Quality of the new manuals

I heard (read) good things about the core manual from Herw, and dB just approved that in another thread. But what dB said about the main manual actually causes my concern, as I (and many others) always found it, er, not so good. We had a thread some months ago where NI asked us what we would like to be included in the *new* manual, as they were planning a complete rewrite, and there has been a large number of contributions to that. Now from what dB just said I get it that the new manual (and NI didn't talk about the core manual, as they couldn't rewrite what had never been written) is sort of even worse - what else could one consider "almost the same as" the old R4 manual with LESS tutorials?? I'd really appreciate some indepth info about what's in the *main* manual and the quality of it. And pretty please someone from NI comment on this. Thanks, people.

 

i can respond to this, since i (re)wrote the operating manual for r5.

when ni hired me, it was with the goal of taking a mediocre (at best) r4 manual and resynthesizing it into an excellent r5 manual. plans included tutorials, programming tips, walk throughs, etc.

alas, reality ensued (heinous time crunch), and the goal devolved to: insert all the new material into the old material, clean things up a bit, and call it a day.

as far as i know, ni still intends on having me (or someone else) create tutorials ... but i don't know when.

rick

 

Ooof. Thanks for the info, Rick!

 

Tutorials must dare the step to the absolute beginner. No step may be regarded as not attention-needily and may it still such a banality. A Tutorial must start - already mentioned as in other threads - with the absolute zero point including such „easy” things like: why do i use an add-module and not a mixer ...?, why do i have to know something about mathematics when i want to create a synth and want to make music?, how is it possible to get an own idea of creating an ensemble? ...
ciao herw

 

tutorials and classrooms

As you can mention in various threads there are many reaktor users who want to get a little bit into the reaktor creators group. The problem is that reaktor users are not organized in groups who can see themselve face ba face. It would be easier to spent reaktor-creating-time with friends at the same level. That is not to be carried out.
But perhaps there is a possibilty: have a look into a users profil (see attachment). What about to open some public groups (don't know that NI has planned with it) - better to say some open (very small) classrooms? A classroom without a teacher? yes - but with special questions - and only open for a while - BUT with small result log and an ensemble(s) to show it. Perhaps it is a starting point to get tutorials.

ciao herw

 

hmmm.... i haven't even reloaded reaktor 4 on my machine since i upgraded to osx 10.3 due solely to the fact that the manual is absolute crap and it was not enjoyable to learn. i'm going to download the max/msp demo again, and put some time into it now. i remember spending one day with their tutorials when the osx beta's were out, and actually felt like i learned something - each step of the way. EXCELLENT tutorials and manual.

i have to say, the reaktor manual is COMPLETELY WORTHLESS, especially in comparison. and, the fact that they haven't updated it means i'm 90% of the way to selling reaktor. i can basically do anything with decent documentation. i even started teaching myself pascal and was extremely proficient in macromedia director way back (produced an interactive cdrom, etc), so i'm not an idiot. but, if the only real way to learn is to reverse engineer every ensemble that looks interesting, that's just lame. i make music for fun, not to give myself a brain hemorrhage.

this core manual may be nice, but what about the rest of the program? come on... obviously NI's past reluctance to actually post their manuals was probably for the fact that they're so embarrassing, and would only confuse potential buyers. it's smarter to let users down after you have their money i guess. i'm not even going to think about upgrading until the new manuals are available for download and review. which means i'm sure i never will...

 

Heh..uh..is it just me or..

[sorry, Hewr.]

 

Ya all done there, buddy? If Max is such an easy lay for you, what are you doing on this forum *****ing about Reaktor's manual for?

Rick explained that it was time constraints that effected the manual overhaul. Once that was said, what constructive comments have you brought to the table?

Jeezus H..

Great!

Later,
D

 

I was attending Reaktor workshop in Berlin last year, lead by NI. One of the teacher was Mr. Schmidt himself. He is a great mind, no question. Full respect for him and what he did. BUT: his mind is too big for me. I'm just too stupid to understand all DSP technicalities. My point here is: even if NI would like to spend enought time on tutorial, I doubt it would be good one. Good for us, users. This leads me to another point: nobody will make it better than... us. We can help ourselves. First step is done: Reaktor wikibook. We can add knowledge there, sentence by sentence. Little things. Things which are obvious for you, but may not be obvious for me. Forus is a basis for the Wikibook: many questions are asked and many answered. These are already little articles, which (thanks to wiki) can be developed over time. Next person, who will use it will add this 2 cents. Think about this: Reaktor wikibook can ONLY GROW

It's here: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Reaktor

I wasn't doing much with it for last few months, because my professional life was killing me, but now I will defenetly spend some time with R5 and I will add what I have learned myself to the Wikibook.

