jeremykeys wrote:Unfortunately far too many manuals are just very poorly written. Often it seems to me that they are written for people who don't need them.
true, but in my opinion this doesn't apply to the korg manuals, actually i have a lot of synths and the korg manuals are the best manuals i have because they use a lot of examples and pictures of how to use things.
Let me give an example, in this thread someone was asking what the diffusion parameter in the overb reverb means. If he would have read the parameter guide then he would have found this explanation:
Diffusion1 [0…100]
Diffusion 1 and 2 soften the sound before it enters the
reverb core, shaping the timbre of the initial
reflections. Setting both diffusers to around 50
generally produces sufficient diffusion for smooth
reverbs; extremely high levels may cause ringing.
Some source material, such as vocals, may also benefit
from lower settings of diffusion, allowing for more
discrete echoes.
Diffusion1 and Diffusion2 differ in how the
reflections are spaced, and the balance between these
two parameters will vary the character of the reverb.
Diffusion2 [0…100]
This is the second diffuser for the initial reflections. For
more information, see “Diffusion1,” above.
Diffusion [0…100]
This sets the density of reflections within the main
reverb. Low settings will produce more discrete
echoes, and high settings will produce a smoother
reverb. Extremely high settings may cause ringing.
In the parameter guide you will also find pictures that explains visually what is mentioned here above. So after reading that section you will know that diffusion 1 with low values on vocals or other sounds will make them more recognisable in the reverb and high values will make them more diffused (unrecognisable) before it's feeded into the reverb itself, and that the diffusion overall parameter will smooth the sound in the reverb if you use high values or will sound more like an echo (more recognisable) with low values.
Now with that knowledge you can do lot of experiments, high values will give you a more wall of sound in the reverb (nice for ambient pads), low values will give you a more type of echo (nice for spacing of real instruments like piano, trumpet, vocals, etc).
The best part of this on the kronos is that you don't even have to read it on your computer, just go to the diffusion parameter and press the help button on the kronos, it will open the parameter guide on the kronos screen and at the bottom of that screen you will find a link which you can click and give you access to the effect manual section. Then just look that diffusion parameter and you know what it means. There isn't any synth that can do that at the moment.
I don't think that any video tutorial would cover every parameter from the kronos into this depth. Maybe if someone did a video tutorial just for the overb then you could explain it with the help of some audio examples. But than you have a video tutorial for just one effect. What about every other parameter on the kronos, you would need hundreds of video tutorials to cover the basics of each parameter.
I've also noticed that video tutorials that are too much indepth don't get that much viewers (or they leave the video within one minute), so my strong believe is that people want to learn the basics and find out the complex things theirself as soon as they need it.
It's also one of the main reasons why i don't talk in my videos, if i would explain it with words i would be way to tempted to go to much indepth and before you know it the video would take more than one hour and i would have covered all kind of things that aren't really important for the main process. That's why my videos are setup with a storyboard upfront. The way they work is that people that have a kronos (they aren't demos for other users) can see what i'm doing and how it sounds by watching it and just read the descriptions on top of the screen.
Don't read the step guides on the right, they are only needed if you want to do the steps yourself when you watch the video again and pause each step page to do it yourself. Because it's based on a storyboard every knob or parameter you press is explained so after that you have learned quite a lot that normally would be lost in a spoken tutorial that takes much longer. For people that don't like to read on the screen, if you go to my website and look for that video, for the most complex videos the step guides can be printed from my website.
A great feature of using the kronos is that you could learn the basic operation of the kronos with the help of the Operation manual or the numerous youtube videos that are online from various resources. And as soon as you want to know something specific you click on it on the kronos screen and press the help button on the kronos and find that specific parameter (or you read about it in the Parameter guide).
Then the fun really starts because then you know what the parameter does and what to expect of it and you can do all kind of experiments with it with your own work.