Into A Manual

I’m not a manual person.  I invested an hour into a manual just now and I need a break.  What I learned was modest and not particularly actionable.  I’m not even halfway through it.  I suppose there are some people who enjoy reading manuals.  It's a logical progression.  You know what you're supposed to get out of it.  I think going to make some time for novel instead, from here on in, this evening.

My younger one has a very cool audio mixing tool that her older brother gave her, the Traktor F1.  There is software, which we bought and downloaded and are now set to use.  This came with a manual document.  It’s about seventy pages long.  Today for the second time I tried to make my way through it and while I learned some things I kept hoping I would find a simple way to save and store a track.  I didn’t.  Instead I kept getting introduced to more and more cool features and the further I got in the more readily things were referred to as if I’d long since mastered the functionality, the terminology and the location of these knobs and features.  “Where are the cross faders?”  So you scroll back up and you scroll back to where you were and the overall effect is not especially productive.  This is not the first time I've considered my limitations as an audio technician.  

I remember an unfortunate assignment in one job of mine, from some twenty years back.  I had to write such a manual myself. for a new order processing system  If there is anything worse than having to read through a seventy page manual its writing one, anticipating every step logically, stripping the writing of any suggestion, nuance or metaphor.  My Traktor F1manual had exclamation points at key moments of great hope.  “Now you can cue a track!” This felt too familiar.  I didn't share the excitement.  Italics were added for emphasis at other points and it all distracted me from what I was supposed to be learning, for I ended up thinking about who the writer was. 

I looked and of course there are official and unofficial videos on Youtube that will take me through all of this as well.  Perhaps that will be a bit more welcoming adhesive to my memory.  And it strikes you, listening as I am just now, to some bop from the early sixties that mixing and production is what the music of language has evolved into.  I know how to make an A minor chord on the guitar.  I can solo over it.  But my mind isn’t drawn to digital mixing.  Another important language, I’m not inclined to learn.  Rather I feel compelled to learn so that I can teach and my younger one who is interested to understand how to use this tool.   Otherwise, like Russian, trigonometry, or plumbing, I could leave it for someone else to worry about.  

I'll try the online tutorial next.  The kid on the Youtube video looks awfully young.