Stop complaining or waiting for a miracle, do it yourself!

 

Wazzup? Waking from a two weeks sleep and bursting of energy?? This post: Absolutely superflous, smarty. You learn German. Then we'll talk. Laugh. Whatever. |P

 

Although I do value your time and effort you put in the Wiki (and I'm not intending to discourage you), who's going to edit those articles? Basically, we have two groups here - those who are new to Reaktor, and those who are close friends with it (I know, that doesn't sum up ptoperly, but...). Telling those who complain to write into the Wiki is a catch 22. Those who don't complain obviously have other things to do or just cannot find whatever reason to contribute. There have been a lot of attempts among the "community" to start tutorials, all of which misteriously faded. Biggest drawback probably was the huge amount of time it takes to do it right. Although your Wiki doesn't expect tutorials, still: who's going to edit them articles? Just to make sure what's written in them is correct? I'm not waiting for a miracle. I'm waiting for NI to live up to the fact that a comprehensive manual is long overdue and would profit both sides.

 

The manual has not to be written by Mr. Schmidt himself. They did a good job with the core tutorial; this proves that they're able to do it. (Because of the ample comparisions to the primary level I even learned something about that from reading the core manual!) And if they not only hire guys like Rachmiel but give them time to do their job also I'm shure the resulting manual would be excellent. Perhaps, if they really understand that a good manual would be a strong selling point, we'll get an "update" ...

That said I think it could be a good moment for the Wiki now: Since many people are "learning" the new release at the moment they could share their insights when they get them. It' not that there are only people who know everything (because they were beta testers, for example) and others who aren't interested in the inner working of Reaktor on the other!

 

Just look at it from different perspective: every Reaktor user is learning every time he experiences a problem and solves it. Himself, or with help of Forum users. I learn every day, I'm sure you too. Just ask yourself "what do I have learned about Reaktor today" and you have something to add to Wiki Book. Even few sentences, something small. I will organize it, structure these little things, combine them in a larger article about certain topic.

Do you know the story about stone soup? Same thing!

 

Why don't you add what you learned to Wiki Book?
Few sentences about primary level?

 

... I just created an account for the Wiki Book, but I have to admit that I'm a little bit lost in its actual structure. Since I'm just starting to have a look into Reaktor structures my "insights" are very basic - I'm not shure where to put them ... (Perhaps I'll start a new chapter: "Reaktor basics" ...)

 

i have to say, NI's attitude to improving (and then not improving the manual) for the R5 release, completely sucks.

sowari

 

the Reaktor community, have been saying that a good manual is a selling point for a long time...but NI continue to ignore us. it seems that NI had to release R5 by June. the release date was more important that a decent overall manual.

i agree that the core tech manual is quite good. but the tutorial examples for 'basic' reaktor programming were actually made with Reaktor 2!!

sowari

 

i do not even expect tutorials in the manual, but what i expect is, that the information in the manual is correct, using correct sentences, with a basic index at the end. this was not the case in the R4 manual. reading "FM7" instead of "Reaktor" is not very funny, and i have not found the 'hidden button' in the module preferences of the clock oscillator for "The value of the On-events", as stated in the manual.
reaktor is a commercial product, made by a commercial company. the wikibook is great, no doubt, but i am not that motivated to contribute. i have no problem at all to help other users where i can, but i will not write parts of a manual for a commercial company for free.

 

Where is this mistake? Can you give me the page number? Thanks...

 

1) Sowari, what is a good manual?
2) What should be there?
3) How it should be written (language is an issue, I'm reading the R5 manual and some words are there just to make the language look "educated", but I don't understand them without a dictionary!)?

My point here is that we can't really tell what we need. There were examples of Max/MSP manual, a good one in fact, but not much more than this. OK, tutorilas... about what? Let's say I want to make one... what should it be? Who can tell? We are not specific enough about what we want.

Let's make a list here: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Reaktor:Tutorials#Most_desired_tutorials
I really mean it. Maybe I'm capable to make a small tutorial about something I understand, but I really don't know what people want...