I suspect the environmental impact of 100 paper pages is dwarfed by the environmental impact of designing, manufacturing (which will include the mining of rare elements as well as the petrochemical plastics), marketing, distributing, selling and the lifetime powering of an Elektron device not to mentionthe disposal +/- recycling 
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…the use of paper is really the last thing we have to worry about…
i also use printed out manuals…and read books…u can’t beat the haptic thing…
but in case of manuals, i go to a copyshop with the pdf on a stick…
got a big black hard cover folder here, simply named…manuals…
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Sure, and I bet there’s plenty of more qualified people that can extrapolate all those numbers besides us music nerds.
You’re comparing to energy consumption (which is also transitioning to less finite, sustainable tech).
The price of wood products has skyrocketed over the last couple of years. The Amazon is disappearing faster than the environment can adjust.
I’ve already said, it’s probably no big deal, but maybe someone should mention something if not just for the appearance of giving a shit.
I’m not so sure it’s the LAST thing:
- Pulp and paper is the third-largest air, water, and land polluter among all industries in both Canada and the US. The pulp and paper industry releases over 100 million kilograms of toxic pollution every year.
Sounds more like the 3rd thing to worry about.
That’s out of a lot of things.
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Yeah - totally agree that there are serious environmental issues! It’s just that we need to keep things in perspective in my opinion - if one cares about the environment then probably we should be giving up non-essential consumer commodities like synths… which will have a greater impact than a few sheets of paper - most paper is recycled now.
I’m not aware of any paper that originates from Amazonian hard woods… please correct me if that’s where your printer paper is coming from… (the only Amazonian paper I know of is found at www.amazon.co.uk )
This argument taken to the extreme is “if you don’t go all the way and live in a cave and wear leaves, then you should not bother to make any changes at all”.
Somebody who chooses to print the manual isn’t solely responsible for destroying the planet obviously. But choosing not to print a manual (or ten) is a valid choice and not just a pointless gesture.
“You should stop buying synths if you care” doesn’t seem helpful.
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That said, printing manuals out is at least useful, and you’ll keep them and use them for a long time. What makes no sense to me is email signatures that say “please consider the environment before you print this”. Who the #### prints out emails to read them? I don’t even want to read most of my email, let alone print it
I’m too busy reading synth manuals, stop emailing me
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There are a few studies that support your experience with this.
Most report that information comprehension is increased from printed material vs the on-screen equivalent.
Interesting isn’t it?
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Talk about throwing the baby out with the bathwater…
If you want to make music with a hardware synthesizer, you need a hardware synthesizer. If you want to read the manual for said synthesizer, you have options that don’t include using paper.
There are many ways to consider the environmental impact of everyday actions, essential and non-essential. To jump right to “if you REALLY care, then don’t do anything that impacts the environment” is quite a bit more than just missing the point and a completely unreasonable position.
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Its not wasteful to use a resource over and over again. Which is what I tend to do, with books, manuals and such.
It is wasteful to use paper to print something that (is also stored digitally) will get read maybe once, probably never, and then archived for 30 years then burned…
Thinking about the triplicate paper copies of everything in client files at my last job. Horrifying.
They have (for now) grandfathered in existing users, but it pretty much a given that any future features are likely to get restricted to subscriptions only to force those early adopters into the fees too.
They were also super sneaky by artificially inflating accessory prices and then promoting a ‘discount’ to those who subscribe, which simply took them back to the original prices from the day before!
They literally dropped this on people overnight with no warning and even those who’d just purchased were only given four days to register to get the free connect sub - even thought they weren’t even notified of it at the time - just expected to be mind readers.
The whole thing is an absolute debacle and they’ve likely killed they business overnight as a result.
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Absolutely agree.
Also, “think twice about printing hundreds of pages of paper if there’s another option” is responsible and not a totally unreasonable position.
That’s all I’m saying.
Talk about throwing the baby out with the bathwater…
If you want to read a paper manual, you need a paper manual. If you want to make synthesised music, you have options that don’t include hardware synths.
Shall we just agree to disagree, rather than argue reducto ad absurdem ?
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This.
Everything is fucked. Choosing pdf elektron manuals, or paper ones, is a blip lost in an infinte universe of fuckery.
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Except you were trying to paraphrase my words without using any of the qualifiers I used in my comment, yeah sure, agree to disagree. Fvck anything I brought up about the environment, it’s not even worth considering, print away. Woot!
Just to be clear - I dont print out manuals, I personally use pdfs (but I dont have any issue with printing a manual).
I was just pointing out that if others choose to point out a manual then, compared to other people’s choices to use a hardware synth vs eg a vst, then printing out a manual is probably a trivial impact.
I was paraphrasing you to highlight the choices anyone can make. Everyone can make their own choices as we are all adults… I’m personally glad you are saving the planet by abstaining from paper-based products and I totally respect your principled position. (I often use a bidet or mandy with non-mains water - given your stance, I’m sure you do too and hence refrain from using any toilet paper in order to protect the Amazon). Peace, love, etc…
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I’m sure my posts probably sound more impassioned than I actually am on the subject. I ain’t here to tell anyone how to live, sorry if it came across that way.
Like I said, I’m not some completely innocent, tree-hugging hippie that’s above everything.
Seemed worth mentioning.
Again, sorry for de-railing the thread. Moving on.
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Trees are a renewable resource if managed responsibly.
I love printed manuals for extensively in depth pieces of equipment. I have to read the same thing multiple times before it really sets in.
Also being able to leave it on a page and remember where your thought process was before an interruption is super beneficial.
I have a bunch of laminated cheat sheets and cc lists on a key ring I hang near my desk too.
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I usually print out the manual then read it in one go.
Although the OT manual took more than one.
After that, I look up specifics in the PDF on my phone.
I do have a stack of MIDI implementation sheets with highlighted stuff on my desk.
Bedtime reading!
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