READ THE MANUAL ?

[Eat-Static]

Hello Forum,

I've noticed many forum members getting annoyed with the reply "Read the Manual" to their questions.
Is this Fair ?
Surely the manual contains all the information and instruction to operation the equipment properly and to its full potential .
But what if they don't understand the instructions in the manual , then what ?
Is it that they've brought something which you have not researched or studied properly , and they're looking for a short-cut to learning to play it ?

Whats your view ?

Eat Static - Says " Try it , Refer to manual and try again "

[X-Trade]

I think telling someone to go read the manual in itself can be taken to be slightly offensive.

However, often people haven't even tried to read the manual. And it is a legitimate source of information. You don't even have to understand all of it, just take it in and some of it will stick even if you don't know what it means at the time.


If they still have a problem then asking about something specific they didn't understand is a good idea, rather than just asking for someone to spoonfeed the information to them.
Nothing comes without effort.


Bottom line is, always read the manual first. Its there for a reason and asking people on the forum 'because you couldn't be bothered to check the manual' is just lazy and actually takes more time, once you wait for someone to write a reply, etc.

[Thoraldus]

I try to make it my personal goal that I read the manual cover to cover at least 3 times before I even turn on a new piece of gear. At a minimum you will have a good idea of where to look when you need help with a procedure.

While waiting for a shipment to arrive I go to the manufacturers web site and download the electronic version of the manual (usually a PDF file these days). Then after the equipment arrives I have a handy file I can do searches on.

[Pastor-of-Muppets]

this is about software, but a lot of it applies here too:
How To Ask Smart Questions

Here's the bit on RTFM

Of course noone will read this thread except the people who don't need to :-\

[Pastor-of-Muppets]

But what if they don't understand the instructions in the manual , then what ?

then you should say "I tried to create a pattern, but it won't let me save the results" or "I followed the instructions in the manual but at step N it didn't do ABC, instead it did XYZ"

don't say "how do I create a pattern? I did what it said in the manual" or "how do I do ABC? the instructions don't work" because the chances are the instructions are right and you misunderstood, but noone can help unless they know what you already tried.

"it doesn't work" usually means "I did it wrong"

[cello]

One factor overlooked so far, is that the manual can be a) wrong (might be because of translation and/or b) that the manual doesn't cover what the user is trying to do.

You don't get the user manual for Adobe Photoshop covering every single aspect of every single function that you could do to ONE particular photograph. Of course not - you play around with things to get the result you're looking for! But sometimes, you just can't nail it.

I view the manual as a functional description - eg to adjust the LFO do this or that. And if you're on this screen you can also do the other.

A Korg manual has never said "when you have a development based on the exposition in your piece, use the LFO to discriminate between the sounds - Korg also recommends that you use a contrapuntal element with a Radias to use the base line as the root of that development".

So herein lies the difference - yes, there are some answers you can get from the manual - and there's no harm pointing people to it if that's the answer (remember we have a lot of youngsters here that don't have high patience thresholds!). But other answers can't come from the manual - because they're not related to the parameters; it's because they're being creative and don't know how to do it.

Ultimately people come to this forum for advice - and more importantly (I think), a fast-track based on experience. There are many here who have freely given me their advice when I wanted to achieve 'whatever'. And I am so grateful - what is painfully obvious to them has been nightmarishly impossible for me!