For reals? Is it just me or has the majority of electronic musicians given up on reading the manuals that come with the gear they use?
It was bad fifteen years ago, insightful forums being flooded by questions that could’ve been solved by referencing a manual. Today you can ask google and you won’t even have to grab your physical manual, it’s all out there… yet there are people here asking how to plock velocity on an Elektron sequencer?
Why?
I don’t think I could handle learning from the net and never reading the whole manual to truly reveal the depth and every feature of the machine. I’ve RTFMs time and time again. On IPad as an IBook works great for searching easily. I’ve even downloaded and read the MD and MM manual just to get further insight to the OT and Rytm. That being said I have no problem answering questions for folks unless it keeps reoccurring and seems their showing no effort of their own…
gearmakers no longer adding full printed reference manuals don’t help either 
i’m reading the f****** manual BEFORE i buy anything. I don’t know other way ! 
User manuals are like ‘bongo mags’ or ‘rhythm literature’.
Porn in print.
yeah, best way to curb your inner GAS outbreak - RTFM and realize “oohhhh, so it DOESN’T do this and that. what a shame”. i hate my guts each and every time I omit this part of the gear buying ritual. well except for the op-1. and the circuit. and the octatrack. and the biscuit.
People are lazy.
I think there is a reason, why I know many of the knobs in my studio in person and what I have to switch, press, turn, or push … because I tend to spend some time with new gear and the manual is nearby ready to go.
TBH I don’t read every manual from page one to the end (exception was the manual of the OT, there was so much new conceptual stuff), but I try to memorize, what sections and subsections are in the manual, and I read the one or other section, if I have the impression, there might be some specific stuff to be learned. On my tab I have a useful compilation of PDF manuals and if I get stucked … well, it just saves time and there is less frustration 
Yeah, that must be hard for you!
I like to know what I am using, whatever, whenever. The last manual I read was for an oven, couldn’t figure out how to set it to convention!
i don’t like manuals… if you need one – the usability is bad developed
It’s nice to be friendly and help someone out. If someone asks a simple question its just as easy and more polite to give them a simple answer than to tell them RTFM… It just crosses a line if it seems you are doing more than they are to get them going…
It’s always best to try not to judge people to, they may honestly be having a really hard time deciphering the manual and need some help before it clicks…
I don’t mind answering questions, it feels like I’m helping and doing a good thing. It’s always fine just to not respond at all and someone else might come around and have no problem helping…
If it goes to far I start letting them know about the FM and that they should probably R it some more…
I love the Machinedrum manual and always shall. Similarly so for the Monomachine manual, although i don’t have one currently.
The Machinedrum manual is always open in the living room, ready to peruse some interesting physical modelling element parameter of one of the synthetic drum machines.
I keep manuals on my phone so when I’m slowly dying in my dead end job I can read about something nice and get all fizzed up about what I’m going to do at home when I escape…
It’s good fun to try and build something in the G2 that’s in a piece of gear I don’t own or want!
absolutely brilliant. hahahah… iphone/ipad/i-everything… on the tube, in a cab, on the toilet…
Even though I feel like I know the machines pretty well every once in awhile I just start reading the manual again and I always find some new little tidbit that I didn’t know…
Definitely!
Sometimes you can own a unit for years, your set up changes and you have functions that once did not interest you or that you didn’t need. It’s easy to forget something, and a new unit can bring another from the brink of sale!
Yeah, I read manuals on my phone when I’m in a waiting room or wherever. Far more interesting than social media. They also help me get to sleep at night sometimes…
It is true that 95% of questions people ask about gear, especially Elektron, are answered in the manual. No idea how you can be too busy to bother reading it. NI Maschine manuals and Elektron manuals are the best in the business too.
Now Roland… that’s another story.
Roland manuals are only useful to find the major caveat on the device that isn’t public knowledge…
Dirty boys.
Just picked up a MachineDrum this week. I’ve had the manual open and next to me and it has been quite helpful. However, I’ll opt to watch a good hands on demo (or ten) before getting into the manual. Mostly to pick up on useful lingo and workflow queues. A user like Cuckoo can make a complex machine approachable, highlight the performance-of and relationships between functions… in 45min instead of bits and pieces over 80+ pages. Why anyone would opt to go straight to posting a thread over a quick Google search/video is beyond me.