 
I have to say the A4 is the first Elektron product I started using fully right away without touching the manual. It’s the most intuitive IMHO. I haven’t owned the AR yet though.
I think the PDf manual is pretty good. but these are rather deep synths > many parameters > so I can emagine it’s a difficult instrument if one has no or little knowledge of sound-synthesis.
How steep the lurning)-curve is dépends more on your previous knowledge. I allmost didn’t need the manual.
I think it can be useful to rewrit the manual by yourself - step -by step in your own words and try to make drawings of what happens.
as not all parameters heve their own buttons.Visual representation wil make things alot clearer.
Lurn step - by step. Not all at once.
There’s a few major building-blocks.
Start writing these down - make drawings.
Like - Oscillators ( first block ) = you could devide again into
- Osc Waves + Subs
- Pulsewithmodulation
- Sync
- Pich - Osc 2 pichmodolation
- Filters ( second block ) = - Filter types
- Filter modulation
- Amplification ( third block ) = - Amp. Envelopes
- Modulation ( fouth block ) = - LFO’s
- Envelope’s
- FX = - Chorus
- Delay
- Reverb
- Seqencing = - step sequencing
- Program locks
- Trigless locks
- FX - tracks
- Patterns - chains
- song mode
All block-devisions canbe subdevided again.
Make a sheet for every sound u analyse or program using these blocks, and after a while you won’t need to write things down again, it’s incorporatetd.
Personnaly I only had to make drawings and writings for the OS = button functions